Marie Arana was born in Lima, Peru. She is the author of the memoir American Chica, a finalist for the National Book Award; two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights; the prizewinning biography Bolivar: American Liberator; Silver, Sword, and Stone, a narrative history of Latin America; The Writing Life, a collection from her well-known column for The Washington Post; and LatinoLand. She was the books editor of the Washington Post and the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress. She is currently the Senior Executive Producer of America’s Book Club, a new national, prime-time television show, hosted by David Rubenstein and premiering on C-SPAN in the fall of 2025.

Jabari Asim is the Distinguished Professor of Multidisciplinary Letters at Emerson College in Boston, where he is also the Elma Lewis Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice. He has also been a scholar-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an editor and columnist at the Washington Post, and editor-in-chief of the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine, founded by W.E.B. DuBois in 1910. His work has been included in Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of 14 books for children and 8 books for adults, including Preaching to the Chickens, named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book in 2016, and Yonder, a novel, named a New York Times Notable Book in 2022.

Olivia is a trusted advisor on civil litigation matters, especially regarding intellectual property. She has represented individuals and corporations across the country in complex technological matters. She helps clients protect, enforce, and defend intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks. An experienced trial lawyer, Olivia has litigated and tried significant cases before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and other federal courts around the country, and has also briefed and argued patent appeals before the Federal Circuit. Before practicing law, Olivia spent five years as a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, gaining extensive experience regarding the use of procedures available before the USPTO.

Olivia is active in the Chicago community. Among other interests, she currently serves as the Chair of the Attorneys Subcommittee on the Membership Committee for the Economic Club of Chicago; serves as the Executive Director and past President and Founder of the Richard Linn American Inn of Court; serves on the Local Patent Rules Committee at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; and serves on the Board of the American Writers Museum and as past President of its Chicago Council.

Ann is the managing partner of Guynemer LLC, an investment entity.  She has practiced law in both the private and public sector and worked in democratic development on four continents.  

An unrepentant reader from an early age, she remembers the frisson of victory the night her parents surrendered — at last!!! — amidst the “it’s time to put your book down and go to bed now” battle of attrition. 

She explores (and supports) museums, libraries and independent bookstores wherever she goes.  Her go-to books are often those causing a ruckus at local PTA meetings.  Come summer, often you can find her in Saugatuck, MI at Oxbow, the summer campus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

She graduated high school in Switzerland and holds a B.A. in English from University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  She is married, has two sons, and an exasperating Alsatian named Rilke.  She divides her time between Western Michigan and Spain, where she is constantly on guard for new verb tenses.

Allan is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bulley & Andrews, one of Chicago’s oldest and most trusted construction firms. He was educated at Yale, Oxford, and Kellogg. He has served on the Boards of Lyric Opera, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, The Poetry Foundation and The Yale Library Associates.

Marion Cameron has been President and CEO of Sipi Metals Corp. since 2007, where she has served in various executive functions since 1992. Prior to Sipi, Ms. Cameron was associated with international metals trading companies in New York. Ms. Cameron studied Electrical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, where she grew up, and graduated with an MBA from Pace University in New York. Ms. Cameron is a member of the board of the Lyric Opera of Chicago where she chairs the investment committee and is a Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Romi is a Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She regularly writes on contemporary art and often collaborates on forward thinking museum, civic, and art projects. Crawford served on the Monuments Advisory Committee for the city of Chicago and founded the BAM School Modality in 2021 and the New Art School Modality in 2023. She received MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago.

Carolyn Curiel has worked as a journalist and an educator and served as a public servant at home and abroad.

On her way to becoming White House Senior Speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Clinton, she drafted noted speeches on race, including the “mend it, don’t end it” speech on affirmative action, the apology for medical experiments on Black men in Tuskegee, and remarks in Memphis to Black religious leaders. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed her as Ambassador to Belize in Mr. Clinton’s second term. Before returning home in 2001, she delivered long-stalled agreements on regional security, the environment, and economic cooperation.

In more than a decade at The New York Times, she was an editor and writer on national and global news that included presidential campaigns, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and the crackdown at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. On The Times Editorial Board, she directed the newspaper’s influential election endorsements, prompting another newspaper to call her “the most powerful person in New York politics.” She previously was Producer-Writer at ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel, and an editor at The Washington Post.

At Purdue University, Ambassador Curiel served as chief of staff for the institution, then turned to experiential teaching as a professor of civic communication who regularly engaged her students directly with top journalists, public officials and others who steer public dialogue. Crain’s NewsPro magazine recognized her in 2017 as one of the nation’s 10 top journalism instructors in higher education, even though Purdue lacked a journalism program.

For over twenty years Elissa Hamid Efroymson has been involved in the civic community of Chicago. Ms. Efroymson is passionate about arts and education. She currently serves on the boards of ChiArts (Chicago High School for the Arts), Drake Center for African and African American Studies at Roosevelt University, Illinois Governor’s Mansion Association, as well as the Committee on Learning and Interpretation at the Art Institute Chicago. Ms. Efroymson was a previous trustee of the Museum of Contempory Art Chicago and Chicago Public Media.

Ms. Efroymson holds a Bachelors degree from Loyola University of Chicago, as well as Masters degrees from Depaul University and the University of Chicago.

Elissa and her husband, Adnaan Hamid, live in Chicago with their two children.

John Estey is Chairman of S&C Electric Company, a Chicago-headquartered global supplier of equipment and services for electric power systems. Mr. Estey joined S&C in 1972 and held a number of responsible positions before being elected President in 1988, President and CEO in 1997 and Chairman of the Board in 2015.

He is Lead Director of Southwire Company, a member and Past Chairman of The Adler Planetarium Board of Trustees, and is a Director of The Shelter for Abused Women & Children in Naples, FL.

John was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and holds the degree of Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Brenda Grusecki is a lifelong learner and advocate for the humanities who retired from Oak Park and River Forest High School where she chaired the English Division for seventeen years.  Subsequently, she worked as instructor and supervisor of student teachers at Northwestern University and Dominican University.  She spent many years teaching in the gifted program (Center for Talent Development) at Northwestern where she earned her M.A. in English.

Besides her passion for the teaching of English, two non-profit Board positions of several have been especially close to Brenda’s heart:  the Family Service and Mental Health Center of Oak Park and River Forest (re-named Thrive Counseling Center) and Remy Bumppo Theatre Company.  With her husband, Brenda administers a family foundation that funds education, the arts, and housing and social services.  The Gruseckis enjoy, champion, and support the many cultural opportunities that Chicago offers. Two quotations have guided Brenda’s professional and philanthropic work, the first from E.M. Forester, Only connect, and the second, more recently, from Yo-Yo Ma: How do we do everything possible to rebuild the world we really want to live in.  

NOTE:  Because choosing a “favorite American author” for this profile is daunting, Stephen Sondheim and Emily Dickinson compel attention as runners-up.

Hill Hammock served as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of LaSalle Bank at the conclusion of his Commercial Banking career. He then served as Chief Administrative Officer of Chicago Public Schools from 2007 until 2009. Hill is currently Chair of the board of the Cook County Health and Hospital System. He was previously Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum, and was Founding Co-Chair of the American Writers Museum. Hill earned his MBA from The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business and his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Georgia Tech. Cheryl and Hill have two sons. They enjoy both the arts and traveling in their leisure time.

Werner Hein has been an AWM trustee and officer from the outset when, in 2010, Founder Malcolm O’Hagan began his efforts to establish the Museum. He is currently Senior Counsel at the law firm Mayer Brown where he has worked much of his legal career. Werner co-founded two transatlantic policy organizations and continues to be engaged in them. Werner has his law degree from Columbia law school and the University of Bonn, Germany.

Michael Hora was a senior partner at Kearney: Management Consultants where he was privileged to work for clients around the world. He serves/served on the boards of many nonprofit organizations and has founded, with his wife, a family foundation. He enjoys hunting, teaching others about wildlife and wild places, reading, traveling and working on his small property in Colorado. He likes to work out every morning and has been running outside for over 50 years.

Jane Irwin joined the American Writers Museum Board in 2014 and currently serves as Vice Chairman and Chair of the Board’s Development Committee. 

Jane retired as Senior Vice President Administration at PotashCorp, a mining and chemical manufacturing company where she lead human resources and administrative services and was a member of the executive leadership team. Prior to this position, she was a partner and managing consultant at Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting firm. Jane began her career as an associate attorney, specializing in ERISA and employee benefits law at firms in Chicago and Detroit. 

Other board positions Jane currently holds include S&C Electric Company, Chicago IL, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and University of Michigan Law School’s Development and Alumni Relations Committee.

Jane has a B.A. in Multidisciplinary Social Science – Pre-Law from Michigan State University and a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School.

Ivan Kane joined the AWM Board in 2016 and served as the first chairman of AWM’s Program Committee. He practiced law for 35 years at Mayer Brown LLP. He holds a BA in English Literature and a JD (law) degree, both from The University of Chicago, where he serves on the Humanities Council.

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her works of fiction include The Dark Path to the River and No Marble Angels. She is editor of The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. A former reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, Joanne is a Vice President Emeritus and former International Secretary of PEN International. She serves on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, the International Center for Journalists, Words Without Borders and Refugees International. She an emeritus board member of Poets and Writers and Human Rights Watch and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and PEN American Center, where she served as a trustee.

Catherine has an extensive background in the arts and education. She currently serves as a Trustee for the Goodman Theatre and as a Life Member of the Visiting Committee to the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago. Her prior academic experience includes roles as a Lecturer in Romance Languages at the University of Chicago and an Adjunct Writing Instructor at Columbia College Chicago. Additionally, Catherine served as a Writing Preceptor at the University of Chicago, and was a Poetry Co-Editor for Chicago Review. She earned a PhD in Comparative Studies in Literature from the University of Chicago and a BA in Psychology and Social Relations/General Studies from Harvard University.

Bio coming soon.

Susan Orlean is the author of nine books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and On Animals. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film Adaptation starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Her book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend won the Ohioana Book Award and the Richard Wall Memorial Award.  In 2018, she published The Library Book, about the arson fire at the Los Angeles Public Library. It won the California Book Award and the Marfield Prize and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. It is being adapted for television. Her memoir, Joy Ride, will be published in October 2025.

Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, and has also contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Outside, and Esquire. She has written about taxidermy, umbrellas, origami, chickens, and a wide range of other subjects. She was a 2003 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. She lives with her husband and son in Los Angeles.

Judy is an art critic and art history lecturer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. She is also the author of the novel Love Without Asterisks and of the short fiction collection Love on a Small Island: More Tales of New York.

She serves on the boards of the Post-Classical Ensemble, Folger Shakespeare Library, and Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, and on the Trustees Council of the National Gallery.  She recently served on the boards of the Phillips Collection in DC and the Chicago Public Education Fund, Better Boys Foundation, Gads Hill Center, and Free Write Literacy, all in Chicago.  

Judy was previously Director of GATT (WTO) Affairs in the Office of Trade Policy at the Commerce Department in Washington, DC; a litigator in the Chicago firm of Louis Hilfman and Associates; and a member of the International Olympic Committee staff in Lausanne, Switzerland.  She grew up on the North Shore and attended New Trier East and holds a B.A. in Political Science from DePauw University, a J.D. from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, and an M.A. in Fiction Writing from Johns Hopkins University.

Dominique Raccah is the entrepreneurial Publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks, the company she founded from her home in 1987. Originally a source of financial information for bankers, Dominique has lead a continuously growing, pioneering general book publishing house that happily produces everything from adult and teen fiction, to top titles in children’s books, to baby names and college guides. The publisher has created scores of New York Times bestsellers, hundreds of national bestsellers, and #1 selling titles in perennial categories. Sourcebooks today has over 150 employees, publishes more than 400 new titles each year, and is proud to be one of the top book publishers in America. It is the largest woman-owned book publisher in the country as well as the largest trade book publisher in Chicago. Dominique has been widely recognized as a leader in innovation in book publishing – Sourcebooks has won every innovation award that the industry gives – as well as in the field itself, being named Publishers Weekly Person of the Year in 2016. She is also a member of The American Writers Museum Board of Trustees.

Dominique is deeply interested in expanding readership, creating a world of readers, and connecting authors and readers in new ways. Sourcebooks works with its retail partners to experiment and develop new ways to inspire and delight their customers, and create books that have extraordinary impact. An inspiring and passionate presenter, Dominique speaks internationally on innovation, the future of book publishing and entrepreneurship, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, The Chicago Tribune, NPR, and The New York Times.

Bio coming soon.

Michael A. Scodro is a partner in the Supreme Court & Appellate Practice at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago, having previously served as the Illinois Solicitor General. Michael teaches courses on the U.S. Supreme Court and the role and practice of state attorneys general as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School, and he speaks regularly on appellate practice and the Supreme Court. A member of the American Law Institute, Michael also serves as president of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association and is a past chair of the ABA’s Council of Appellate Lawyers.

After graduating from Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, Michael was a law clerk to Judge José A. Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lawrence “Larry” (Harvard, Univ. of Penn., Brown) is a Senior Partner Emeritus of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He was with BCG for 40 years, serving clients as well as management roles within BCG. He was the head of BCG’s Strategy Practice, as well as Managing Partner for a number of offices within BCG. Since 2019, he has been a Partner at Arcline Investment Management, a Private Equity firm focused on industrial company investment.

Sonya Olds Som serves as Global Managing Partner leading the Legal, Risk, Compliance & Government Affairs practice at DSG Global (Diversified Search Group), a full-service, top ten executive search firm, and a member of Alto Partners, a global search partnership. Her clients run the gamut from global Fortune 500 corporations to small, emerging companies seeking senior executives and board directors for critical positions, and she is often called upon to advise on leadership, succession planning and other issues as these clients grow and develop. In addition to regularly writing and being interviewed by the media, Sonya has (co)developed and (co)led many key initiatives and events nationwide focused on advancing leadership in the legal industry and beyond.

Sonya is a member of many professional organizations. She serves as an advisor to several organizations, including as a member of the board of Girls Inc. of Chicago and a member of the Kalamazoo College Alumni Engagement Board. Sonya earned her Bachelor’s degree in English at Kalamazoo College and her Juris Doctor degree at Cornell Law School.

Bio coming soon.

Donna Van Eekeren retired from Land O’Frost, Inc. where she served as President and Executive Chairman. Land O’Frost is a family-owned company that manufactures, packages, sells, and distributes branded luncheon meat and sausage products to all of the major grocery chains across the country.

Donna is a member of The Committee of 200, The Economic Club, and The Chicago Network. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Lyric Opera of Chicago as well as Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center Board.  She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of WTTW/WFMT. Donna has four children, her husband, Dale Connelly, has two, and together they have thirteen grandchildren.

Ivy (Ph.D., Yale University) is Associate Professor of English at Northwestern University, where he teaches courses on the comparative literatures of the black diaspora and U.S. literary studies with a particular emphasis on African American culture. He is a member of the American Writers Museum’s curating team.