LA Times Festival of Books 2019

Karen Grigsby Bates is the Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News. Bates contributed commentaries to All Things Considered for about 10 years before she joined NPR in 2002 as the first correspondent and alternate host for The Tavis Smiley Show. In addition to general reporting... Read More →

Bridgett M. Davis is Professor of Journalism and the Writing Professions at Baruch College, CUNY, where she teaches creative, film and narrative writing and is Director of the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence Program. A graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, and Columbia University's... Read More →

Casey Gerald grew up in Oak Cliff, Texas and went to Yale, where he majored in political science and played varsity football. After receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School, he cofounded MBAs Across America. He has been featured on MSNBC, at TED and SXSW, on the cover of Fast... Read More →

Kiese Laymon is an American writer, editor, and a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi. Laymon is the author of three full-length books: a novel, "Long Division," and two memoirs, "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America" and "Heavy... Read More →