2009 National Book Festival Podcast Library of Congress

Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the widely acclaimed nonfiction books “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter” (1996) and “When the Heart Waits” (1990). Her first published novel, the best-seller “The Secret Life of Bees” (2002), has sold more than 5 million copies, spent more than two years on the New York Times best-seller list and was made into a motion picture. She has recently collaborated with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor, on “Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story” (2009). Ann Kidd Taylor has co-written with her mother “a spiritual memoir” about a series of pilgrimages the two made together through Greece, France, Turkey and Switzerland beginning the summer that Ann graduated from college in 1998 and her mother turned 50.

Judy Blume has sold more than 80 million copies of such young-adult best-sellers as Blubber: Just as Long as We’re Together and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret as well as the adult titles Summer Sisters, Smart Women and Wifey. Her books have been translated into 31 languages, and she has won numerous awards for her writing, such as the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Library Association and the Living Legends award from the Library of Congress. Blume is the founder and trustee of The Kids Fund, a charitable and educational foundation. Her newest book is Friend or Fiend? With the Pain & the Great One (2009). She lives on islands along the East Coast.

Although Julia Alvarez was born in New York City, her family moved to the Dominican Republic shortly after her birth, where she spent the majority of her childhood. In 1960, when Alvarez was 10, her family returned to the United States, fleeing the Dominican Republic because of her father’s involvement in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alvarez calls herself an American, yet her writing bridges the realms of Latina and American culture. Alvarez’s latest books include Return to Sender (2009) and Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA (2007).

After he read the books of Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly decided to become a writer. After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., specializing in the crime beat. He eventually landed a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, bringing him to the city that his literary hero, Chandler, had written of. After three years on the crime beat, Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles, was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly has followed up with many more Bosch books and other novels. The Overlook, Connelly’s 18th novel, was originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine. His 20th novel, The Scarecrow, was released in May 2009. He lives in Florida.

Walter Mosley is the author of the critically acclaimed Easy Rawlins mystery series (Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty and A Little Yellow Dog). Mosley’s other books include the novels Blue Light and RL’s Dream (1995), which won the 1996 Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Literary Award. He has also written two collections of stories featuring Socrates Fortlow: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned and Walkin’ the Dog. Mosley’s latest book is The Long Fall: The First Leonid McGill Mystery (2009). McGill is a New York City private investigator. Mosley lives in New York.

Jodi Picoult studied creative writing in college and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. Realism -- and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent -- led Picoult to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, as a copywriter at an ad agency, as an editor at a textbook publisher, and as an eighth-grade English teacher before pursuing a master’s in education. She wrote her first novel, “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” in 1992, while she was pregnant with her first child. She is now the author of 15 best-sellers, including her latest, “Handle with Care” (2009).