About the Authors
Neil Gaiman is the author of several #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Norse Mythogy, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Anansi Boys, and others, as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. His fiction has received Newbery, Carnegie, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner awards. His novel American Gods aired as a TV series in 2017. Originally from England, he lives in the United States, where he is a professor at Bard College.
Dion Graham is an award-winning narrator named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Audie Award numerous times, as well as Earphones Awards, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, IBPA Ben Franklin Awards, and the ALA Odyssey Award. He was nominated in 2015 for a Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Narration. He is also a critically acclaimed actor who has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, with an MFA degree in acting.
Margaret Atwood is the acclaimed author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. She is the recipient of dozens of awards, including joint winner of the Booker Prize in 2019, as well as the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award, among many others.
Dave Eggers is the author of children’s fiction, young adult fiction, science fiction, and more. His works have won the Newbery Medal, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, France’s Prix Médicis, Germany’s Albatross Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the American Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, and is cofounder of 826 National, a network of educational centers around the country offering free tutoring to kids of all backgrounds.
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.
Joe Hill, author of the critically acclaimed Heart-Shaped Box, is a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, a past recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship, and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Fireman. His stories have appeared in a variety of journals and Year’s Best collections.
Kelly Link is a firm believer in the do-it-yourself ethos that powers the steampunk movement. She has started a zine, founded an independent publishing house, owns two letterpresses, and edited the fantasy half of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror for five years. She lives in Massachusetts.
Alice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including the Practical Magic series and the Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, among others. Eight of her novels have made the New York Times bestsellers list.
Robert McCammon is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the award-winning Boy’s Life. There are more than four million copies of his books in print.
Jacquelyn Mitchard’s first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, launched Oprah’s Book Club and became an international bestseller, hitting #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Her other works, including The Most Wanted, Twelve Times Blessed, The Breakdown Lane, and Cage of Stars have also been well received. Mitchard has appeared on the Today show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, MSNBC, and numerous other local and national television and radio programs. She was a contributing editor for Parenting magazine and wrote a weekly syndicated column until 2007 which appeared in more than one hundred newspapers across the country. Her articles have appeared in Newsweek, Life, Reader’s Digest, TV Guide, Ladies’ Home Journal, and many other publications. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and nine children.
Audrey
Niffenegger
is a professor in the MFA program at the Columbia College, as well as Chicago
Center for Book and Paper Artsa visual artist and a guide at Highgate Cemetery.
In addition to her bestselling novels, The
Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful
Symmetry, she is the author of illustrated novels, including The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress. She lives in Chicago.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
About the Narrators
Neil Gaiman is the author of several #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Norse Mythogy, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Anansi Boys, and others, as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. His fiction has received Newbery, Carnegie, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner awards. His novel American Gods aired as a TV series in 2017. Originally from England, he lives in the United States, where he is a professor at Bard College.
George Hosato Takei is a Japanese American actor and author best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise in the television series Star Trek. He also portrayed the character in six feature films and an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. He is a proponent of gay rights and active in state and local politics while still continuing his acting career. He has won several awards and accolades for his work in human rights and Japanese–American relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum.
Dion Graham is an award-winning narrator named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Audie Award numerous times, as well as Earphones Awards, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, IBPA Ben Franklin Awards, and the ALA Odyssey Award. He was nominated in 2015 for a Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Narration. He is also a critically acclaimed actor who has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, with an MFA degree in acting.
Robert Petkoff is an actor and audiobook narrator who has won a prestigious Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards. He has appeared on Chappelle’s Show, Law & Order, and Quantum Leap. His Broadway credits include Sir Robin in Spamalot, Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof, and Tateh in Ragtime.
F. Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became widely known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in the 1984 film Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in such major films as All the President’s Men and Scarface and the award-winning television series Homeland. He has also acted on Broad and Off-Broadway and won numerous awards for his work in theater, film, television, and audio recordings. He has also received lifetime achievement awards and has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Edoardo Ballerini, an American actor, director, film producer, and multiaward–winning narrator. He has won several Audie Awards for best narration, including for 2019’s Best Male Narrator of the Year. He was named by Booklist as winner of their 2023 Voice of Choice Award, and was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, from classics to modern masters, from bestsellers to the inspirational, from Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners to spine-tingling series, and much more. In television and film, he is best known for his roles in A Murder at the End of the World, The Sopranos, 24, I Shot Andy Warhol, Dinner Rush, and Romeo Must Die. He is also trained in theater and continues to do much work on stage.
Edward Herrmann (1943–2014) was one of America’s top audiobook narrators. He won multiple Audie Awards and twenty-two Earphones Awards, and his narration of the King James version of the Bible remains a benchmark in the industry.
Kate Mulgrew is an accomplished film and television actress, most noted for her lead role as Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager. Other television credits include Ryan’s Hope, Murphy Brown, Cheers, and the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black. She has won numerous awards for her performances, including an Obie Award, Golden Satellite Award, Saturn Award, and a Golden Globe nomination. Her audiobook narrations have won her four AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Simon Van Booy was born in London and grew up in rural Wales and Oxford. After playing football in Kentucky for two years, he lived in Paris and Athens before earning an MFA in 2002. He is the editor of multiple philosophy books and his essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Post, the Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian, as well as on NPR. He lives in New York City, where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts and Long Island University. He is also involved in the Rutgers Early College Humanities program for young adults living in underserved communities. He won the H.R. Hays Poetry Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, was a finalist for the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, and his work has been translated into thirteen languages.
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.