Allen Weinstein was a college professor, historian, author, and international envoy. From 1985 to 2003, he served as president of The Center for Democracy, a nonprofit foundation he created in 1985 to promote and strengthen the democratic process, based in Washington, DC. His international public service activities include chairing the Center’s election observation delegations in El Salvador (1991), Nicaragua (1989-90, 1996), Panama (1988-89), the Philippines (1985-86), and Russia (1991, 1996, 2000).

Professor Weinstein’s international awards included the United Nations Peace Medal (1986) and The Council of Europe’s Silver Medal (twice, in 1990 and 1996), presented by its Parliamentary Assembly. His other awards and fellowships included two Senior Fulbright Lectureships, an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, the Commonwealth Fund Lectureship at the University of London, and a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship.

He was University Professor and professor of history at Boston University from 1985 to 1989, University Professor at Georgetown University from 1981 to 1984, and from 1981 to 1983, executive editor of The Washington Quarterly at Georgetown’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as a member of The Washington Post editorial staff in 1981. From 1966 to 1981 he was professor of history at Smith College and chairman of its American studies program. In 1984 he served as president of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. From 1982 to 1984 he directed the research study that led to creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and was acting president of the endowment. He also held visiting professorships at Brown, Columbia, and George Washington universities.

Weinstein’s books include The Story of America; The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era; Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, which received several citations including an American Book Award nomination; Freedom and Crisis: An American History; Between the Wars: American Foreign Policy from Versailles to Pearl Harbor; Prelude to Populism; and among edited collections, Conflict in America; American Negro Slavery; American Themes: Essays in Historiography; and Truman and the American Commitment to Israel.

Weinstein’s articles and essays have appeared in numerous popular and scholarly publications as well as mainstream newspapers and magazines. His television credits include that of historical consultant on two History Channel programs on Soviet espionage (1998-99) and the 1988-89 PBS series Face-to-Face: Conversations on the U.S.-Soviet Summitry (co-host, editor and writer). He was a frequent commentator on CNN, C-SPAN, and other networks. Source – United States Archive

Jane Urquhart is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool (published 1986), gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France’s prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General’s Literary Award.

Josef Škvorecký CM was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980.

Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, DBE, FRSL is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer. Drabble’s books include The Millstone, which won the following year’s John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and Jerusalem the Golden, which won the 1967 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

uala Ni Dhomhnaill is one of the most prominent poets writing in the Irish language today. Her poetry has been translated into English by a number of well-known Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, and Paul Muldoon. Irish themes, including language, are central to her poetry and range from ancient myths to small details of contemporary life. Her first collection was published in 1981, and the translation Selected Poems: Rogha Danta appeared in 1986. Her works have since been translated into Italian, Japanese, and Turkish.

Shawn K. Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He has served as the Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program (2003–06), Chair of the Department of English (1997–2002), and Director of the Creative Writing Program (1995–97) at the University of Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1984 and teaches courses covering critical theory, Asian American studies, which he is considered a pioneer in, and fiction writing.