Steven Pinker, Lois Lowry, Wendy Kaminer, and Steve Kleinedler

Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine.

Photo Credit: Andrew Brilliant

Steve Kleinedler

Steve Kleinedler is Supervising Editor of the American Heritage Dictionary, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. On staff for almost 14 years, Steve has worked as an editor on dozens of titles, including The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, and the related titles in the AHD series (College, High School, Student, Children's, and First). Steve is a board member of the Dictionary Society of North America. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Northwestern University in 1989 in linguistics, and he attended the University of Chicago as a graduate student in linguistics, focusing on pragmatics and lexicography, leaving ABD upon employment at Houghton Mifflin in 1997. In addition to his work with the American Heritage Dictionary, Steve is an instructor and director at ImprovBoston and was a founding member of Shattered Globe Theatre in Chicago.

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of many awards for his research, teaching, and books, he has been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World Today and Foreign Policy's 100 Global Thinkers.

Wendy Kaminer

Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer and social critic, writes about law, liberty, feminism, religion, and popular culture. Her latest book is Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity and the ACLU, (Beacon Press.) A former Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Smith College Medal, she is the author of seven previous books, including Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today; Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety; True Love Waits: Essays and Criticism; It’s All the Rage: Crime and Culture; I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement & Other Self-Help Fashions; and A Fearful Freedom: Women’s Flight from Equality.