Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he created and popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories.&nbsp;
Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University, where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson.&nbsp;
Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920).&nbsp;
The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. He wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire to maintain his affluent lifestyle. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway.&nbsp;
His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, some literary critics now hailed The Great Gatsby as the "Great American Novel." Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel; Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works amid the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940 at 44. After Fitzgerald's death, his friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941).

Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. In addition to his most recent book, Competing Against Luck, he is the author of nine books, including several New York Times bestsellers The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, Disrupting Class, and most recently 'How Will You Measure Your Life?'.&nbsp;
Christensen is the co-founder of Innosight, a growth-strategy consultancy; Rose Park Advisors, an investment firm; and the Christensen Institute, a non-profit think tank. In 2011 and 2013, he was named the world’s most influential business thinker by Thinkers50.

Clayton

Amy Whitaker is a writer, artist, and researcher working at the intersections of business, politics, and art. She is an assistant professor at NYU in visual arts administration and the author of two books, Art Thinking and Museum Legs. Amy's research on fractional equity for artists has been featured in Artsy, The Art Newspaper, and Artforum. Her general work has been featured in the Financial Times, Boston Globe, Atlantic, Harpers, Inside HigherEd, and many other outlets.&nbsp;
She has spoken widely including at the Rhode Island School of Design, University of Minnesota Duluth, Google, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Fast Company Innovation Festival, the Barnes Foundation, the Conference Malmo (Sweden), The Next Web (Amsterdam), and TEDx. Amy has taught the business to artists and art to business people for more than fifteen years--since she was studying for her MFA in painting after already having an MBA.&nbsp;
She has taught in the original Trade School and at Trade School at the Whitney and Museum of Arts and Design. She taught Stock Market Basics outdoors at the original Occupy Wall Street. She taught studio art and design classes, in business, at RISD, the School of Visual Arts, Williams College, and California College of the Arts. She also used to lead the Principles of Business course at the Sotheby's Institute. Amy is trained as a painter.&nbsp;
Collector Charles Saatchi commended her large-scale group portraits by professional affiliation, and a curator of a large London museum collected her print Museum Director Action Heroes. She also wrote "Amy Whitaker Invites Six Investment Bankers," in which she invited lawyers and economists to make artwork for a group show. Starting with Art Thinking, she has illustrated her own books with line drawings.
Amy began her career in art museums, including the Guggenheim, MoMA, and Tate. She has also worked for the artist Jenny Holzer and for the finance companies Locus Analytics and D.E. Shaw &amp; Co., L.P., one of the largest investment firms in the world. She is named on Locus patents for economic classification systems and also holds a Series 7 license.

Stewart Brand is an American writer best known as the editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded several organizations, including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation. He is the author of several books, most recently Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
Brand was born in Rockford, Illinois, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He studied biology at Stanford University, graduating in 1960. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, he was a parachutist and taught infantry skills; he later expressed that his military experience had fostered his competence in organizing. A civilian again in 1962, he studied design at San Francisco Art Institute, photography at San Francisco State College, and participated in a legitimate scientific study of then-legal LSD in Menlo Park, California. In 1966, he married mathematician Lois Jennings, an Ottawa Native American.
Brand has lived in California since the 1960s. He and his second wife live on Mirene, a 64-foot (20 m)-long working tugboat. Built-in 1912, the boat is moored in a former shipyard in Sausalito, California. In addition, he works in Mary Heartline, a grounded fishing boat about 100 yards (90 meters) away. One of his favorite items is a table on which Otis Redding is said to have written "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." (Brand acquired it from an antique dealer in Sausalito.)
By the mid-1960s, Brand became associated with New York multimedia group USCO and Bay Area author Ken Kesey and his "Merry Pranksters." Brand co-produced the Trips Festival, an early effort involving rock music and light shows, in San Francisco with Kesey and Ramón Sender Barayón. This was one of the first venues at which the Grateful Dead performed in San Francisco. About 10,000 hippies attended, and Haight-Ashbury soon emerged as a community. Tom Wolfe describes Brand in his 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
The Whole Earth Catalog implied an ideal of human progress that depended on decentralized, personal, and liberating technological development—so‑called "soft technology." However, in 2005 he criticized aspects of the international environmental ideology he had helped to develop. He wrote an article called "Environmental Heresies" in the May 2005 issue of the MIT Technology Review, in which he describes what he considers necessary changes to environmentalism. He suggested, among other things, that environmentalists embrace nuclear power and genetically modified organisms as technologies with more promise than risk.
Brand later developed these ideas into a book and published the Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto in 2009. The book examines how urbanization, nuclear power, genetic engineering, geoengineering, and wildlife restoration can be powerful tools in humanity's ongoing fight against global warming. In a 2019 interview, Brand described his perspective as "post-libertarian," indicating that when the Whole Earth Catalog was being written, he did not fully understand the significance of the government's role in developing technology and engineering. In his environmental position, he self-describes as an "Eco-pragmatist."

Stewart

David Lynch is a highly acclaimed and influential filmmaker, television director, visual artist, and musician from America. He was born in 1946 in Missoula, Montana, and began his career as a painter, studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He later transitioned into filmmaking, studying at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
Lynch is known for his unique and often surreal style, blending elements of horror, fantasy, and dark comedy in his work. His first feature film, "Eraserhead," was released in 1977 and received critical acclaim for its nightmarish imagery and unconventional narrative. This was followed by the cult classic "The Elephant Man" (1980), which earned Lynch his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
Lynch's most famous work is probably "Blue Velvet" (1986), a dark crime thriller that explores the seedy underbelly of small-town America. The film was a commercial and critical success and is considered a masterpiece of modern cinema. He also directed one of the most influential and acclaimed television series of all time, "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991) which was followed by a feature film "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" (1992)
In addition to his film and television work, Lynch is also a successful visual artist, with his work being exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He is also a musician, releasing several albums of experimental electronic music.
David Lynch is a truly unique and visionary filmmaker who has left a lasting impact on the world of cinema. His style is often described as "Lynchian," a term that refers to his use of dreamlike, surreal imagery and non-linear storytelling. He is known for his ability to create a sense of unease and disorientation in his audience, and his films often explore themes of violence, sexuality, and the darker aspects of human nature.
One of Lynch's most notable contributions to the cinema is his use of sound and music. He often collaborates with composer Angelo Badalamenti, who creates haunting and atmospheric scores that perfectly complement Lynch's visuals. Lynch is also known for his use of sound effects, which he often blends together in unexpected ways to create a sense of unease and disorientation.
Lynch's influence can be seen in many contemporary filmmakers, such as David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers, all of whom have cited Lynch as an inspiration. His work is also highly respected by other filmmakers and artists, such as Lars von Trier, Gaspar Noé, and Stanley Kubrick, to name a few.
In addition to his work in film and television, Lynch is also a highly regarded visual artist, with his work being exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He has also released several albums of experimental electronic music, and his music often reflects the same sense of unease and disorientation that is present in his films.
Overall, David Lynch is a true artist whose work pushes the boundaries of what is possible in the medium of film and television and continues to inspire and influence filmmakers and audiences alike.

David

Michael Bierut is an American graphic designer, author, and educator. His career in graphic design began in the 1980s when he began working at Vignelli Associates, a New York-based design firm. In 1990, he joined Pentagram as a partner in the firm's New York office. At Pentagram, Bierut works on many projects, including branding, packaging, and environmental design, for clients such as Saks Fifth Avenue, The New York Times, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Throughout his career, Bierut has also been a frequent speaker and author on design-related topics. He has written for publications such as Print, Communication Arts, and Eye and has been a regular contributor to the design website Design Observer. He has also taught at the Yale School of Art and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Michael Bierut has received numerous awards and accolades throughout his career as a graphic designer. Some of his notable awards include:
<ul>
<li>AIGA Medal: The highest honor given by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), which recognizes exceptional achievements in the field of graphic design.</li>
<li>Smithsonian National Design Award for Communication Design: Presented by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in recognition of outstanding communication design achievements.</li>
<li>Type Directors Club Medal: Presented by the Type Directors Club in recognition of outstanding achievement in typography.</li>
<li>Gold Medal from the Society of Publication Designers: Presented in recognition of outstanding design in magazine and newspaper design.</li>
<li>Gold Medal from the Art Directors Club of New York: Presented in recognition of outstanding design in advertising and graphic design.</li>
<li>Gold Medal from the New York Type Directors Club: Presented in recognition of outstanding achievement in typography.</li>
<li>The Design Mind Award: Presented by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum for his exceptional work in design and his contributions to the design community</li>
</ul>
Bierut has also been honored with several lifetime achievement awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Type Directors Club, and the Graphic Design USA awards. He is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).
Bierut has also been involved in several other design-related ventures, such as co-founding the design education non-profit Design Observer and serving on the board of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Type Directors Club.

Michael

Blake Snyder (October 3, 1957 – August 4, 2009) was an American screenwriter, consultant, author, and educator based in Los Angeles who, through his Save the Cat trilogy of books on screenwriting and story structures, became one of the most popular writing mentors in the film industry. Snyder led international seminars and workshops for writers in various disciplines and consultation sessions for some of Hollywood's largest studios.
Snyder died unexpectedly on August 4, 2009, of what was characterized as either a pulmonary embolism or cardiac arrest. A public memorial was held at the Writers Guild of America, West, on September 29, 2009.
Snyder's father, Kenneth C. T. Snyder, was an Emmy-winning TV producer of many children's shows in the 1960s and 1970s. Among them were The Funny Company, Hot Wheels, animated segments on Sesame Street, Big Blue Marble, and Roger Ramjet.
At the age of eight, Snyder was hired by his father as a voice talent for an animated special starring Sterling Holloway. Snyder continued doing children's voices alongside Gary Owens, June Foray, and others until his voice changed, and his producer father fired him.
Snyder went on to earn a B.A. degree in English from Georgetown University and returned to Los Angeles, where he began his career writing for the Disney TV series Kids Incorporated. Snyder began writing full-time as a screenwriter in 1987. He was a member of the Writers Guild of America for over 20 years.
Snyder's first spec screenplay sale was in 1989 for the script Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which sold for $500,000 in a bidding war. Million-dollar script sales include Blank Check, co-written with Colby Carr for Walt Disney Pictures, and Nuclear Family, co-written with James Haggin for Amblin Entertainment.
Snyder's nonfiction book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need was the number one-selling book among screenwriting manuals on Amazon, and 2018 is on its 34th printing. The book describes in detail the structure of the monomyth or hero's journey, providing a by-the-minute pattern for screenwriting.

Blake

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award.&nbsp;
She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends." Giovanni gained initial fame in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement of the period, her early work provides a strong, militant African-American perspective, leading one writer to dub her the "Poet of the Black Revolution."&nbsp;
During the 1970s, she began writing children's literature and co-founded a publishing company, NikTom Ltd, to provide an outlet for other African-American women writers. Over subsequent decades, her works discussed social issues, human relationships, and hip-hop. Poems such as "Knoxville, Tennessee" and "Nikki-Rosa" have been frequently re-published in anthologies and other collections.
Giovanni has received numerous awards and holds 27 honorary degrees from various colleges and universities. She has also been given the key to over two dozen cities. Giovanni has been honored with the NAACP Image Award seven times. One of her more unique honors was having a South American bat species, Micronycteris giovanniae, named after her in 2007.
Giovanni is proud of her Appalachian roots and works to change the way the world views Appalachians and Affrilachians. Giovanni has taught at Queens College, Rutgers, and Ohio State and was a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech until September 1, 2022. Following the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, she delivered a chant poem at a memorial for the shooting victims.
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Yolande Cornelia Sr. and Jones "Gus" Giovanni. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her parents worked at Glenview School. In 1948, the family moved to Wyoming, Ohio, and sometimes in those first three years, Giovanni's sister, Gary, began calling her "Nikki." In 1958, Giovanni moved to Knoxville, TN, to live with her grandparents and attend Austin High School.
In 1960, she began her studies at her grandfather's alma mater, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, as an "Early Entrant," which meant that she could enroll in college without having finished high school first. She immediately clashed with the Dean of Women, Ann Cheatam, and was expelled after neglecting to obtain the required permission from the Dean to leave campus and travel home for Thanksgiving break. Giovanni moved back to Knoxville, where she worked at a Walgreens drug store and helped care for her nephew, Christopher.&nbsp;
In 1964, Giovanni spoke with the new Dean of Women at Fisk University, Blanche McConnell Cowan ("Jackie"), who urged her to return to Fisk that fall. While at Fisk, Giovanni edited a student literary journal (titled Élan), reinstated the campus chapter of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), and published an essay in Negro Digest on gender questions in the Movement. In 1967, she graduated with honors with a B.A. degree in history.
Soon after graduation, she suffered the loss of her grandmother, Louvenia Watson, and turned to writing to cope with her death. These poems would later be included in her collection Black Feelings, Black Talk. In 1968, Giovanni attended a semester at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work toward an MSW and then moved to New York City. She briefly attended Columbia University School of the Arts toward an MFA in poetry and privately published Black Feeling, Black Talk.&nbsp;

Nikki

A breakout literary phenomenon and #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, Rupi Kaur wrote, illustrated, and self-published her first poetry collection, 'milk and honey' in 2014. Next came its artistic sibling, 'the sun and her flowers', in 2017. These collections have sold more than 10 million copies and have been translated into over 40 languages. Her latest poetry collection, 'home body', debuted at #1 on bestseller lists across the world. As she has done from the very beginning, Rupi self-produced Rupi Kaur Live, the first poetry special of its kind, which debuted on Amazon Prime Video in 2021.&nbsp;
Rupi Kaur has also graced the stage across the globe on world tours, performing her poetry across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, Europe, and more. Intertwined with visuals, music, comedy, and anecdotes, Rupi performs her classic poems and unpublished pieces, tailoring each show to the city she visits.&nbsp;
Rupi’s work touches on love, loss, trauma, healing, femininity, and migration. She feels most at home when creating art, performing her poetry onstage, and spending time with family and friends.

Rupi

Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackle "unexpected themes that range far beyond the traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication."&nbsp;
His shows address "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience," with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life. He was known for his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine on the Broadway stage. Sondheim's interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II.&nbsp;
He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987).
Sondheim's numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, an Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in London's West End. Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story (1961), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), and West Side Story (2021).
Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, into a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Etta Janet ("Foxy"; née Fox; 1897–1992) and Herbert Sondheim (1895–1966). His paternal grandparents, Isaac and Rosa, were German Jews, and his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius. His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania.&nbsp;
The only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, he was described in Meryle Secrest's biography Stephen Sondheim: A Life as an isolated, emotionally neglected child. Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School when he lived in New York City. He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin. His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940.
&nbsp;From 1942 to 1947, he attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical, By George, in 1946. From 1946 to 1950, Sondheim attended Williams College. He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize, a two-year fellowship to study music. Sondheim traced his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine.&nbsp;
"The curtain went up and revealed a piano," Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling." Sondheim detested his mother, who was said to be psychologically abusive and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son: "When my father left her, she substituted me for him.&nbsp;
And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt but come on to me at the same time." She once wrote him a letter saying that her only regret was giving birth to him. When she died in 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. He had been estranged from her for nearly 20 years.

Stephen

Alicia Keys is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and actress. She was born on January 25, 1981, in Manhattan, New York City, and began playing the piano at the age of seven.
Keys began her music career in the late 1990s and early 2000s, releasing her debut album, "Songs in A Minor," in 2001. The album was a commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide and winning five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Fallin'."
In addition to her successful music career, Keys is also known for her activism and philanthropy. She is the co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, an organization that provides medication and healthcare to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. She is also a member of the board of directors for the Harlem Children's Zone. This non-profit organization provides education and support services to children and families in Harlem, New York.
Keys has also acted in several films, including "The Nanny Diaries" (2007) and "Smokin' Aces" (2006). She also made guest appearances in several TV shows.
Alicia Keys has won numerous awards throughout her career. In addition to the five Grammy Awards she won for her debut album "Songs in A Minor," she has won a total of 15 Grammys, including Best R&amp;B Album for "The Diary of Alicia Keys" (2004) and "As I Am" (2008), and Best R&amp;B Song for "No One" (2008).
She has also won numerous other awards, including multiple BET Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, and American Music Awards. Keys has also been honored with several humanitarian awards for her work with Keep a Child Alive and other charitable organizations.
In addition to her music awards, Keys has received numerous accolades for her activism and philanthropy. She was honored with the "Keep A Child Alive Black Ball Award" in 2007 and was named one of Glamour magazine's "Women of the Year" in 2008.
In 2013, Keys was honored with the "Billboard Women in Music's Powerhouse Award." In 2019 she received an award from the "She Is the Music" organization which works to empower female songwriters, composers, and producers.
It's worth mentioning that her recognition goes beyond the music industry. She has also been honored by various organizations for her philanthropy and activism, such as the "Keep A Child Alive Black Ball Award" in 2007 and the "Harlem School of Arts Visionary Leadership Award" in 2010.
Keys continues to be one of the most successful and respected musicians of her generation and has sold over 65 million records worldwide. She is also known for her powerful and soulful voice, as well as her skillful piano playing. She continues to release albums, tour, and do philanthropic work and activism.

Alicia

Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican filmmaker best known for his dark yet romantic fantasy films, such as Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. Born in 1964 in Guadalajara, Mexico, del Toro began his career in the early 1990s, directing Mexican horror films such as Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone. By the early 2000s, del Toro had achieved widespread fame in the United States, thanks to the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, which earned him an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.&nbsp;
Since then, del Toro has directed a number of films with varying degrees of success. His most notable works include Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pacific Rim, and Crimson Peak. His latest film, The Shape of Water, was one of the most acclaimed films of 2017, winning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.&nbsp;
In addition to directing films, del Toro is also a prolific producer, having produced films such as The Orphanage and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. He has also written a number of books and graphic novels, including The Strain trilogy and Trollhunters. He has also worked as a consultant and executive producer on a number of video games, most notably the critically-acclaimed 2017 title Shadow of the Colossus.
In 2018, del Toro was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, and his films are praised for their originality, rich visuals, and complex themes. Del Toro’s films are often seen as a reflection of his own life and experiences, and he is known for his strong commitment to the use of practical effects and a detailed approach to world-building.
In addition to filmmaking, del Toro is also an avid collector of horror memorabilia and is a vocal supporter of independent Mexican cinema. He has also been involved in various humanitarian initiatives, such as producing a short film, Six Stories, to raise awareness of the plight of Mexican immigrants in the United States.&nbsp;
Del Toro is a passionate advocate of the use of practical effects in films and frequently uses his own money to fund special effects for his films. He is also a strong advocate of the use of 3D technology in film and believes that it is a powerful and useful tool for storytelling.

Guillermo

Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood, and How Should a Person Be? She recently published her second children’s book, A Garden of Creatures, illustrated by Esme Shapiro. In early 2024, Alphabetical Diaries will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Knopf Canada.
The book, which was excerpted over 10 weeks in the New York Times, has been optioned for a television series by Hulu. This fall, she is in residence at Yale as the Franke Visiting Fellow and as Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Religious Studies.&nbsp;
She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times, a list of fifteen writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages.&nbsp;
Motherhood was chosen by the book critics in the New York Times as one of the top books of 2018, and New York magazine chose it as the Best Book of the year. How Should a Person Be? was named one of the 12 “New Classics of the 21st century” by Vulture. It was a New York Times Notable Book, the best book of the year in The New Yorker, and was cited by Time as "one of the most talked-about books of the year.” Pure Colour is the recipient of the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction.
Women in Clothes, a collaboration with Leanne Shapton, Heidi Julavits, and 639 women from around the world, became a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of a children’s book titled We Need a Horse, with art by Clare Rojas. Her play, All Our Happy Days are Stupid, had sold-out runs at The Kitchen in New York and Videofag in Toronto.&nbsp;
She was Interviews Editor at The Believer magazine and has conducted many long-form print interviews with writers and artists, including Joan Didion, Elena Ferrante, Agnes Varda, Sophie Calle, Dave Hickey, and John Currin. Her fiction and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Bookforum, n+1, Granta, The London Review of Books, and elsewhere.&nbsp;
A six-hour writing class and lecture, delivered in the Spring of 2021, can be purchased through the Shipman agency. She is the founder of the Trampoline Hall lecture series and appeared in Margaux Williamson’s 2012 film Teenager Hamlet and in Leanne Shapton’s book, Important Artifacts. She lives in Toronto and Kawartha Lakes, Ontario.

Sheila

Herbert Ypma is a bestselling author and photographer whose groundbreaking HIP Hotels series inspired an entirely new genre of travel publishing. His many other books include RSVP: Simple Sophistication, Effortless Entertaining, and Amazing Places Cost Nothing.

Herbert

Jessica Hische is a graphic designer, illustrator, and author based in San Francisco. She is best known for her hand lettering, typography, and illustration work in the design and advertising industry.
Hische began her career as a freelance designer in 2005, working with various clients on various design projects. She quickly gained recognition for her unique and elegant hand lettering style, and her work began to be featured in publications such as Communication Arts, Print, and HOW magazine.
In addition to her design work, Hische is also an accomplished author. She has written several books on design and typography, including "In Progress: See Inside a Lettering Artist's Sketchbook and Process, from Pencil to Vector" and "Tomorrow I'll Be Brave." Both books offer a glimpse into Hische's creative process and provide valuable insights and tips for designers and illustrators.
Hische has also been a guest speaker at several design conferences and events, sharing her knowledge and experience with other designers and creative professionals. She is also known for her "Daily Drop Cap" project, a series of illustrated letters she created and shared daily on her website.
Overall, Jessica Hische is a highly respected and accomplished designer, illustrator, and author, known for her beautiful hand lettering and typography work. Her unique style, attention to detail, and dedication to her craft have earned her a reputation as one of the industry's most talented and influential designers.

Jessica

Helen Hennessy Vendler (born April 30, 1933) is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University. Helen Hennessy Vendler was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 30, 1933, to George Hennessy and Helen née Newman Hennessy.  She was the second of three children. Her parents encouraged her to read poems as a child.&nbsp;
Vendler's father taught Spanish, French, and Italian at a high school, while her mother had taught in a primary school before marriage. Vendler attended Emmanuel College over the Boston Girls' Latin School and Radcliffe College because her parents would not let her enroll in "secular education." She received an A. B. from Emmanuel.
Vendler was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, attending the Université catholique de Louvain from 1954 to 1955 for mathematics. But while traveling to the university, she decided that she would rather study English than math, and the Fulbright commission allowed her to switch her focus to literature. Upon returning to the U.S., Vendler took 12 undergraduate courses in English at Boston University in a year and 1956, entered Harvard University as a graduate student in English.&nbsp;
The department's chair told her within a week of entry that "we don't want any women here." At the same time, Perry Miller refused her entry in a seminar he led on Herman Melville despite viewing her as his "finest student," according to The New York Times. Other Harvard professors offered her more support, notably I. A. Richards. Vendler was offered a job teaching in Harvard's English department in 1959, making her the first woman the department offered a job as an instructor. She declined.
Vendler graduated with a Ph.D. in English and American literature the next year. She began teaching English at Cornell University in 1960, after her husband at the time, Zeno Vendler, moved to teach there. She left Cornell in 1963 and spent several years at various other institutions, including a year (1963-1964) teaching at Haverford College and Swarthmore College, two years (1964-1966) as an assistant professor at Boston University, and another two (1966-1968) as full professor.&nbsp;
Vendler spent a year as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Bordeaux. After this, she was Boston University's director of graduate studies in the English department from 1970 to 1975 and again from 1978 to 1979. Vendler has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; from 1981 to 1984, she taught alternating semesters at Harvard and Boston University. She has said that she retained her affiliation with BU for several years to ensure that she wasn't "some little token person" at Harvard.&nbsp;
In 1985, Vendler was named the William R. Kenan Professor of English and American Literature and Language. From 1987 to 1992, she served as associate dean of arts and sciences. In 1990, she was appointed the A—Kingsley Porter University Professor,  the first woman to hold this position. In 1992, Vendler received an honorary Litt. D. from Bates College.
Vendler delivered the 2000 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Her lecture, "The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar," used poems by Wallace Stevens to argue for the role of the arts (as opposed to history and philosophy) in studying humanities. In 2006, The New York Times called Vendler "the leading poetry critic in America." It credited her work with helping "establish or secure the reputations" of poets, including Jorie Graham, Seamus Heaney, and Rita Dove.
Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She has also been a judge for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1974, 1976, 1978, 1986) and the National Book Award for Poetry (1972).&nbsp;

Helen

Philip

Here are some of the most well-known poems in the English language, chosen for their literary value as well as popularity.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;The following poems date from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century and have the ability to stimulate our intellect and rejuvenate our souls:&nbsp;
When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats, First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, Sonnet XVIII (Shall I compare thee to a summers day?) by William Shakespeare, Holy Sonnet X (Death, be not proud) by John Donne, To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth, Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Children's Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson, O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman, and This Is My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson.

Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur, author, and angel investor. Ravikant's career has focused primarily on technology, startups, and venture capital. He began his career as a software developer and later co-founded several technology companies, including Epinions and Vast.com. In 2010, he co-founded AngelList, a venture capital firm that helps startups raise funding and connect with investors. Under his leadership, AngelList has become one of the industry's most successful and influential venture firms.
Naval Ravikant is the host of the podcast "The Naval Podcast," which is focused on technology, startups, and personal development. The podcast features interviews with a wide variety of guests, including entrepreneurs, investors, authors, and other experts in the technology and startup space. The podcast is known for its deep conversations and insights on topics such as building a successful startup, the future of technology, and how to live a fulfilling life.
The podcast has gained a large following and is known for its unique format, which includes a mix of interviews, monologues, and listener Q&amp;A. The podcast is released regularly and has been running for several years. The podcast has been praised for its thought-provoking and actionable advice, its unique format and the diversity of guests. The podcast is available on most podcast platforms.
Naval Ravikant has also written the book "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant." He has also been a guest on many popular podcasts, sharing his insights on technology, startups, and personal development. He is also an active thinker and influencer on social media, sharing his thoughts on various topics, including technology, business, and personal growth.
Overall, Naval Ravikant's career has been marked by his ability to identify and capitalize on emerging trends in the technology industry and his ability to help startups navigate the challenges of building and scaling a business.

Philip Smith

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