For 100 years, Simon & Schuster has led the way as one of the premier book publishers in the United States and around the world.
To celebrate, please join more than thirty renowned authors at New York City's iconic Town Hall auditorium on April 8th for an evening of stories, conversation, memories, laughter—and even song. From beloved children's book authors and illustrators to celebrated biographers, from dazzling debuts to legendary names, Simon & Schuster's literary superstars will showcase the talent, creativity, and joy that they bring to works beloved by millions of readers.
Author! Author!: A Simon & Schuster Centennial Celebration will be held Monday, April 8, 2024, at 7 p.m. Eastern, live and in person at The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, New York, New York. Tickets are available for purchase, both for attending in-person and for streaming. Click here for ticket information!
The many authors in attendance include the following luminaries:
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| Judy Blume (photo: Elena Seibert) |
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Judy Blume, one of America's most popular authors, is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of beloved books for young people, including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and novels for adult readers. She has won the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and she owns a bookstore in Key West, Florida. Her work has been translated into thirty-two languages.
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| Charlamagne Tha God (photo: the Tyler Twins) | |
Charlamagne Tha God is a multimedia mogul best known as cohost of iHeartRadio's The Breakfast Club. He is also CEO of the Black Effect Podcast Network; has his own production company, CThaGod World LLC; and cohosts the podcast The Brilliant Idiots. He has set a standard for being able to interview politicians, cultural e-icons, and celebrities from his unusual point of view and helps drive the national conversation about issues related to hip-hop, race, society, and politics. He is the author of the bestsellers Black Privilege and Shook One. His next book, Get Honest or Die Lying, will be published in May.
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| Laura Dave (photo: Katherine Eskovitz) |
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Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me, Eight Hundred Grapes, and other novels. Her books have been chosen by Reese Witherspoon's Book Club, Book of the Month Club, and the Richard and Judy Book Club. The Last Thing He Told Me is now a limited series on Apple TV+. Her next novel, The Night We Lost Him, will be published in October.
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| Anthony Doerr (photo: Ulf Andersen) |
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Anthony Doerr is the author of the New York Times bestselling Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the Alex Award, and a #1 New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of the story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won five O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize.
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| Sanjay Gupta (photo: CNN/John Nowak) |
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta is CNN's Emmy Award–winning chief medical correspondent and the host of the acclaimed podcast Chasing Life (formerly Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction). Dr. Gupta is America's go-to resource for expert advice on how to stay healthy and safe. The #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War C, Cheating Death, and many other works, Dr. Gupta lives in Atlanta, where he works as an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Emory University School of Medicine.
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| John Irving (photo: Derek O'Donnell) |
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John Irving, whose first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, has published a series of award-winning novels that have been landmarks in American and world literature. His novel The World According to Garp won a National Book Award. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. His all-time bestselling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany. Besides writing, wrestling is a passion for John Irving: he competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached until he was forty-seven.
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| Susan Orlean (photo: Corey Hendrickson) |
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Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992 and is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, and Saturday Night. Her 1998 book, The Orchid Thief, was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in Los Angeles.
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| Jason Reynolds (photo: Adedayo "Dayo" Kosoko) |
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Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and has been honored by a striking range of groups and organizations. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain't Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and Long Way Down. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, published last year, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor.
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| Jeannette Walls (photo: John Taylor) | |
Jeannette Walls, a journalist for many years, published her memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005. It's been a New York Times bestseller for more than eight years, won the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award, and the Books for Better Living Award. Walls also has written three novels: the New York Times bestsellers The Silver Star, Half Broke Horses, and Hang the Moon. Half Broke Horses was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
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| Jesmyn Ward (photo: Beowulf Sheehan) | |
Jesmyn Ward is the historic winner—the first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction, for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She has also received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is also the author of the novels Let Us Descend and Where the Line Bleeds as well as the memoir Men We Reaped.
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| Bob Woodward (photo: Lisa Berg) | |
Bob Woodward is an associate editor at The Washington Post, where he has worked for more than fifty years. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his Watergate coverage and the other for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has authored twenty-one bestselling books, fifteen of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers.