Meet the 2024 Authors!

Frank Bruni - Age of Grievance

Frank Bruni has been a prominent journalist for more than three decades, including more than twenty-five years at The New York Times, in roles as diverse as op-ed columnist, White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief, and chief restaurant critic. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. In July 2021, he became a full professor at Duke University teaching in the School of Public Policy. He currently writes his popular weekly newsletter for the Times and produces additional essays as one of the newspaper’s Contributing Opinion Writers. 

Percival Everett - James

Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna (who was in the MV Book Festival in 2017), and their children.

Joan Nathan - My Life in Recipes

Joan Nathan is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Tablet Magazine, and other publications. She is the author of twelve books, including Jewish Cooking in America and The New American Cooking, both of which won James Beard Awards and IACP Awards. In 2022, Nathan was included in the Forward 125: The American Jews who shaped our world. Nathan has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs including the Today show, Good Morning, America, The Martha Stewart Show and National Public Radio.

As a member of our Advisory Board, Joan guides the MV Book Festival and Author Series by providing invaluable counsel on upcoming titles, author selection and programming.

Michele Norris - Our Hidden Conversations

Michele Norris is one of America’s most trusted voices in journalism, earning several honors over a long career, including Peabody, Emmy, Dupont, and Goldsmith awards. She is a columnist for The Washington Post Opinion Section, the host of the Audible Original Podcast, Your Mama’s Kitchen, and from and from 2002 to 2012 she was a cohost of NPR’s All Things Considered. Norris is also the founding director of The Race Card Project, a Peabody Award–winning narrative archive where people around the world share their reflections on identity—in just six words. Her first book, The Grace of Silence, was named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Kansas City Star. Before joining NPR, Norris spent almost ten years as a reporter for ABC News covering politics, policy, and the dynamics of social change.

As a member of our Advisory Board, Michele guides the MV Book Festival and Author Series by providing invaluable counsel on upcoming titles, author selection and programming.

Ruth Reichl - The Paris Novel

Ruth Reichl is a food writer and author of nine books, including the best-selling memoirs Garlic and Sapphires, Tender at the Bone, and Comfort Me with Apples, the novel Delicious! and the cookbook My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. Ruth was Editor in Chief of Gourmet magazine for ten years and was also the restaurant critic for the New York TImes and the Los Angeles Times. She has been honored with six James Beard Awards and, in 2024, received the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award.

Amor Towles - Table for Two

Born and raised in the Boston area, Amor Towles graduated from Yale and received an MA in English from Stanford. Having worked as an investment professional for over twenty years, he now devotes himself full time to writing in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children. His novels Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway, and his collection of shorter fiction called Table for Two have collectively sold more than six million copies and been translated into more than thirty languages. Both Bill Gates and President Barack Obama included A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway on their annual book recommendation lists.

Gov Gretchen Whitmer - True Gretch

Gretchen Whitmer is the governor of Michigan and a rising figure in US politics. Known for her bold and plainspoken style, Whitmer is a national voice on the rights of women, voters, and the LGBTQ+ community. She rose to national prominence for her leadership in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when her efforts to save lives in the state earned her the nickname “That Woman from Michigan” from the former president. Later that year, a domestic terrorist cell began planning to kidnap and kill her, a plot that was foiled by the FBI and state police. Whitmer is a lifelong Michigander who first ran for office at 29, has served in both state houses, and has never lost an election. She is the proud mother of two daughters, a huge Detroit Lions fan, and the subject of the song “Big Gretch” by rapper GMac Cash.