Film Forum

Authors Against Book Bans is a nationwide organization of 5,000 authors, illustrators, and other book creators with a singular goal: protecting the freedom to read and write. We coordinate with multiple stakeholders, both national organizations and grass-roots startups, to push back against the growing threats to intellectual freedom, and to create safeguards via legislation and community engagement, that protects creators and educators against bans.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) advances civil rights and civil liberties so that all New Yorkers can live with dignity, liberty, justice, and equality. Founded in 1951 as the state affiliate of the national ACLU, we marshal an expert mix of litigation, policy advocacy, field organizing, and strategic communications. Informed by the insights of our communities and coalitions and powered by 90,000 member-donors, we work across complex issues to create more justice and liberty for more people.

Award-winning author and journalist Gayle Forman has written several bestselling novels for children and adults, including those in the Just One Day series, Where She Went, and the #1 New York Times bestseller If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and was adapted into a major motion picture. Her first middle grade novel, Frankie & Bug, was a New York Times best children’s book of the year. Her second middle grade novel Not Nothing has been hailed as a “masterpiece” and the “book we all need at the time we all need it.” A former journalist, Gayle’s work has appeared in The New York Times, People, Elle, Time, Seventeen, and more. A fierce advocate for children, Gayle is one of the founding members of Authors Against Book Bans. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family. 

Emma Curran Donnelly Hulse is a Education Counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Emma’s practice is rooted in her experience as a parent organizer at the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation in East New York and the New Settlement Parent Action Committee in the Bronx. During law school, Emma participated in the Youth and Justice, Immigrant Family, and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinics and interned at the ACLU of Southern California and Advocates for Children of New York. She was the co-chair of the Education and the Law Society and the El Centro Education Rights Clinic and a staff member of the UCLA Law Review. Before coming to the NYCLU, Emma clerked for the New York Court of Appeals and the Southern District of New York. Emma holds a B.A. from Columbia University, a M.A. in Latin American Studies from UCLA, and a J.D. with a specialization in Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies from the UCLA School of Law. Emma was a Fulbright Fellow in Guatemala in 2009-2010.

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