Allegra Goodman’s latest book is This Is Not About Us. Her novels include Isola (a Reese’s Book Club selection), Sam (a Read with Jenna Book Club selection), The Chalk Artist (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award), Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and fellowships from MacDowell and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives here in Cambridge.

*photo by Joshua Meyer

As a singer, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and producer, Jason Narducy is best known for his work with Bob Mould and Superchunk, as well as touring with Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices) and Sunny Day Real Estate, and performing with The Pretenders, Liz Phair, Eddie Vedder, REM, and many more. Jason's first band, Verböten, was featured in Foo Fighter's HBO series Sonic Highways and in Dave Grohl's NYT best selling book, Storyteller. A musical based on Verböten (featuring music by Jason) opened in Chicago in 2020 to rave reviews, sold out performances, and is currently being re-worked for a film adaptation. Jason's current solo project, Split Single, has three albums out -- and he's just released his first book, Mostly The Van - a collection of stories about his life as a working musician.

*photo by Lauren Krohn

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of six novels -- Night Watch (awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the National Book Award), Quiet Dell, Lark And Termite (finalist for the National  Book Award, the NBCC, and the Prix de Medici Etranger), MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine Dreams (NBCC finalist and 1984's NYT Best Book of the Year), and two widely anthologized collections of stories, Fast Lanes and Black Tickets (winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction). Her new “writer’s memoir,” Small Town Girls, comes out from Knopf in April 2026. A member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, she lives in Boston and New York.

*photo by Cyrus Cassells

Grammy nominated, vocalist extraordinaire 
Debo Ray is an immersive musical and visual experience. She has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages: Newport and Monterey Jazz, Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center and more. Her versatility from Neo-Soul/R&B to Jazz, Pop, Classical/opera and Rock is unmatched. In a Boston Globe feature, music critic Jon Garelick asks: “Is there anything Debo Ray can’t sing?” Jed Gottlieb of the Boston Herald writes, “Whatever the song, whatever the sound, it’s time for Boston (and the nation) to follow Ray…” At Earfull, Debo will be performing contemporary R&B & Neo-Soul music from her debut album, Debo Ray, and recently released EP with guitarist Scott Tarulli.

*photo by Alissa Wyle