Featured Speakers

General Session I

Leanne Morgan

Leanne Morgan, a veteran of the comedy community, is having a huge moment with the release of her first Netflix special, Leanne Morgan: I’m Every Woman, which premiered April 11, 2023, to amazing reviews and viewership. Her special was in the Top 10 on Netflix and is one of the highest watched specials on the platform in 2023. She is currently on her sold-out theater and arena standup tour called, Just Getting Started, and will next be seen on screen in the Amazon Prime feature, You’re Cordially Invited, starring alongside Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. Her first book, What in the World?, is set to be published by Random House/Convergent on September 24, 2024.

General Session II

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work for President Lyndon B. Johnson launched her career as a presidential historian. Her first book was Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She followed up with the Pulitzer Prize–winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World War II. She earned the Lincoln Prize for Team of Rivals, in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, and the Carnegie Medal for The Bully Pulpit, about the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Her last book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times was the inspiration for the History Channel docuseries on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt, which she executive produced. Her upcoming book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, will be published in April 2024.

General Session III

George Takei

George Takei is a civil rights activist, social media superstar, Grammy-nominated recording artist, New York Times bestselling author, and pioneering actor whose career has spanned six decades. He has appeared in more than 40 feature films and hundreds of TV roles, most famously as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek, and he has used his success as a platform to fight for social justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and marriage equality. His advocacy is personal: during World War II, George spent his childhood unjustly imprisoned in U.S. incarceration camps along with more than 125,000 other Japanese Americans.

In conversation with Kathy Ishizuka, the Editor in Chief of the School Library Journal, Takei will discuss his new children’s book, My Lost Freedom.