Jenn Shapland is a writer and archivist living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary award. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on a collection of essays about the entanglement of toxicity, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy called Thin Skin.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Jenn Shapland selected Silent Spring by Rachel Carson for her episode of Without These Books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. 

Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. 

When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Marilyn Peterson Haus selected I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb for her episode of Without These Books.

Mary Dixie Carter’s debut novel The Photographer will be published in May 2021 by Minotaur Books - St. Martin’s Publishing Group in the US and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.

Mary Dixie’s writing has appeared in TIME,  The Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer,  The New York Sun, The New York Observer and other print and online publications.  She worked at The Observer for five years, where she served as the publishing director.  In addition to writing, she also has a background as a professional actor. 

Mary Dixie graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in English Literature and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.  She is the daughter of Dixie Carter and step-daughter of Hal Holbrook. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children. The Photographer is her first novel.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Mary Dixie Carter selected The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for her episode of Without These Books.

Courtney Zoffness’s debut, Spilt Milk (McSweeney’s, 2021), received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and BookPage, and was named “most anticipated” or “must-read” book by Good Morning America, LitHub, Refinery29, The Millions, Publishers Weekly, and others. Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the largest international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. Other honors include fellowships from the Center for Fiction and MacDowell, and the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in several outlets, including the New York Times, the Paris Review Daily, and Guernica, and she had essays listed as “notable” in Best American Essays 2018 and 2019. She directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University, where she’s an Assistant Professor of English, and lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Courtney Zoffness selected Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill for her episode of Without These Books.

Khalisa Rae is a poet and journalist in Durham, NC that speaks with furious rebellion. She is the author of Ghost in a Black Girl's Throat (Red Hen Press 2021). Her essays are featured in Autostraddle, Catapult, LitHub, as well as articles in B*tch Media, NBC-BLK, and others. Her poetry appears in Frontier Poetry, Florida Review, Rust & Moth, PANK, Hellebore, Sundog Lit, HOBART, among countless others. She is the winner of the Bright Wings Poetry contest, the Furious Flower Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and the White Stag Publishing Contest, among other prizes. Currently, she serves as Assistant Editor for Glass Poetry and founder of Think in Ink and Women Speak. Her second collection Unlearning Eden is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing January 2022.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.com.

Khalisa Rae selected Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine for her episode of Without These Books.

Rebecca Handler is a writer who lives and works in San Francisco. Rebecca’s stories have been published and awarded in several anthologies, and she blogs regularly at www.onewomanparty.com. Edie Richter is Not Alone is her debut novel, and in a Starred Review, Booklist writes, "Handler's Edie has joined the ranks of unforgettably eccentric, intelligent women protagonists.” Kirkus Starred Review says, "A tragicomic exploration of the collateral damage of Alzheimer's disease... Handler gets it right from the title on out. Edie is definitely not alone.”

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.com.

Rebecca Handler selected When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book by Naja Marie Aidt for her episode of Without These Books.

Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Guernica, The Yale Review,and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. 

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.com.

Jennifer Acker selected The Transit Of Venus by Shirley Hazzard for her episode of Without These Books.

Joshua M. Greene is a popular lecturer on Holocaust history and an author whose biographies have sold more than a half-million copies worldwide. Greene’s groundbreaking book on the Dachau war crimes trials, Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor, was deemed “riveting—history writing at its best” by Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian for CNN. His renowned work on survivor testimony, Witness: Voices from the Holocaust, was the basis of a feature documentary for national PBS and chosen as “One of the Best Holocaust Films” by Facets Media.  A former instructor at Hofstra and Fordham Universities, Greene is the recipient of numerous awards for his books and films. He sits on the board of Yale University Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and has served as director of strategic planning for the United Nations Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders.  He is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming,“Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor to Wall Street Legend.” 

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.com.

Joshua M. Greene selected The Bhagavad Gita by Anonymous for his episode of Without These Books.