Ann Vipamaneerut is the owner of Rice Factory, a restaurant in Milltown, New Jersey featuring Thai foods. Her given name is Vilailuck Vipamaneerut, but all of the patrons and friends affectionately know her as Ann. Ann, who is 54 years old, has lived in the United States for over 27 years, and earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Saginaw Valley University in Michigan in 1996. After returning to Thailand, she came back to the United States in 2000 where she and her husband Paul worked as servers in a restaurant. On November 4th, 2014, they decided to start their own business and opened the Rice Factory. They have been serving customers with their unique dishes ever since.

Bea Lurie is the daughter of two child Holocaust survivors, her father, Sol, and her mother, Evelyn Rebecca Lurie, whose parents escaped from Poland with two toddlers. Bea learned by her parents’ actions the importance of helping those in need and devoted her career to making a difference in the lives of others as a leader of nonprofit organizations and government agencies, and as an owner of two businesses. Bea also is an active volunteer in her community and at her local synagogue. LIFE MUST GO On is the remarkable story of Sol Lurie, a child survivor of six concentration camps during the Holocaust, who continues to be a beacon of hope. After a bucolic childhood in Kovno, Lithuania, Sol was just eleven when the Nazis invaded and he and his family were forced to move into the Kovno Ghetto. The Kovno Ghetto was one of the only ghettos to later become a concentration camp, and Sol was among just a few Jewish survivors from Kovno. In this inspiring story of tenacity, character, faith, love, and forgiveness, we follow young Sol through heartbreak and fear, torment, and torture. Through Sol's eyes, we learn the history of the communities in Eastern Europe, especially Lithuania, which has in the wider history of the Holocaust. Along the way, we meet the righteous few who helped save young Sol's life. After being imprisoned in six other concentration camps for a total of four years, Sol was liberated from Buchenwald on his 15th birthday. To this day, he still joyfully celebrates every year the day he was born and liberated. Miraculously, Sol’s three brothers and his father also survived the Holocaust. Her inspiring story was written with Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs, also a child of survivors and genocide scholar.

Jonathan Hunger is the author of Agitate!, a revealing memoir of how he was able to overcome his fears by the example of Frederick Douglass. Jonathan is a native New Yorker who grew up primarily in New Jersey. He attended the University of Maryland for his undergraduate degree, and soon after spent a year working on construction as part of AmeriCorps with Habitat for Humanity. Following his term of service, he attended The College of New Jersey where he received his Master of Arts in Education, and spent the next ten years working in public schools in New Jersey and Maryland. After realizing that teaching was ultimately not the right fit for him, he returned to graduate school to pursue a career in international relations. Surprisingly, however, instead of finding work in international affairs, Jonathan ended up in a park ranger trainee position with the Department of the Interior at the Frederick Douglass Historic Site in Washington, DC. and it was this experience that inspired him to write his first book. Jonathan lives in the Baltimore suburbs with his family.