Amy Goodman is the host of Pacifica Radio's daily newsmagazine Democracy Now!

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter's Daughter.

Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1998.

Dr. Cornel West has been described as one of America's most vital and eloquent public intellectuals.

David Foster Wallace is the author of the novel Infinite Jest; three short story collections, The Broom of the System, The Girl with Curious Hair, and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men; and a collection of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

Gilbert Sorrentino, "like a reckless heir to Borges, Barthelme and Groucho Marx, co-opts the language of critical discourse to subvert his audience's preconceptions and, in so doing, redraws the boundaries of 'acceptable' art" (The New York Times).

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, considered Germany's most important living poet, is also a highly regarded essayist, journalist, dramatist, editor, publisher, and translator.

Howard Zinn, a professor emeritus of political science at Boston University, is the author of twenty books.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of America’s most versatile and prolific writers.

Lannan Foundation is a family foundation dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity and creativity…

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a prominent voice of the Beat movement, has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays.

Lewis Lapham became editor of Harper's Magazine in 1976, having worked for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune.

Margaret Atwood is an international literary star and one of Canada's most celebrated authors.

Noam Chomsky, who has said, "If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all," was born in 1928 in Philadelphia.

Russell Banks, INCA's current president, is a prolific writer of fiction, whose titles include Searching for Survivors, The Relation of My Imprisonment, Continental Drift, Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, and Cloudsplitter.

Salman Rushdie is the author of numerous books that take readers on a provocative journey into the world of contemporary literature, politics, culture and philosophy.

Susan Sontag spent her formative years in New York City, Tucson and Los Angeles and attended the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and Saint Anne's College at Oxford.

Tariq Ali was born in Lahore, now in Pakistan, then part of British-ruled India, in 1944. While at Punjab University, Ali organized public demonstrations against Pakistan's military dictatorship, and was consequently banned from participating in student politics.

Timothy Ferris, called "the best popular science writer in the English language" by The Christian Science Monitor, is the author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way, The Mind's Sky, Galaxies and other best selling books on astronomy, physics, and the history of philosophy of science.

Toni Morrison has published seven novels.