Contributors

David Shenk is an American writer, lecturer, and filmmaker. He is author of six books and has contributed to National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, Gourmet, Harper's, Wired, The New Yorker, New Republic, The Nation, The American Scholar, NPR and PBS. In mid-2009, he joined The Atlantic as a correspondent. He is a 1988 graduate of Brown University.

Michael Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.
Shermer is producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown which was broadcast in 1999. From April 2001 to January 2019, he was a monthly contributor to Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. He is also a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
Shermer was once a fundamentalist Christian, but ceased to believe in the existence of God during his graduate studies. He also describes himself as an advocate for humanist philosophy as well as the science of morality.

Lola Shoneyin has published three collections of poems and a children's book. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is her debut novel. In 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40. Shoneyin is the director of Ake Arts and Book Festival. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Randy Shilts saw himself as a literary journalist in the tradition of Norman Mailer and Truman Capote and was a pioneering voice in raising awareness of gay civil rights issues, as well as the AIDS crisis, and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists' Association in 1993. He found that he was HIV positive in 1987 and died in 1994. He also wrote The Mayor of Castro Street, a biography of Harvey Milk.

Charlotte Shane is a nonfiction author and essayist based in the USA. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times magazine, Harper's, Bookforum, the TLS, and elsewhere.

Anja Shortland is Professor of Political Economy at King's College London, and a world expert in the economics of crime, particularly on art theft and fraud, and hostage and ransom negotiations. We Know You Can Pay a Million is her first trade book. Her books for an academic readership include Kidnap. She lives in Wiltshire.

Haley Shapley is a journalist living in Seattle. A prolific freelance writer, her insatiable curiosity has led her to pen stories on everything from exploring a cave in Belize to digging into the history of Chautauqua life, to looking at why women and men are treated differently in the doctor's office. She has written for outlets including Teen Vogue, The Seattle Times, Forbes Health and the Telegraph. She is the author of Strong Like Her: A Celebration of Rule Breakers, History Makers, and Unstoppable Athletes.

Moriz Scheyer was the principal essayist and arts editor for the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Vienna's major paper, until forced to flee the city in 1938. He was a friend of Stefan Zweig and of many key figures in Viennese and Parisian cultural life. After surviving the war first in Paris and then in hiding in the Dordogne, he died in France in 1948.

David Schmader is an American writer known for his solo plays, his writing for the Seattle newsweekly The Stranger, and his annotated screenings of Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls.

A practitioner of mindfulness and meditation for over 30 years, Barb Schmidt is the author of the internationally bestselling book The Practice. Over the years, she has been on over 100 retreats and studied with teachers around the world from Deepak Chopra to the Dalai Lama. In 2011, she founded the non-profit organization Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life to bring mindfulness teachings to the community and make them accessible to everyone. She has taught meditation courses at Nova Southeastern University, and currently she offers classes and workshops at Florida Atlantic University as part of the Peace Studies Program's community outreach.

Nelson Schwartz has been a writer at the New York Times for a decade and covers economics. Before that, he wrote about Wall Street and banking for The Times, and also served as European economic correspondent in Paris.

Delmore Schwartz (1913 – 1966) was an American poet and short story writer. He was an influence on Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, immortalised in songs by Lou Reed and John Berryman. He died destitute in a New York hotel in 1966.