Curious Courtships

Whitfield Cook (1909 - 2003) was an author and screenwriter, best remembered for his contributions to Alfred Hitchcock’s films Stage Fright and Strangers on a Train. He is the author of the short story collection Violets and the novels Roman Comedy, Taxi to Dubrovnik, and A Choice of Disguises, and his work appeared in magazines including The American Mercury, Story, Cosmopolitan, and Redbook. Cook’s story “The Unfaithful” was honored with the O. Henry Award in 1943.

Laura Grey is a writer and performer who got her start onstage at the Second City Chicago. She served as head writer on Comedy Central’s Jordan Klepper Solves Guns and debuted her series Ex-Girlfriend, which won the TruTV development award at the New York Television Fest and is currently running on FXX and Hulu's "Cake." She co-created Engaged for UCB Comedy, Faeries for IFC, and The Brothel, featured on Funny or Die. As an actor, she's appeared in Seriously Distracted, Younger, RePlay, Rough Night, and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. Her short films have premiered at SXSW, Slamdance, and the Tribeca film festivals.

Tony Hale is a two-time Emmy winner for his work on Veep. He is also known for his roles on Arrested Development, Chuck, Ctrl, Drunk History, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Additional film and television credits include Happythankyoumoreplease; The Heat; American Ultra; Love, Simon; To the Stars; When the Streetlights Go On; and Nine Days. His extensive voice work includes roles in Toy Story 4, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Forky Asks a Question, Archibald's Next Big Thing, When the Streetlights Go On, Crossing Swords, Harley Quinn, Woke, Arlo the Alligator Boy, Archibald's Next Big Thing Is Here, and Birdgirl. Upcoming projects include The Mysterious Benedict Society, Clifford the Big Red Dog, What Josiah Saw, Blind Psychosis, Being the Ricardos, and HouseBroken.

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.

Stephen Leacock (1869 - 1944) was a renowned humorist, best known for his works Literary Lapses, Nonsense Novels, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, Humour: Its Theory and Technique, and his unfinished autobiography The Boy I Left Behind Me, among numerous additional volumes. His summer cottage is now preserved as the Stephen Leacock Museum National Historic Site. The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour was established in 1947 and has been awarded annually since to honor Canadian humorists and preserve Leacock’s legacy.

Sonia Manzano is a groundbreaking Latina educator, executive television producer, and award-winning children’s book author. A first-generation mainland Puerto Rican, she has affected the lives of millions of parents and children since the early 1970s, when she was offered the opportunity to play Maria on Sesame Street, for which she received an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. Manzano has also received 15 Emmys for writing, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award for Education. Her critically acclaimed children’s books include A World Together, No Dogs Allowed!, A Box Full of Kittens, Miracle on 133rd Street, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, and the memoir Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx. Manzano recently signed a multi-book publishing program with Scholastic which includes the forthcoming novel Coming Up Cuban.

Maulik Pancholy is an actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his television roles on 30 Rock, Weeds, Whitney, The Good Fight, and for lending his voice to the long-running animated series Phineas & Ferb and Sanjay & Craig. On stage, he starred on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s It's Only a Play, in The New Group’s production of Good for Otto, Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons at the Helen Hayes Theatre, and most recently The George Street Playhouse virtual production of Becky Mode’s Fully Committed. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a 2020 Stonewall Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association’s Booklist. Pancholy is the co-founder of the anti-bullying organization ActToChange.org.

Charles Yu is the author of the novels Third Class Superhero, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Sorry Please Thank You, and his latest, Interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award for Fiction 2020, was shortlisted for the Le Prix Médicis étranger, and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. He has received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, been nominated for two Writers Guild of America awards for his work on the HBO series Westworld, and has also written for shows on FX, AMC, Facebook Watch, and Adult Swim. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in a number of publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, Time and Ploughshares. Together with TaiwaneseAmerican.org, he has also sponsored the Betty L. and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes for Students.