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A staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of New York Times bestsellers: Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, Empire of Pain and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. Rolling Stone calls him an “obsessive reporter, researcher and master of narrative nonfiction.” His book, Say Nothing received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, was selected as one of the 10 best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change.

Lily King received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. King’s first novel, The Pleasing Hour, was published in 1999, followed by The English Teacher [2005] and Father of the Rain [2010]. Gaining awards and accolades with each, she hit big with her fourth novel, Euphoria in 2014. That year, it won the Kirkus Award for Fiction, and was also named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review and TIME’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014. Her most recent novel, Writers & Lovers was published in 2020 and her first collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter was released in 2021.

Raised in Fayetteville, NC, Brendan Slocumb holds a degree in music education with concentrations in violin and viola from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For the past 23 years, he has been a public and private school music educator, teaching general music, orchestra and guitar ensembles. His debut mystery thriller, The Violin Conspiracy, was published in 2022 to glowing reviews and was selected as a Good Morning America Book Club Pick. Due out in 2023, his follow up page turner, Symphony of Secrets, seeks to right a wrong when race intersects with the uncovering of a famous musical piece’s true composer.

Hinojosa is simply put… a trailblazer. Her nearly 30-year career as an award-winning journalist includes reporting for PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN and NPR and anchoring the Emmy Award winning talk show from WGBH Maria Hinojosa: One on One. She is the author of two books and has won dozens of awards including four Emmys. Her new book, Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America, Hinojosa tells the story of immigration in America through her family’s experiences and decades of reporting, painting an unflinching portrait of a country in crisis. She is also a contributor to award-winning news program CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC.

Elin Hilderbrand is an American author widely recognized for her work in the romance genre. She wears the title of “queen of the beach read” with pride! Hilderbrand earned a degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and attended the Iowa Writers Workshop. Nantucket Island is her home and the quaint beach-filled resort town serves as a prominent character in most of her 27 published novels. She has sold roughly 10 million books, many achieving bestseller list status. Her 2019 novel, “Summer of ’69,” was a nine-week No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

The unique duo are respected friends and will be in conversation to close out FOCL’s 29th season. In 1992, Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative Maus— which portrayed Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. Maus II continued the remarkable story of his parents’ survival of the Nazi regime and their lives later in America. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2018 received the Edward MacDowell Medal, the first-ever given in comic art.

Gaiman makes a return to our series and is considered by many as one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His popular and critically acclaimed works bend genres while reaching audiences of all ages. Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman comics, which received nine Eisner Awards, was described by Stephen King as having turned graphic novels into “art.”