Teagle F. Bougere recently portrayed James Baldwin in the American Vicarious virtual production of Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, and co-starred with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the webseries Queen America. Additional theater credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest on Broadway; Socrates at The Public Theater, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline in Central Park, The New Englanders at Manhattan Theater Club, A Soldier’s Play at Second Stage, and A Fair Country at Lincoln Center. His film and television credits include Hill ’n’ Gully, Good Friday, Conviction, Cosby, The Job, Third Watch, Murder in Black and White, A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, What the Deaf Man Heard, and Bull.
Jordan Klepper is perhaps best known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show and his comedy series The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. He is an alumnus of the improv troupes The Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade. He and his wife, Laura Grey, are co-creators of short films including TMI, a featured short at the Slamdance Film Festival, and Peepers, which premiered at South By Southwest, among others. His new Comedy Central show, Klepper, premiered in May 2019, and he is featured on The Daily Show with “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse.”
Maile Meloy is the author of the novels Liars and Saints, A Family Daughter, and Do Not Become Alarmed, the short-story collections Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, and a middle-grade trilogy that begins with The Apothecary. She has received the PEN/Malamud Award, the E. B. White Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Keith Szarabajka’s extensive film and television career includes The Equalizer, Profit, The X-Files, Becker, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Charmed, Roswell, 24, Max Steel, The Inside, Law & Order, Babylon 5, Angel, Golden Years, Argo, and Supernatural. Szarabajka has contributed his voice to nearly 100 video games and numerous audio books, notably Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins, for which he won the 2001 Audie Award; Fear Nothing and Seize the Night by Dean Koontz; several roles in a Grammy-nominated audio dramatization of The Maltese Falcon; Rising Sun by Michael Crichton; Nelson Algren's Walk on the Wild Side; and The Mark of Zorro opposite Val Kilmer.
Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was one of the grandmasters of modern American letters. Called by TheNew York Times "the counterculture's novelist," his works guided a generation through the miasma of war and greed that was life in the US in the second half of the twentieth century. Vonnegut rose to prominence with the publication of Cat's Cradle in 1963. Several modern classics, including God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; Slaughterhouse-Five; and Breakfast of Champions soon followed. Vonnegut’s letters, essays, and short stories have been anthologized in dozens of collections, including A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, and Complete Stories.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel. She is excited to be the new host of the literary radio show and podcast Selected Shorts.
CREDITS
"Cruise of The Jolly Roger" by Kurt Vonnegut, currently collected in Bagombo Snuff Box. Copyright © 1999 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
“Red” by Maile Meloy, from Half in Love. Copyright © 2002 by Maile Meloy. Used by permission of International Creative Management.
"Letter Dated May 29, 1945" by Kurt Vonnegut, currently collected in Kurt Vonnegut Letters. Copyright © 1963, 1991, 2012 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
