“A wild book—a crazy suspense story—fascinating stuff.” That’s how host Jon Stewart described Lee Gutkind’s new book, Almost Human: Making Robots Think, on The Daily Show (Comedy Central), when the two squared off in an amusing and enlightening conversation and debate. Gutkind’s national TV appearance followed in-depth interviews on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation,” the “BBC World,” and Wired.com. and rave reviews from the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.

Lee Gutkind is founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction. He is also the editor of The Best Creative Nonfiction, an annual anthology, and the forthcoming Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction, both by W. W. Norton. Vanity Fair proclaimed Gutkind “the Godfather” behind the creative nonfiction movement— an indisputable force whose efforts have helped make the genre the fastest growing in the publishing industry.

Samir Husni, aka "Mr. Magazine"™, is the Chair of the Journalism Department at The University of Mississippi and the author of the annual Samir Husni's Guide to New Magazines, now in its 22nd year. He is also the author of Launch Your Own Magazine: A Guide for Succeeding in Today's Marketplace, published by Hamblett House, Inc., and Selling Content: The Step-by-Step Art of Packaging Your Own Magazine, published by Kendall Hunt. He is also the editor of The Future of Magazines.

He is "the country's leading magazine expert," according to Forbes ASAP magazine, "the nation's leading authority on new magazines," according to min:media industry newsletter, and "a world-renowned expert on print journalism," according to CBS News Sunday Morning. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him "the planet's leading expert on new magazines."

Dr. Husni has appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, CNNfn, and PBS, and on numerous radio talk shows including National Public Radio's Morning and Weekend Editions as well as On The Media. He has presented seminars on trends in American magazines and has been a judge of The National Magazine Awards, The Evangelical Magazines Association, The City and Regional Magazines Association, and The Florida and Georgia Magazine Association Awards.

Charlie Conrad is Vice President, Executive Editor and Editorial Director of Paperbacks at Doubleday/Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc.  Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of Anchor Books/Doubleday, he has also held editorial positions at Warner Books, Newmarket Press and New American Library. Among the authors he has worked with are Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, A Year in the World), Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild, Under the Banner of Heaven), and Eric Clapton (Clapton: The Autobiography). 

At her independent agency, Gillian MacKenzie represents a wide variety of nonfiction writers, including journalists, academics, memoirist and scientists. Her clients include the prominent social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo; Nobel Peace Prize-winning geologist Henry Pollack; former Moscow Bureau Chief for NPR Lawrence Scott Sheets; and former ad-exec turned Starbucks barista Michael Gates Gill. Prior to starting her agency, Gillian helped produce feature films based on books, and designed products at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ted Moncreiff is Executive Editor of Condé Nast Traveler. He began working at the magazine fifteen years ago as a fact-checker. Prior to that, he was at CFO Magazine, an Economist publication, and USA Today.

Virginia Morell is a correspondent for Science and a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine, and has written for Smithsonian, the New York Times Magazine, Discover, Outside and other publications. Her articles are often about travels or expeditions with scientists exploring the natural world. She is also the author of two books, Ancestral Passions: The Leakeys and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings (a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year"); and Blue Nile (a San Francisco Chronicle "Best Travel Book"). She also co-authored Wildlife Wars, with Richard Leakey; it was a "Best Book of the Year" in the Washington Post.

Michael Rosenwald is a staff writer at the Washington Post. He is also an accomplished magazine writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Smithsonian and Popular Science. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in feature writing.

Rebecca Skloot is a freelance writer and contributing editor at Popular Science. She writes for The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover and others. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is forthcoming from Crown. Skloot teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at the University of Memphis, where she directs the River City Writers Series.

June Thomas is Slate's foreign editor, in charge of the "Foreigners," “Dispatches," "War Stories," "Fighting Words," and "Well-Traveled" sections. Before joining the magazine in 1997, she was an editor and foreign rights manager at Seal Press and managing editor of Women in Translation, a publishing company specializing in women's writing from around the world. She was born and raised in Manchester, England.

Webster Younce is senior editor at Houghton Mifflin, having worked at Random House, Alfred A. Knopf, and Picador USA. His authors include Paul Theroux, Diane McWhorter, Joseph Epstein, Christopher Merrill, David Kertzer, Ward Just, and Jonathan Miles, among others. He also oversees Houghton's publishing program for JRR Tolkien. He is a graduate of Ole Miss and Oxford University, and his journalism and criticism have appeared in Harper's, Time Out New York, Beliefnet.com, and in the anthology A Galaxy Not So Far Away.