Detroit-based writer Eddie B. Allen Jr. is a published author, award-winning reporter and freelance journalist who has covered such national figures as President Bill Clinton and Rosa Parks. A graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, with a B.A. in journalism and Africana Studies, his published contributions include the New York Times, Associated Press, ThomsonReuters, BET.com, Detroit Free Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Metro Times, Orlando Weekly, Toledo Blade and the Philadelphia New Observer, among others. Eddie has taught literature and writing composition courses at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and at Wayne County Community College District in Detroit. His most recent book, Our Auntie Rosa (Penguin/Random House, 2015), is a ghostwriting collaboration with the family of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and he is independently producing his first biography, Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines (St. Martin鈥檚 Press, 2004), as a feature film. As an independent journalist, Eddie often writes about wrongful conviction and criminal justice issues. He is an advocate for social justice and president of the Urban Solutions Training & Development board of directors.
Lokting is an award-winning journalist from Oregon now based in New York. She鈥檚 written for national and international publications such as The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post magazine, The Nation, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, The New Republic and elsewhere. She鈥檚 interested in overlooked places and populations and often writes about rural areas and the American West, from wild horse slaughter to families living in school buses. She鈥檚 also reported on child welfare, climate change, social media, mental health, teenagers, wildlife and more. Her stories have won numerous awards from the Religion News Association, including for Story of the Year, and have been recognized by The Best American Travel Writing and Longreads. She鈥檚 received grants from Investigative Reporters & Editors, Women鈥檚 Media Group and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and was chosen as a 2023 journalism fellow for the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she鈥檚 now an adjunct and thesis advisor.
Moffeit is a Milwaukee-based freelance journalist and author of the upcoming authorized biography of civil rights leader Peter Johnson, a prot茅g茅 of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Moffeit spent most of his career as an investigative reporter for The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His Post series on how law enforcement mishandles DNA evidence was named a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. He also served as a senior Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School. He spent more than a year uncovering flaws in the handling of domestic abuse and sexual assault cases in the military, for the series 鈥淏etrayal in the Ranks,鈥� which was a finalist for the 2004 Dart Award. He is married to an investigative journalist and has three children.
Dirr is the City Hall reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She has covered a variety of beats in her dozen years of daily reporting in Wisconsin, including frac sand mining, police and courts, and municipal government. In her current role, she has reported on the implications of the local government funding law known as Act 12, the city鈥檚 hosting of the Republican National Convention and the presidential races in 2020 and 2024 in addition to countless other issues of importance to Milwaukeeans.
