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Author Panel: Optioned Authors

July 23, 2025, 12:30pm–1:30pm

Admired and best-selling authors offer advice and discuss their latest books. 

Optioned Authors

Clémence Michallon, Our Last Resort

Sarah Strohmeyer, A Mother Always Knows

Thomas Maier, The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War II

Hosted by Ilana Levine, actress and podcaster, Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine

Clémence Michallon is the author of The Quiet Tenant, a USA Today and international bestseller and nominee for the Hammett Prize. She’s also a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Time MagazineThe Independent, and more. Clémence was born and raised near Paris, has lived in New York since 2014, and became a U.S. citizen in 2022. Our Last Resort is her second thriller. 

Sarah Strohmeyer is a bestselling and award-winning novelist whose books include The Secrets of Lily Graves, How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True, Smart Girls Get What They Want, The Cinderella Pact (the basis of the Lifetime Original Movie Lying to Be Perfect), The Sleeping Beauty Proposal, The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, Sweet Love, and the Bubbles mystery series. A former newspaper reporter, her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Boston Globe. She lives with her family outside Montpelier, Vermont.

Thomas Maier is an award-winning author, journalist, and television producer. He was a producer for both the Emmy-winning Showtime drama Masters of Sex, and the 2024 Paramount+ docuseries Mafia Spies, both adapted from his non-fiction books. His biography, Dr. Spock: An American Life, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The JFK Library hosted a forum about his 2014 book, When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, which was excerpted in Time and The Wall Street Journal. At Newsday in New York, Maier twice won the National Society of Professional Journalists’ top prize and several honors, including the Daniel Pearl Award from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and now serves on the paper’s editorial board. He won the 2022 Columbia University Journalism School’s Alumni Award for career achievement. He has appeared twice on the Today show and Morning Joe, as well as 20/20, CBS Evening News, Hardball, CNN, and NPR’s Fresh Air.

As an actress, Ilana Levine has performed on stage and screen to critical acclaim. On Broadway, Ilana is best known to musical theater fans for her comedic turn as "Lucy Van Pelt" in the Broadway revival of, You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. Ilana also starred in the Broadway productions of Jake's WomenWrong Mountain and The Last Night Of Ballyhoo.  She has performed on the Tony Awards. Her ability to portray characters with raw honesty, humor, and pathos, has sustained her career as an actress for over 25 years.  She first appeared on the scene in the HBO series Tanner ’88 directed by Robert Altman and quickly was plucked by Vanity Fair journalist James Wolcott as an “up and comer to watch.”  Seinfeld fans recognize her from the infamous episode "The Contest."  She has appeared in many television shows and films including Divorce, Law and Order, Tanner on TannerDamagesThe JobCashmere MafiaConfessions of a ShopaholicKissing Jessica SteinGiganticIra and AbbyFailure to LaunchThe Nanny DiariesFriends With Kids and Five Flights Up. As a voice over artist she has done commercials and audio books. For the past three years Ilana has been cited as a “Twitter Influencer To Follow”.  She resides in Brooklyn, New York  with her husband, actor Dominic Fumusa, her two children, and their dog, Lola.