Tod Goldberg is the New York Times best-selling author of more than a dozen books, including Gangster Nation, Gangsterland, and The House of Secrets, which he cowrote with Brad Meltzer. His journalism has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Best American Essays. Goldberg is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, where he founded and directs the low-residency MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts.
J. D. Horn is the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of the Witching Savannah series (The Line, The Source, The Void, and Jilo), the Witches of New Orleans Trilogy (The King of Bones and Ashes, The Book of the Unwinding, The Final Days of Magic), and the stand-alone Southern Gothic horror tale Shivaree. Originally from Tennessee, he lives in Palm Springs and San Francisco with his spouse, Rich, and their rescue Chihuahua, Kirby Seamus.
Ken Layne, editor and publisher of Desert Oracle, a pocket-sized field guide to the mysterious Southwest desert, hosts Desert Oracle Radio and its companion podcast from the Mojave high desert. Once a month he leaves his home alongside Joshua Tree National Park to tell eerie campfire stories at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs. Farrar, Straus & Giroux’s MCD Books recently published his first hardcover collection, Desert Oracle, Volume I.
T. Jefferson Parker is the author of twenty-five crime novels, and numerous short stories and essays. He was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Orange County, and now lives north of San Diego. He has won two Edgar Awards for best novel, an Edgar for best short story, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Seamus Award. When not at work he enjoys fishing, hiking, and beachcombing.
Rob Roberge, from Wonder Valley in the high Mojave Desert, is the author of four books of fiction and one memoir, Liar, selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. His short fiction and essays have been widely anthologized, and he is currently at work on a novel.
Eduardo Santiago’s first novel, Tomorrow They Will Kiss, was an Edmund White Debut Fiction Award finalist. His next book, Midnight Rumba, won the New England Book Award for best fiction. His short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Slow Trains, and the Caribbean Writer. His nonfiction was featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Advocate, and Out Traveler magazine. He is on faculty at Idyllwild Arts Academy, which sits high above Palm Springs.
Kelly Shire has published work in numerous journals, including Brevity, Entropy, and the Coachella Review. Her essay “Beautiful Music,” about long-standing Cathedral City radio station KWXY, appeared in Full Grown People. As a half-Mexican American, third-generation resident of Southern California, her writing often explores themes of place and identity. She lives south of Palm Springs with her children and husband, and is completing a memoir.