Norman Mailer. MoonFire

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) was one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, and one of America’s most renowned and controversial literary figures. The best-selling author of a dozen novels and 20 works of nonfiction, he also wrote plays, screenplays, television miniseries, hundreds of essays, two books of poetry, and a collection of short stories. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Buzz Aldrin made history as one of the first men to walk on the Moon. A graduate of West Point, he earned his Sc.D. in Astronautics from MIT before joining NASA , and the Gemini XII and Apollo 11 missions. He is the founder of the Human Spaceflight Institute, a nonprofit committed to advancing human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit.

Colum McCann is the author of eight books, including Let the Great World Spin . He has written for The New York Times , Atlantic Monthly , GQ , The Times (London), The Irish Times , and La República .