Daniel Akst is the author of two novels and three nonfiction books. He has worked at the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Newsday, wrote a column in the New York Times for eight years, and written for many other leading journals on a wide variety of topics. He's taught at Bard College, in the Bard Prison Initiative, and at the University of California (Berkeley), and he served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. For more information, visit www.akst.com.