John O'Brien was born in 1960 and grew up in the Cleveland area. He and his wife of thirteen years, Lisa, married in 1979 and eventually settled in Los Angeles. O'Brien published his first critically acclaimed novel, Leaving Las Vegas, in 1990. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in April 1994, just weeks after signing over the film rights for Leaving Las Vegas. His posthumous publications include The Assault on Tony's, Stripper Lessons, and Better.
Bayo Ojikutu is the critically acclaimed author of the novels 47th Street Black and Free Burning. His work has won the Washington Prize for Fiction and the Great American Book Award. Ojikutu's short work has appeared in various collections, magazines, and journals. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he has been recognized by the African American Arts Alliance for his contribution to literary fiction. Ojikutu and his family reside in Chicago.
T. Jefferson Parker was born in Los Angeles and has lived his life in Southern California. He is the author of nineteen crime novels, including the Edgar Award–winning Silent Joe and California Girl. His first book, Laguna Heat, was made into an HBO movie. His latest novel is The Famous and the Dead. He lives with his family in San Diego County.
George Pelecanos is the author of nineteen novels set in and around Washington, DC. He served as a writer and producer on HBO's The Wire, The Pacific, and, most recently, Treme. He edited both DC Noir and DC Noir 2: The Classics for Akashic Books.
Pir Rothenberg's work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Dossier Journal, Harpur Palate, Juked, Makeout Creek, Overtime, Prick of the Spindle, Richmond Noir, River Styx, and Zahir. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Georgia State University.
S.J. Rozan, born and raised in the Bronx, is the award-winning author of thirteen novels and three dozen short stories, and the editor of two anthologies, including Bronx Noir for Akashic Books.
Lisa Sandlin was born in the Gulf Coast oil town of Beaumont, Texas. She's the author of The Famous Thing About Death, Message to the Nurse of Dreams, In the River Province, You Who Make the Sky Bend, a collaboration with New Mexican santera Catherine Ferguson, and a coeditor of Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace. Her work has won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize and a Best Book of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. "Phelan's First Case,” included in this volume, was a finalist for the 2011 Shamus Award.
Julie Smith is the author of more than twenty mystery novels, most set in New Orleans and starring one or the other of her detective heroes, a cop named Skip Langdon and a PI named Talba Wallis. She is also the editor of New Orleans Noir for Akashic Books. Her book New Orleans Mourning won the Edgar Award for best novel. She has recently published her course on writing novels, Writing Your Way, as an e-book. Her digital publishing startup is www.booksBnimble.com.
Asali Solomon is the author of Get Down: Stories. Her work has been featured in the anthologies Philadelphia Noir, Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums that Changed Their Lives, and Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in 2006 and was selected as one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35” in 2007. She is at work on a novel.
Domenic Stansberry is an award-winning novelist known for his dark, innovative crime novels. His North Beach Mystery Series has won praise in the New York Times and other publications for its rich portrayal of the ethnic and political subcultures in San Francisco. An earlier novel, The Confession, received an Edgar Award for its controversial portrait of a Marin County psychologist accused of murdering his mistress.
Susan Straight has published eight novels. Her latest, Between Heaven and Here, is the final book in the Rio Seco trilogy. Take One Candle Light a Room was named one of the best novels of 2010 by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Kirkus. "The Golden Gopher,” included in this volume, won the 2008 Edgar Award for best short story. She teaches creative writing at University of California–Riverside. She was born in Riverside, California, where she lives with her family, whose history is featured on susanstraight.com.
Johnny Temple is the publisher and editor in chief of Akashic Books, an award-winning Brooklyn-based independent company. He won the 2013 Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America; the American Association of Publishers' 2005 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing; and the 2010 Jay and Deen Kogan Award for Excellence. He has contributed articles and political essays to various publications, including the Nation, Publishers Weekly, AlterNet, Poets & Writers, and Bookforum. He lives in Brooklyn.
Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Edgar Award for the short story "Amapola” (included in this volume), is the best-selling author of fourteen books, including Queen of America, Into the Beautiful North, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and The Devil's Highway. Recipient of an American Book Award, a Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, and a member of the Latino Literary Hall of Fame, Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, Illinois, where he is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois–Chicago.
Don Winslow is the New York Times best-selling author of more than a dozen novels, including Savages, The Power of the Dog, The Kings of Cool, California Fire and Life, The Winter of Frankie Machine, and Satori. Savages was made into a critically acclaimed film for Universal Pictures by three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone. Winslow has received numerous awards for his writing, including the prestigious Raymond Chandler Award as one of the most significant figures in American literature.
About the Akashic Noir Series
Following are the full contributor lists to the original Akashic Noir Series volumes represented in USA Noir. Included are the author, title, and location for each story, and they are listed in the order they first appeared.
Laura Lippman, “Easy As A-B-C”, Locust Point
Robert Ward, “Fat Chance”, Old Northwood
Jack Bludis, “Pigtown Will Shine Tonight”, Pigtown
Rob Hiaasen, “Over My Dead Body”, Fell’s Point
Rafael Alvarez, “The Invisible Man”, Highlandtown
David Simon, “Stainless Steel”, Sandtown-Winchester
Marcia Talley, “Home Movies”, Little Italy
Joseph Wallace, “Liminal”, Security Boulevard-Woodlawn