Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School. He regularly writes for the Atlantic Monthly and Slate, and is the author of numerous books, including Letters to a Young Contrarian and Why Orwell Matters. He was named one of the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Britain’s Prospect.

Michael Ondaatje is one of the world’s foremost writers. In his transcendent novel The English Patient—later made into the Academy Award-winning film—he explores the stories of people history fails to reveal, intersecting four diverse lives at the end of World War II.  He is the author of four collections of poetry including The Cinnamon Peeler and most recently, Handwriting. His works of fiction include Anil's Ghost, The English Patient, In the Skin of the Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. In 2000, Ondaatje was awarded the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, the Prix Medicis, the Governor General’s Award, and the Giller Prize.

Daniel Hurewitz is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Hunter College, City University of New York, and author of Stepping Out: Nine Walks through New York's Gay and Lesbian Past. As a UCLA graduate student, he began investigating the start of American gay politics - a movement which, despite all assumptions, actually began in Los Angeles. That investigation lead him to the history of a larger bohemian world that existed in Los Angeles in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The story of that world is the heart of his recent book, Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics. Author Mike Davis wrote,  "Hurewitz truly opens Los Angeles' closet door in this stunning history of the 'Red Hills' above Silver Lake where radical countercultures dreamed, cavorted, and agitated for a better world."

Stuart Timmons writes about Los Angeles, environmental issues, and gay politics, often informed by his thirty years of local activism.  He is the author of The Trouble With Harry Hay:  Founder of the Modern Gay Movement, a biography of one of the city's most influential radicals.  Most recently, with Lillian Faderman, he co- authored Gay L.A.:  A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians, which covers local gay life from 1880 to 2005.  Both books of Stuart’s books have been nominated for Lambda Literary Awards.

William Deverell is a professor of history at USC, where he specializes in the history of California and the American West and directs a scholarly institute that collaborates with the Huntington Library in Pasadena. He is the author several books including  Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past.

Lauren Kessler is the author of five works of narrative nonfiction, including Dancing with Rose, a Washington Post bestseller, CleverGirl, a Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding Club, and Oregon Book Award winner Stubborn Twig. Stubborn Twig was chosen as the book for all Oregon to read in honor of the state’s 2009 sesquicentennial.

Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles TimesMagazine, O magazine, salon and The Nation. She is founder and editor of Etude,the online magazine of narrative nonfiction, and directs the graduate programin literary nonfiction at the University of Oregon.

Beth is best known for founding, hosting and producing  Un-Cabaret, the legendary live show that led the 'alternative comedy' revolution.  Nevertheless when strangers recognize her it is usually fro her brief but captivating appearance as the performance artist on "Sex and the City".

Beth's an original thinker and her columns, essays an opinions have appeared in and on Politically Incorrect, NPR's "All Things Considered", the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Fit Yoga, Utne Reader, The Realist, LA Weekly, Premiere and freshyarn.com. She was the irreverently thoughtful self help correspondent for ABC Radio's Satellite Sisters and now writes a monthly column about yoga: "My Other Car Is A Yoga Mat"  which is syndicated in LA Yoga and Yoga Chicago magazine. Her first book: "DID I WAKE YOU? Haikus for Modern Living" was published in 2006 by Soft Skull Press.