6 Spectacular Author Talks: Don’t Miss Jennifer Weiner, Jodi Picoult & Others

Posted on March 6, 2025 at 4:00 am

The SCLD Online Authors Series brings you six upcoming author talks that you won’t want to miss.

In March, learn about a business strategy to fix what’s not working with Dan Heath, hear about the history of the women’s liberation movement through oral histories collected by Clara Bingham, and discover fun, humorous novels with emotional depth by Jennifer Weiner.

In April, explore a story of female playwrights and what they must do to share their art by Jodi Picoult, enter the secret world of trees and their importance to human history with Smithsonian Horticulturalist Matthew Fleming, and dive into the action-packed, thrilling, and suspenseful Orphan X series with Gregg Hurwitz.

If you are unable to attend a live author talk, you can view past recordings at any time that works for you.

Dan Heath

Are you ready for a revolutionary guide to fixing what’s not working—in systems and processes, organizations and companies, and even in our daily lives? During this conversation with bestselling author Dan Heath, he talks with us about his newest book, Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working.

Changing how we work can feel overwhelming. It can feel like trying to budge an enormous boulder. We’re stifled by the gravity of the way we’ve always done things. We spend so much time fighting fires—and fighting colleagues—that we lack the energy to shift direction. But with the right strategy, we can move the boulder.

In Reset, Heath explores a framework for getting unstuck and making the changes that matter. Learn:

• Why the feeling of progress can be your secret weapon in accelerating change
• How leaders can uncover and stop wasteful activities
• Why your team’s motivation is often squandered and how to avoid this mistake
• How you can jumpstart your change efforts by beginning with a “burst”

About the author: Dan Heath is the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author/author of six business books including his latest, Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working. His books have been translated into 33 languages and have sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Dan hosts a podcast called, What It’s Like to Be…, during which, he interviews someone from a different profession. Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Power of Reset and How to Change What’s Not Working with Author Dan Heath
ONLINE
Wednesday, Mar 12, 11am

Clara Bingham

Award-winning journalist and author Clara Bingham chats with us about her new book, The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973.

The Movement is a comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes. This is the first collected oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate, inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade when women rejected thousands of years of customs and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be.

This history traces women’s awakening, organizing, and agitating between 1963 and 1973 when a decentralized collection of people and events coalesced to create a spontaneous combustion. Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first-class citizens and in the process, changed the fabric of American life.

About the author: Clara Bingham is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Movement, Witness to the Revolution, Women on the Hill, and co-writer of Class Action. A former Washington, DC, correspondent for Newsweek, her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast, among others.

How Women’s Liberation Transformed America: In Conversation with Clara Bingham
ONLINE
Thursday, Mar 20, 11am

Jennifer Weiner

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner chats with us about one signature characteristic of her books, the emotional depth that has been inspiring readers toward self-discovery for decades, as well as the fun and humor in her novels, Good In Bed, In Her Shoes, Big Summer, The Breakaway, and many more.

Additionally, in a special preview, Weiner will briefly discuss her forthcoming novel The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (due out April 8, 2025). Set in the world of pop music, her new novel is about sisters, motherhood, young love, and the dreams we chase.

About the author: Jennifer Weiner is a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, with more than 11 million copies in print in 36 countries. Her novel In Her Shoes (2002) was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine. She is also the author of The Littlest Bigfoot middle-grade trilogy, and her nonfiction collection, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016), was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

Dreams We Chase: An Author Talk with Novelist Jennifer Weiner
ONLINE
Wednesday, Mar 26, 4pm

Jodi Picoult

We chat with highly acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult about her newest novel, By Any Other Name.

Told in intertwining narratives, By Any Other Name is a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire that asks what price each woman is willing to pay to see their work live on—even if it means they will be forgotten.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano—like most young women of her day—is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theaters in England and finds a way to secretly bring her work to the stage. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost. By paying a man for the use of his name, she will write herself out of her own history.

In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different 400 years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Would Melina—like Emilia—be willing to forfeit her credit as author for a chance to see her work performed?

About the author: Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including By Any Other Name, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper. She is also the co-author of Mad Honey, with Jennifer Finney Boylan, and the co-author of two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page, with Samantha van Leer.

Wordsmith and Wonder: An Author Talk with Jodi Picoult
ONLINE
Wednesday, Apr 2, 4pm

Matthew Fleming

Smithsonian Horticulturalist Matthew Fleming guides us through the secret world of trees, revealed in the beautiful guide to the giants of the plant world—The Tree Book: The Stories, Science, and History of Trees.

Trees occur naturally throughout the world and have been a part of human history for nearly as long as humans have existed. Used for shelter, tools, fuel, and food, trees also help supply the atmosphere with oxygen and form astonishingly diverse ecosystems as well as some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes.

In this extensive visual guide to trees, the intricate world of leafy woodlands and abundant rainforests is revealed, and their key scientific traits, ecological importance, and enduring significance in human history and culture are explored. From ancient oaks and great redwoods to lush banyans and imposing kapoks, The Tree Book reveals the anatomy, behavior, and beauty of these incredible plants and their habitats in detail.

This book is a new kind of guide to these fascinating organisms, combining natural history and a scientific overview, with a wider look at the history, uses, symbolism, and mythology of trees.

About the presenter: Matthew Fleming has been a horticulturist at the Smithsonian Gardens Greenhouse Facility in Suitland, Maryland, since 2010. In addition to serving as a supervisory horticulturist, he manages three greenhouses with nearly a thousand tropical specimens that are displayed throughout the many Smithsonian gardens and landscapes along the National Mall during the warmer months. Matthew has given talks on a wide variety of plant-related topics at the Smithsonian, including on indoor pests and overwintering tropical plants. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Penn State University, College of Agricultural Sciences, where he studied horticulture and landscape contracting.

The Stories, Science, and History of Trees with Smithsonian Gardens Greenhouse Horticulturalist Matthew Fleming
ONLINE
Tuesday, Apr 8, 11am

Gregg Hurwitz

New York Times bestselling author Gregg Hurwitz chats with us about his action-packed, thrilling Orphan X series and his life as a writer of suspenseful storytelling.

The series opener, Orphan X, introduces the world to the Nowhere Man. He is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them.

But he’s not merely a legend. Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He also has a dangerous past. Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets—assassins. Evan was orphan X. He broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man.

Now with 10 books in the series, fans can enjoy the latest novel, Nemesis.

About the author: Gregg Hurwitz is the #1 internationally and New York Times bestselling author of 24 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently serves as the co-president of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he’s written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, as well as poetry. Currently, Gregg is actively working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he’s penned op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark, Salon, and others. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup.

The Thrill of Writing Action, Adventure, and Suspense: A Conversation with Bestselling Author Gregg Hurwitz
ONLINE
Thursday, Apr 24, 4pm

Tags: adults, author series, author talk, books, SCLD Online Authors Series