KEYNOTE BIOGRAPHIES
Andrew Child
Andrew Grant was born in Birmingham, England. He went to school in St Albans, Hertfordshire and later attended the University of Sheffield where he studied English Literature and Drama. After graduation Andrew set up and ran a small independent theatre company which showcased a range of original material to local, regional and national audiences. Following a critically successful but financially challenging appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Andrew moved into the telecommunications industry as a ‘temporary’ solution to a short-term cash crisis. Fifteen years later, after carrying out a variety of roles – including several which were covered by the UK’s Official Secrets Act – Andrew escaped from corporate life, and established himself as the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Even, Die Twice, More Harm Than Good, RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close To Home.
Andrew is married to novelist Tasha Alexander, and the couple live on a nature preserve near Laramie, Wyoming.
The Sentinel: A Jack Reacher Novel
If you don’t have a sense of the danger you’re in, then it’s best to have Jack Reacher.
It is close to midnight on a Saturday night when Jack Reacher gets off a bus at the Greyhound station in Nashville. Reacher is in no hurry. He has no appointments to keep. No people to see. No scores to settle. Not yet anyway.
But in the early morning hours, under particular circumstances, a familiar thought will be snaking through his sharp, instinctual lizard brain:
A voice in his head telling him to walk away.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time he listened to his gut instead.
Meanwhile, seventy-five miles south and west of Music City is a sleepy little town where a recently-fired guy nurses a grudge that will fester into fury—and a desire for payback. But who is watching him, standing guard over a long-buried secret, ready to strike before it can be revealed?
Abigail Dillen
Abigail Dillen is the President of Earthjustice, leading the organization’s staff, board and supporters to advance our mission of using the courts to protect our environment and people’s health. Before stepping into her current role, Abigail served as the Vice President of Litigation for Climate & Energy, heading the organization’s litigation and legal advocacy to achieve the essential shift from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy. Prior to that, Abigail was managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Coal Program, which has played a central role in forcing the overdue retirement of coal-fired power plants around the country.
Abigail received her B.A. from Yale University and her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated Order of the Coif. She has litigated many precedent-setting cases that have held polluters accountable and cleared the way for clean energy nationally. These wins include: requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate first-ever standards to govern disposal of coal ash and limit the wastewater discharge of toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants; blocking a $2 billion transmission project to transport dirty coal energy from the Ohio Valley to East Coast cities; blocking permits for new coal-fired power plants; and cutting off federal funding of new coal plants.
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial “table.” More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on each other or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions, to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, this book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save.
Alka Joshi
Alka Joshi was born in the desert state of Rajasthan in India. In 1967, her family immigrated to America. She earned a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts in San Francisco. Prior to writing The Henna Artist, Alka ran an advertising and marketing agency for 30 years. Currently, she is working on the third book of the trilogy and a screen adaption of The Henna Artist. She has spent time in France and Italy and currently lives with her husband on the Northern California Coast.
The Henna Artist
Escaping from an arranged and abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone from her 1950s rural village to the vibrant pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the henna artist—and confidante—most in demand to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own…
Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.
Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.