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Marcus Zusak, author of "The Underdog," "Fighting Ruben Wolfe," "Getting the Girl," and "I Am the Messenger," which won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award for Older Readers.

E. Ethelbert Miller, poet; director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, chair of the Washington D.C. Humanities Council. His last book was "How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love."

Edward Hirsch, author of six books of poems and three books of prose, including the recent "Poet's Choice" (Harcourt). He has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Prix de Rome, and a MacArthur Fellowship, and is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Linda Pastan, author of 11 volumes of poetry, most recently "Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998" and "The Last Uncle." She was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1995 and was on the staff of the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference for 20 years. Her upcoming book is called "Queen of a Rainy Country" (Norton October 2006).