Jim Kouf

Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her 2002 film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue." She also directed the 2007 jukebox musical film Across the Universe, based on the music of the Beatles.

Anthony Grove Hillerman was an American author of detective novels and nonfiction works, best known for his mystery novels featuring Navajo Nation Police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Several of his works have been adapted for film and television.

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year.

The Dalton School, originally the Children's University School, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school in New York City and a member of both the Ivy Preparatory School League and the New York Interschool. The school is located in four buildings within the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In the 2023–24 academic year, tuition rates totaled $61,120.

Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has published more than a dozen novels; the first several were a series of mysteries featuring recurring characters, including A Drink Before the War. Four of his novels have been adapted into films of the same names: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), and Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Live by Night (2016), both directed by Ben Affleck. His short story "Animal Rescue" was also adapted into the film The Drop, noted for being the final film role for actor James Gandolfini.

Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

James Bamford is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler."

Gang Related, alternatively known as Criminal Intent, is a 1997 American action crime thriller film written and directed by Jim Kouf, and starring James Belushi, Tupac Shakur, Dennis Quaid, Lela Rochon, David Paymer and James Earl Jones. The film revolves around two corrupt cops who attempt to frame a homeless man (Quaid) for the murder of an undercover DEA agent that they themselves had actually killed.

Disorganized Crime is a 1989 American heist comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Kouf and released through Touchstone Pictures. The ensemble cast includes Fred Gwynne, Lou Diamond Phillips, Rubén Blades, William Russ, Corbin Bernsen, Ed O'Neill, Daniel Roebuck and Hoyt Axton.

James Roday Rodriguez is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for starring on the USA Network series Psych as Shawn Spencer, a hyper-observant consultant detective and fake psychic. He also starred in A Million Little Things which debuted in 2018, playing Javier "Gary" Mendez.

Jess Walter is an American author of seven novels, two collections of short stories, and a non-fiction book. He is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006.

Nat Faxon is an American actor and comedian. A frequent presence on comedic films and TV series, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing The Descendants (2011). He starred in the Fox comedy series Ben and Kate (2012–2013) and the FX comedy series Married (2014–2015), and voices Elfo in the Netflix adult animated television series Disenchantment (2018–2023). He also co-wrote and co-directed The Way, Way Back (2013) and Downhill (2020) with writing partner Jim Rash.

David J. Bell is an American writer and university professor of English. His most recent novel is She's Gone, his first young adult novel and a New York Times bestseller. Bell's next adult novel, Try Not To Breathe, will be published in June 2023.

Keltie Colleen Knight is a three-time Emmy Award-winning Canadian television personality, podcast host, New York Times bestselling author, and former professional dancer.