People

Bill Schulz is a former cable news correspondent/co-host, a totally licensed NYC Tour Guide, and longtime contributor for publications including the New York Times, New York magazine, The Daily Beast, Maxim, New York Daily News, and Reader’s Digest. Schulz is also the 7th great-grandson of the Patriot William Dawes. In his words, “Truly, generating publicity for his long-forgotten ancestor/midnight-rider is the ONLY hobby this bitter journalist has.”

A veteran reporter for WBZ-TV News, Bill Shields began his career in journalism as a reporter for KENS-TV in San Antonio, Texas. In 1980, Shields joined WBZ-TV and received New England Emmy Awards for his reporting in 1982 and 1987. Shields now works as a general assignment reporter for the network and lives in the Greater Boston Area. Image: WBZ TV

Bill Thibodeau is the author of a collection of poetry: American Icon and Other Poems. He is a member of the Carpenter Poets of Jamaica Plain: a group of men and women who gather after work once a week at a local pub to share their poetry about their trade and other matters. Bill, along with his fellow carpenter poets, has been featured on PBS, The Hallmark Channel, and in the Boston Globe. As a carpenter, Bill is in demand around Boston's neighborhoods: The South End, Bay Village, Beacon Hill, and the Back Bay where historical accuracy and quality work are equally important.

Billie Grace Lynn earned an MFA in Sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Miami. She has had solo exhibitions of her work in California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and in China, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia, SPACES Gallery in Cleveland, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery and MOCA/Goldman Warehouse in Miami. Billie has also won several awards and fellowships, including a recent South Florida Cultural Consortium grant, and fellowships from Art Matters and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has participated in artist residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Billie Letts is the author of numerous short stories. Her first novel won the Walker Percy Award and the 1996 Oklahoma Book Award. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Dennis. With her prizewinning #1 New York Times bestseller,* Where the Heart Is*, and her acclaimed second novel, *The Honk and Holler Opening Soon*, Billie Letts joined the ranks of America's best-loved storytellers.* Where the Heart Is* was also selected as an Oprah's Book Club pick and Billie tells what it was like to receive the phone call from Oprah in her article, "The Call That Changed My Life."

Billy Bean was born in Santa Ana, California in 1964 and graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1986 with a degree in Business Administration. He played major league baseball from 1987 through 1995, breaking into the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers. Bean tied a major league record with 4 hits in his first major league game. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the San Diego Padres. Billy came out publicly in 1999 on the front page of The New York Times, and subsequently on a nationally televised story with Diane Sawyer. He is the only living former major league baseball player to acknowledge his homosexuality. Bean is the author of, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball. (Avalon Publishing Group, NYC.)

Billy Bragg is a singer-songwriter and activist inspired by the Clash and politicized by the 1984 miner’s strike. He has released 13 studio albums, authored books on Englishness and lyric writing. Bragg is a regular contributor to the British national debate as a television and radio commentator, and newspaper columnist. Photo: ABC

Billy Collins distinguishes himself through his clear, accessible poetry–and by reinterpreting many traditional poetic forms. His poem "Sonnet" begins "All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now." Collins speaks out against the over-interpretation of poetry, as well as the writing of poetry strictly for an academic audience. As United States Poet Laureate (2001-03), he created a poetry collection called "Poetry 180," a project whose aim was to increase poetry's popularity among teens by exposing them to a meaningful contemporary poem each day of the school year. Although its accessibility is in part responsible for the popularity of Collins's work, humor, irony, and ambiguity also play an important role. The poet Stephen Dunn once wrote of Collins's appeal, "We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going."

Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two short story collections and six novels. She is a professor of fiction writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts.

Binyavanga Wainaina (born 1971) is a Kenyan author, journalist and winner of the Caine Prize. He attended Moi Primary School in Nakuru, Mangu High School in Thika, and Lenana School in Nairobi. He later studied commerce at the University of Transkei in South Africa, after which he worked in Cape Town for some years as a freelance food and travel writer. In July 2002 he won the Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story "Discovering Home". He is the founding editor of *Kwani?*, the first literary magazine in East Africa since *Transition Magazine*. Since its founding, *Kwani?* has since become an important source of new writing from Africa; with several writers having been nominated for, and having won, the Caine Prize subsequently. In 2003, he was given an award by the Kenya Publisher's Association, in recognition of his services to Kenyan Literature. He has written for *The EastAfrican*, *National Geographic*, *The Sunday Times *(South Africa),* Granta*, *the New York Times* and *The Guardian* (UK). In January 2007, Binyavanga Wainaina was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a "Young Global Leader" - an award given to people for "their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world." He subsequently declined the award.

N. Bird Runningwater is the programmer for Native American Initiatives at the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. Before joining the Sundance Institute, Runningwater was based in New York City and served as executive director of the Fund of the Four Directions, the private philanthropy of a Rockefeller family member. Prior to joining the Fund, Runningwater served as program associate in the Ford Foundation's Media, Arts and Culture Program. He is a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's National Fellowship in Public Policy and International Affairs and an alumnus of Americans for Indian Opportunity's Ambassadors Program and the Kellogg Fellows Program.

Birdi Diehl is a radio production assistant for GBH’s All Things Considered. They have interned at C-SPAN Radio and GBH’s All Things Considered. They also are a NPR host, board operator and local news writer for NPR station WDIY 88.1FM.

Blackford Middleton is Director of Clinical Informatics Research & Development, and Chairman of the Center for Information Technology Leadership at Partners Healthcare System, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. As Director for CIRD, he leads product management for the Partners EMR, patient portal, enterprise clinical decision support and knowledge management services, supports enterprise clinical systems strategy development, and conducts clinical informatics research. He was a founder of CITL at Partners in early 2002, and leads its research in value-based technology assessment. In 2004, CITL and CIRD joined the NLM sponsored Boston-area Informatics Research and Training Fellowship Program, where Dr. Middleton serves as Fellowship Program Director for CIRD and CITL NLM Fellows. Dr. Middleton serves on the National Committee of Vital and Health Statistics and also on the Steering Committee of Connecting for Health at the Markle Foundation, the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Aligning Forces for Quality, and several Editorial Boards. Dr. Middleton is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society.

A nationally known speaker on higher education policy issues, Wilson served as the first president and chief executive officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation from 1999 to 2006. The foundation, established in 1998, is New Englands largest public charity dedicated to improving academic achievement for underserved communities. During Wilson's seven-year tenure, the foundation distributed more than $80 million in grants to educational institutions and non-profit organizations to improve access to college. She is also a former chair of the American Association of Higher Education and was the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she served on the board of directors from 2003 to 2006. Wilson currently serves on the boards of trustees of Boston College and Union Theological Seminary, the board of directors of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, the board of directors of Higher Education Resource Services, and the boards of Boston After School and Beyond, Boston College and Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses. She is a director of Medco Health Solutions. Wilson earned a bachelor's degree in English and secondary education at Cedar Crest College, a master's in education at Seton Hall University, and a Ph.D. in higher education administration at Boston College.