The 28th Annual Brandeis National Committee, Phoenix Chapter, Book & Author Luncheon will take place on Monday, March 12 from 9 am-3:30 pm at The Sheraton Grand Phoenix at 340 N. Third St. in downtown Phoenix. There will be a panel of five bestselling authors featured: Tina Brown (The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983‐1992), A.J. Finn (The Woman in the Window), Kristin Hannah (The Great Alone), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage) and Steven J. Ross (Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America). The moderator for this event will be Lindsey Reiser, weekend news anchor at CBS 5 News.
Proceeds from the event, Brandeis Phoenix Chapter’s major fundraiser, will benefit the Sustaining the Mind Fund for research and scholarships in Neurodegenerative Diseases at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
At the luncheon, the attendees will have an opportunity to meet and listen to the authors, purchase books and have them personalized. An added attraction for this event is the presence of a dozen vendors at the Boutiques section, which is open to the public.
The Book & Author Luncheon ticket is $125 with a $5 credit toward book purchases the day of the event. For more information, contact Carol Abrams, event chair at 480‐442‐9623 or bncphxba@gmail.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Tina Brown – The Vanity Fair Diaries 1983-1992
• Tina was born in Maidenhead, England, in 1953. She graduated from Oxford University.
• Born a British citizen, she became a United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in
1984 to edit Vanity Fair. She is legally titled Lady Evans.
• She is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk‐show host and author of The Diana
Chronicles, the bestselling biography of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Editor‐in‐chief of Tattler magazine at the age of 25, she rose to prominence in the American media industry as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992 and of The New Yorker from 1992 to 1998.
• Tina has been honored with four George Polk Awards, five Overseas Press Club awards and ten National Magazine Awards.
• She was a television hostess/interviewer of “Topic A,” a cultural and political television show, for CNBC.
• In October 2008, she co‐founded and edited The Daily Beast.
• She launched Women in the World Summit to tell the stories of achievers and inspire women in all areas across the globe.
• Her latest book is a memoir as the publisher of Vanity Fair.
A.J. Finn (aka Dan Mallory) – The Woman in the Window
• Dan Mallory is VP and executive editor of William Morrow.
• To distinguish between his roles as publisher and his role as author, Mallory will release his novel under a pseudonym.
• He has written for numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington
Post, and The Times Literary Supplement.
• A native New Yorker, he lived in England for ten years before returning to New York City.
• A “taut and twisty thriller,” the book’s set‐up recalls one of the Hitchcock’s classic films,
“Rear Window.”
• This debut novel has been sold worldwide and will be available in 36 languages. The advance for this mystery was reportedly 7 figures. It is in development by Fox as a major motion picture.
Kristin Hannah – The Great Alone
• Kristin is a former lawyer‐turned-writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii with her husband.
• She began her writing career as a young mother and has never looked back.
• Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together.
•The Nightingale, her previous novel, was voted a best book of the year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, iTunes, Library Journal, Paste, The Wall Street Journal and The Week.
• The Nightingale was on the New York Times bestseller list for 20 weeks and on the NPR Hardback Fiction Bestseller list for 45 weeks.
• Published in 39 languages, The Nightingale is under development by Tri‐Star pictures.
• Kristin’s new book will have an initial printing of 1,000,000 copies.
Tayari Jones – An American Marriage
• Tayari is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University.
• Her first novel, the Atlanta Child Murders, was written as a graduate student at ASU and won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for debut fiction.
• She was a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional
Black Caucus Foundation, a United States Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship and a Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship.
• Booksellers named her 2011 novel, Silver Sparrow, a #1 Indie Next Pick. In 2016 it was added to the NEA’s Big Read Library of classics.
• Currently, an Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers‐Newark University, Tayari
has taught creative writing at the University of Illinois and George Washington University.
• She is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling and Silver Sparrow.
Steven Ross – Hitler in Los Angeles
• Professor of History at USC with degrees from Columbia, Oxford and Princeton Universities.
• Steven received a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a Film Scholars Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences – the academic equivalent of an Oscar for his book Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics.
• He has appeared on “The Today Show,” “ABC Evening News,” “Nightline,” CNN’s “American Morning” and “The Situation Room,” Fox News, NBC News and programs broadcast on Canadian, British, French, Swiss, German and Australian television – as well as numerous documentaries about Hollywood.
• He has lectured at universities throughout the United States, England, France, New Zealand
and Australia.
• In addition to his academic day job, he directs the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish
Role in American Life.
• Steven’s new book is considered “a true‐life thriller about an episode [in history] that has been
completely ignored.”
