ROBERT FERRIGNO is the author of nine thrillers. His most recent book, Prayers for the Assassin, was a New York Times best-seller. For more information, visit www.prayers-fortheassassin.com and www.robertferrigno.com.
JANET FITCH is the author of the novels Paint It Black and White Oleander. She is a third-generation resident of Los Angeles, where she lives in the Silverlake district. Currently, Fitch teaches in the Masters of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.
DENISE HAMILTON’S crime novels have been shortlisted for the Edgar Allen Poe and the Willa Cather awards. A native Angeleno, she is a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a Fulbright scholar. Visit her at www.denisehamilton.com.
NAOMI HIRAHARA is the author of the Mas Arai mystery series, featuring a Japanese American gardener and atomic bomb survivor living in Altadena, California. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo daily newspaper in Los Angeles, she has produced more than seven nonfiction books related to Southern California and Asian American history. Her latest novel, Snakeskin Shamisen, is an Edgar Award finalist. Her website is www.naomihirahara.com.
EMORY HOLMES II is a Los Angeles-based writer. His stories have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Sentinel, the New York Amsterdam News, Written By magazine, and other publications.
PATT MORRISON is a veteran Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist, host of a daily program on NPR affiliate KPCC, commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, and author of a best-selling book on the Los Angeles River [non-fiction, really]. She has been a six-time Emmy-winning host and commentator for a local PBS public affairs program, and host of a nationally syndicated book show.
JIM PASCOE made a name for himself in the noir/crime fiction community as the copublisher of the critically acclaimed indie press UglyTown, which brought out his first two books, By the Balls: A Bowling Alley Murder Mystery and Five Shots and a Funeral. He is writing a dark manga series called Undertown, as well as a number of original comics based on Hellboy Animated. He lives in Los Angeles.
GARY PHILLIPS writes about crime, giant three-armed robots, babes with Ph.D.’s in tights, and other such subject matter. He is finishing up a novel set during World War II, coediting the Darker Mask anthology of edgy superhero prose stories, and writing a coming-of-age graphic novel about black and Latino teenagers growing up in ’80s South Central L.A.
SCOTT PHILLIPS was born in Wichita, Kansas, and spent many years in Paris before heading to Southern California. After moving, over a twelve- or thirteen-year period, from Studio City to Ventura to Woodland Hills to Koreatown to Pacific Palisades, he eventually gave up and relocated, tail between his legs, to St. Louis, Missouri.
NEAL POLLACK’S memoir, Alternadad, was published by Pantheon in early 2007. The editor of Chicago Noir, Pollack lives in Los Angeles with his family. His website and blog, www.nealpollack.com, are generally informative and amusing.
CHRISTOPHER RICE is the New York Times best-selling author of three novels, mostly recently Light Before Day. A Lambda Literary Award-winner, he is also a regular columnist for the Advocate and is currently a visiting faculty member at the graduate writing program of Otis College of Art and Design. He lives in West Hollywood. For more information, visit www.christopherricebooks.com.
BRIAN ASCALON ROLEY, a Los Angeles native, is the author of the novel American Son, which received the 2003 Association of Asian American Studies Prose Book Award. It was a New York Times Notable Book, one of the Los Angeles Times’ Best Books of the Year, and a finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. More information can be found at www.brianroley.com.
LIENNA SILVER was born in Russia, and immigrated to the United States before Perestroyka came to the rescue. In Los Angeles, she began translating plays and screenplays, and cowrote a project for British Screen International. Her short stories have received numerous honorary awards, and she is working on a novel about contemporary Russia.
SUSAN STRAIGHT was born in Riverside, where she still lives with her family. She has published six novels. Her latest, A Million Nightingales (Pantheon, 2006), set during slavery, is the first of a trilogy about the characters who appear in “The Golden Gopher.”
HÉCTOR TOBAR is the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the author of Translation Nation and The Tattooed Soldier. Born in L.A., he has been editor of the bilingual San Francisco newspaper El Tecolote and features editor at the LA Weekly, and he has written for the New Yorker, the Nation, and other publications. He now reports for the Los Angeles Times from Mexico City, and is married with three children.
DIANA WAGMAN is the author of three novels and the film Delivering Milo. She is the recipient of the 2001 PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction. She teaches in the film department at California State University, Long Beach.
