Jeffrey Tayler is an author of several books all about different parts of the world, but you may know him best for his wonderful articles defending atheism and atheists, and criticizing the Religious Right on Salon.com. He’s also the Russia correspondent for the Atlantic. His latest book is called Topless Jihadis: Inside Femen, the World’s Most Provocative Activist Group.

I spoke with Jeffrey about Salon‘s reputation for publishing just about anything criticizing atheists, what the public doesn’t understand about the New Atheists, and the impact religion will have on the 2016 elections.

(Image credit: Tatyana Shchukina)

Lyz Liddell is the Executive Director of the Reason Rally Coalition. Before that, she worked with the Secular Student Alliance and played a large role in the Openly Secular campaign, which got celebrities like Bill Maher, Arian Foster, and Barney Frank to talk about how they’re not religious and encouraged others to join them.

I spoke with Lyz about the newest slate of speakers at the Rally, how she balances the competing agendas of the various atheist groups participating in the event, what she’s learned from a decade in the movement.

Robyn Blumner spent 16 years as a nationally syndicated columnist and editorial writer at the Tampa Bay Times newspaper, where she wrote a lot about civil liberties, church/state separation, and free speech issues. In 2012, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize along with the rest of her editorial team.

Before she was writing professionally, she headed up ACLU affiliates in Florida and Utah. She entered the world of organized atheism, if you will, in 2014, when she was tapped to run the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Recently, RDF announced a merger with the Center For Inquiry, and Robyn will soon become CEO of the new merged organization.

I spoke with Robyn about her experience coming out as an atheist publicly long before it became commonplace, how the CFI/RDF merger took shape, and — yes — Richard Dawkins‘ tweets.

William Shunn is the author of The Accidental Terrorist, a book about his time as a Mormon missionary. He was supposed to preach in Alberta, but it wasn’t long before he was convicted of felony mischief after making a false bomb threat.

He’s still not allowed to return to Canada.

We spoke with Bill about what it’s like to be a Mormon missionary when your heart’s just not into it, how the Mormon Church catches escaped missionaries, and the extreme length he went to to prevent his mission partner from leaving the base.