California Authors Directory

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Kathryn J. Abajian is the author of First Sight of the Desert: Discovering the Art of Ella Peacock. A native Californian, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches writing and literature, since the early 1970s. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Salon, and Travelers’ Tales.

“This is a thoughtful, sensitive, and very honest double portrait of a painter and of the writer who attempts to capture her lonely artistry in words, only to discover that both their stories are inextricably mirrored. It successfully comb ines biography, art history, the literature of place, and the personal essay.” — Phillip Lopate

website: www.kathrynabajian.com.e-mail: kathryn@kathrynabajian.com

Isabel Allende Raised in Chile, Isabel Allende worked for many years as a journalist before writing the international bestseller, The House of the Spirits. Other books include Of Love and Shadows, The Stories of Eva Luna, Paula, Aphrodite, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, The Infinite Plan and City of Beasts (2002), her first book for young readers. She lives in San Rafael.

website: www.isabelallende.com.good works: www.isabelallendefoundation.org

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Lisa Alpine is a co-author of Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel (Globe Pequot Press). She is the travel columnist for the Pacific Sun in Marin County and was founding publisher of THE FAX, a community newspaper. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies. When not acting as book midwife and writing coach, she works as a freelance writer and teaches writing at The Writing Salon in San Francisco and Book Passage in Corte Madera.

website: www.lisaalpine.com.e-mail: writing@lisaalpine.com.good works: www.wildwritingwomen.com

Tamim Ansary Children’s writer and Encarta columnist whose post-9-11 e-mail was forwarded around the world and grew into the book, West of Kabul, East of New York. He also has written Election Day and Cool Collections: Dolls/Insects/Model Cars/Natural Objects/Stamps. Tamim Ansary lives in San Francisco.

website: www.mirtamimansary.com

Mark Arax A native of Fresno and a PEN Award winner, journalist Mark Arax chronicled his ongoing search for his father’s killers in his memoir, In My Father’s Name: A Family, a Town, a Murder. He also is co-author of The King of California.

“Almost every American town harbors some brutal secret, but few produce writers like Mark Arax with both the courage and artistic talent needed to coax the story out and shape it into fine literature.” — Los Angeles Times columnist Peter King.

e-mail: mark.arax@sbcglobal.net

Stacy Bierlein is a Los Angeles-based short fiction writer whose current works appear in various literary magazines and anthologies, including All Hands On, Cairn, Clackamas Literary Review, Emergence, Oyez Review, Pearl, PMS, So to Speak, Standards: An International Journal of Multicultural Studies, and Young Wives Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership. She serves as a contributing editor to Other Voices, and a senior editor to the new book imprint, OV Books.

“Stacy Bierlein’s short fiction is elegant, sensuous, and tough too. In addition to story, there’s rhythm here — heart and depth and precision. Reading them on the page I am struck with their lyricism and urgency.” — Lisa Glatt, author of A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That

website: www.othervoicesmagazine.org

John Blumenthal Co-author of 2 screenplays, Short Time and Blue Streak, Blumenthal has written numerous magazine articles and books, including The Tinseltown Murders, Love’s Reckless Rash, Hollywood High, and What’s Wrong With Dorfman?

e-mail: jbautog@aol.com

T.C. Boyle Southern California author of more than a dozen fiction books, including A Friend of the Earth, The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle Stories and After the Plague, which won the Southern California Booksellers Association book award for fiction (2002).

website: www.tcboyle.com

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Ray Bradbury The author of more than five hundred published works — short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse. Ray Bradbury’s books include The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

“The jails are full of one million non-readers. We can’t let it happen again. If you allow another generation to grow up to be 12 years old without the ability to read, write, and think, we’re sunk.” — Ray Bradbury

website: www.raybradbury.com.e-mail: RayBradbury@harpercollins.com

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Catherine Brady is the author of two story collections, Curled in the Bed of Love, winner of the 2002 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and The End of the Class War. Her stories have appeared in many journals and in Best American Short Stories 2004.

“Brady’s characters are painstakingly particularized, emotionally, complex, of their time and place: northern California in the late decades of the twentieth century… It’s rare for a writer to explore with such subtlety and respect the curious symbiosis of the needy and the needed as Brady does.” — Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

e-mail: bradyc@usfca.edu

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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard Born in the Philippines and now a Santa Monica resident, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the author and editor of a dozen books, including the internationally acclaimed novel, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept (University of Michigan Press); Magdalena; and Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults (PALH). Most of her books explore her Philippine and Philippine-American experiences. She has received several awards including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate 21st District, and a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths.

website: www.ceciliabrainard.com.e-mail: cbrainard@aol.com

Gayle Brandeis Riverside author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write and The Book of Dead Birds: A Novel, winner of The Bellwether Prize in Support of a Literature of Social Change.

On The Book of Dead Birds: “Lyrical, imaginative, beautifully crafted and deeply intelligent. Before anything else, its characters take you by the heart.” — Barbara Kingsolver

website: www.gaylebrandeis.com.e-mail: gaylebrandeis@hotmail.com

Lynette Brasfield Lynette Brasfield’s novel Nature Lessons (St. Martin’s Press, May 2003) tells the haunting story of a woman’s search for her missing, mentally ill mother; it’s also a reflection on love and loss and guilt, and the unique perspective each of us brings to the universe. Five percent of book profits funds a Get Involved for Mental Health Scholarship.

“Nature Lessons is a striking debut…Lynette Brasfield movingly explores the weight of love between a mother and daughter and the complex legacy it leaves behind. Set against the turbulent backdrop of South Africa, the novel is both illuminating and absorbing.” — Gail Tsukiyama, author of Dreaming Water.

website: www.literati.net/Brasfield.e-mail: lbrasfield@literati.net

Richard Alan Bunch Born in Honolulu, Richard Alan Bunch grew up in the Napa Valley. His poetry works include A Foggy Morning and Wading the Russian River. Night Blooms is a selection of journal entries on philosophy, literature, and religion. His stories have appeared in several venues. He is also author of the play, The Russian River Returns. His poetry has appeared in California Quarterly, Black Moon, Oregon Review, Long Islander, James River Poetry Review and the Hawaii Review. His latest poetry collection is Running for Daybreak. He resides in Davis, California.

e-mail: rgbunch@ucdavis.edu

Allison Burnett lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a screenwriter. His debut novel, Christopher, was a finalist for the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction. His second novel, The House Beautiful, will be published in September 2006.

“Part Truman Capote, part Oscar Wilde, part Humbert Humbert, part Dr. Pangloss, and yet uniquely himself, B.K. Troop is that rarest find: an unexpected and entirely engaging new character. It is B.K.’s voice — his allusions, fulminations, deprecations and ultimately his hapless, hopeless romanticism — that makes this fine first novel such an enjoyable romp.” — Los Angeles Times

website: allisonburnett.com

David Carkeet was born and raised in Sonora, California. His most recent novels are The Full Catastrophe and The Error of Our Ways, both of them New York Times Book Review “Notable Books of the Year.”

“David Carkeet wrote The Greatest Slump of All Time, a baseball novel so funny that audiobook manufacturers hesitate to record it for fear of vehicular liability.” — San Francisco Chronicle Book Review Editor David Kipen, writing in The Atlantic

website: www.geocities.com/davidcarkeet/.e-mail: davidcarkeet@hotmail.com

Chris Carlsson An urban historian and political activist, Chris Carlsson is the editor of The Political Edge; Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology; Reclaiming San Francisco; and Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration. In 2004, Carlsson published his first novel, After The Deluge. For the last twenty-five years his activities have focused on the underlying themes of horizontal communications, organic communities and public space. He lives in San Francisco’s Mission District with the award-winning muralist Mona Caron.

“On a rainy Tuesday in December, a sleeping giant stirred in San Francisco. The Political Edge is a must read for anyone energized by the grassroots campaign to elect Matt Gonzalez for mayor. Full of progressive hope, The Political Edge paints a picture of a city that can be radically better.” — San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly.

website: www.citylights.com

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Michael Chabon Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon’s work also includes Wonder Boys and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Summerland (2002) is his first children’s book.

website: www.michaelchabon.com

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Beverly Cleary Perhaps best known as the creator of the irrepressible Ramona Quimby, Beverly Cleary is the Newberry Award-winning author of numerous children’s books, including Ramona the Pest, Henry Huggins, Risby, Dear Mr. Henshaw, Sister of the Bride, Ralph S. Mouse, Romona Forever, Ramona’s World and the Ramona Boxed Set. She lives in Carmel.

“Cleary is adept at taking everyday events and making the reader see the humor and delight in simple things. Everyone will want to visit with this old friend.” — Sharon Salluzzo, Children’s Literature

Michelle Cliff Michelle Cliff is a Jamaican-American writer whose work includes the short story collections Bodies of Water and The Store of a Million Items — the latter chosen by The Village Voice as one of the best books of 1998. Her novels are Abeng, No Telephone to Heaven, and Free Enterprise. She is the recipient of two NEA fellowships and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, New Zealand. She currently resides along California’s Central Coast.

“Free Enterprise is an angry, gaudy, multicultural storm of a historical novel. At the heart of this story are two African-American women, comrades of abolitionist John Brown. Michelle Cliff brings together a fabulous cast of outsiders to retell New World history from the women warriors’ point of view.” — Elle.

website: www.citylights.com

Mark Coggins Author of The Immortal Game and Vulture Capital, Mark has been nominated for multiple book awards and his work has appeared in several best of the year lists, including those compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Linda, and their cat, Taki.

“From the boardrooms of Palo Alto to the wineries of Napa, [he] gives us Northern California in the 21st century, as noir as it ever was … Po Bronson, for all his talents, did not catch the Valley’s entrepreneurial/venture capital lifeblood … as unerringly as Coggins does.” — Salon.com

Website: www.immortalgame.com.e-mail: coggins@immortalgame.com

Sharleen Cooper Cohen Best-selling author of seven, internationally published novels: The Day After Tomorrow; Regina’s Song; The Ladies of Beverly Hills; Marital Affairs; Love, Sex and Money; Lives of Value; and Innocent Gestures. Also wrote the musicals Sheba (book and lyrics), Blackout (book and lyrics) and Stormy Weather, The Story of Lena Horne (book), which was awarded Honorable Mention in the Stage Play Script category of the Writer’s Digest 2000 Competition.

Website: www.sharleencoopercohen.com.e-mail: sccInc1@aol.com

K.C. Cole A science writer for the Los Angeles Times, K.C. Cole is the author of The Universe and the Tea Cup; The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything; First You Build a Cloud: And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life and Mind Over Matter.

Nik C. Colyer A California native, Nik C. Colyer worked as a sculptor before writing the quirky relationship novel, Channeling Biker Bob Heart of a Warrior. Other novels include Channeling Biker Bob Lover’s Embrace, Maranther’s Deception,(2005) and his first book of poetry; Kicking Ass and Taking Names. The third in the Biker Bob series, Magician’s Spell, will be published in 2006. He resides in Nevada City, California.

website: www.channelingbikerbob.com.e-mail: nik@ncws.com

Laurel Corona is the author of The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice (Hyperion/VOICE) and Until Our Last Breath (St. Martin’s Press). She is a professor of humanities at San Diego City College.

website: www.laurelcorona.com.e-mail: lacauthor@cox.net

Dora E. H. Crow is the author and illustrator of the children’s book, Winky & Wonder: Book I and Book II. Told with humor and excitement, these tales of adventure and triumph-over-evil present lessons about virtues, moral choices, accountability for one’s own actions, forgiveness, and life’s realities. Mrs. Crow lives in Santa Cruz County.

“Winky and Wonder are two courageous Whisper Children from Whisperland. Invisible to humans’ eyes and unheard by their ears, Winky and Wonder whisper directly to human children’s hearts, encouraging them to listen to what they already know deep inside.” — Winky & Wonder: Book I and Book II.

website: www.winkyandwonder.com

Kamau Daáood A mythic figure in the Southern California arts scene, Kamau Daáood is a performance poet, educator and community arts activist who is widely acknowledged as a major driving force behind Los Angeles’ black cultural renaissance. He is the author of two chapbooks, and a spoken word album, Leimert Park, named after the thriving Los Angeles community that is fast becoming the west coast’s black cultural mecca. The Language of Saxophones is his first book, a long-awaited selection from a lifetime of poetry.

“I was taught that the concept of the local artist is a noble one. That to live and work in a community and to be known for that work, is very dignified.” — Kamau Daáood

website: www.citylights.com

Antonio Damasio. An internationally renown neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio is the author of The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness; Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain and Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. Since 2005, he has been Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

“In clear, accessible and at times eloquent prose, Damasio is outlining nothing less than a new vision of the human soul, integrating body and mind, thought and feeling, individual survival and altruism, humanity and nature, ethics and evolution.” — The San Francisco Chronicle.

website: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/faculty/faculty1008328.html

Joie Davidow Founder of L.A. Style, L.A. Weekly and Sí magazine, she is the author of Marked for Life, A Memoir; Infusions of Healing; and with Esmeralda Santiago, she is the editor of two story anthologies, Las Christmas and Las Mamis.

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, author of A Woman of Independent Means, called Marked for Life “A brave and liberating book… overflowing with tender wisdom.”

website: www.joiedavidow.com.e-mail: joie@joiedavidow.com

Patricia Volonakis Davis Patricia V. Davis is the author of Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece, billed as “an exhilarating sail on the Greek seas through xenophobia, dysfunctional family units, religious ravings, obsessive protocols, political disorder, European football, and fabulous food.” She also is the founder and editor-in-chief of the non-partisan Harlots’ Sauce Radio e-magazine and podcast. Patricia lives in Northern California in Sleepy Hollow.

websites: www.patriciavdavis.com.www.harlotssauce.com

Lucille Lang Day Lucille Lang Day’s first poetry collection, Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope, was selected for the Joseph Henry Jackson Award in Literature by Robert Pinsky, David Littlejohn, and Michael Rubin. Her other poetry collections are Infinities, Wild One, and Fire in the Garden. She also has a chapbook in the “Greatest Hits” series from Pudding House Publications.

“Few books of poems have the sheer narrative intensity of Lucille Lang Day’s Wild One. It sweeps the reader up like a powerful coming-of-age novel — half hilarious, half heartbreaking — but always with the sharp lyric edge of genuine poetry.” — Dana Gioia

Website: www.scarlettanager.com.e-mail: lucyday@earthlink.net

Joan Del Monte A resident of Venice, Ca, Joan taught a course in writing the mystery called “A Guide To The Pitfalls From Someone Who Has Fallen Into Most of Them.” She is the author of Plonk Goes the Weasel (2004) and Death had a Yellow Thumb (2005). She also wrote a bibliography on antiques for Los Angeles Public Library.

“The centuries old saffron mystique is a terrific device for a mystery.” — The Literary Guild, on Death had a Yellow Thumb

website: www.joandelmonte.com

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni An award-winning author and poet, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s work includes Queen of Dreams (Doubleday, 2004.) Her other books include The Conch Bearer; Victory Song; Vine of Desire; Sister of My Heart; and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. She was born in India and has spent most of her life in Northern California, which she often writes about.

website: www.chitradivakaruni.com

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David Dodd The author/editor/annotator of three books about the Grateful Dead, David Dodd is the City Librarian of San Rafael, California. He has reviewed books for Library Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle. He hopes to turn his efforts toward his fiction.

website: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/david.html.e-mail: ddodd@well.com

Laurel Doud is a native Californian whose debut novel, This Body, was published in hardback, paperback, and translated into German. Film rights for This Body were optioned by Fox 2000, then Hartbreak Productions for Melissa Joan Hart, respectively. She is working on a next novel set in Berlin Germany before World War I and Hollywood in the 1920s-1930s. Doud is a research librarian and lives in the Sierra Foothills outside Fresno.

“A frisky, riveting debut… With Doud’s brightly visceral prose and deft sense of tragicomedy, This Body proves equally engrossing for the senses, soul, and mind.” — Megan Harlan, Entertainment Weekly

website: www.hachettebookgroupusa.com
email: ldoud555@aol.com

Joel Drucker This Oakland-based writer is one of the world’s leading tennis journalists. First book, Jimmy Connors Saved My Life (2004), set largely in LA. Wrote five major cover stories for San Diego Reader, including “A Jew & The California Dream” and “San Diego’s Tennis Curse.” Work cited in Best American Sports Writing.

e-mail: JDruck@aol.com

Firoozeh Dumas is the author of Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America, a Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and 2004 selection by the “Orange County Reads One Book” program. She lives in Northern California.

Website: www.firoozehdumas.com

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Wylene Dunbar Author of Margaret Cape, winner of Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters’ 1998 Best Fiction prize. She lives in Nevada City, California. Her second novel is My Life with Corpses (Harcourt, June 2004).

“Wylene Dunbar found a wonderful central metaphor . . . then invested it with life, passion, and an eerie resonance into the spirit of these troubled times. . . .a stunning new novel.” — Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler said of My Life with Corpses

website: www.wylenedunbar.com . e-mail: wylene@wylenedunbar.com

Mikel Dunham is the author of the “Rhea Buerklin” murder mystery series (St.Martins Press), Stilled Life and Casting for Murder. He is also a reknown photographer and artist. He was the art director for two Nyingma Buddhist temples: one in Sarnath, India, and one in upstate New York. His photographic history, Samye: A Pilgrimage to the Birthplace of Tibetan Buddhism, was published in 2003. His newest book, Buddha’s Warriors, will be released by Tarcher/Penguin in January 2005. Buddha’s Warriors is a history of the Tibetan resistance who fought the Chinese invasion in 1950 and based on seven years of interviews with the warriors who led the resistance.

“…I am glad that Mikel Dunham has been able to tell these brave men’s story in this book, much as they told it to him.” — The Dalai Lama says of Buddha’s Warriors.

Dave Eggers Editor of McSweeney’s literary magazine, Dave Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know our Velocity (2002) and other books.

website: www.mcsweeneys.net.good works: Founder of 826 Valencia, a San Francisco writing program for kids.

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Elliot Feldman A Los Angeles resident for twenty-six years, but a Detroiter forever. His novel, Sitting Shiva, is the first of his Detroit Trilogy.

“Feldman takes the anecdotes of memory to give us a glimpse of life. The writing is simple, direct and unencumbered with self-consciousness.” — Hubert Selby Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn.

e-mail: efeldman3@san.rr.com

Lawrence Ferlinghetti San Francisco’s Poet Laureate (1998-1999) and founder of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was written more than a dozen poetry books, including his popular A Coney Island of the Mind. His work includes: City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology, These Are My Rivers, A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997) and How to Paint Sunlight (2001).

website: www.citylights.com

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Bill Fitzhugh Bill Fitzhugh is the author of the comic thrillers, Pest Control and Cross Dressing, now in development at Warner Brothers and Universal Studios respectively. He also wrote The Organ Grinders, an ode to human organ trafficking. Fender Benders won The Lefty Award for best humorous novel of 2001. Cross Dressing received the 2002 best fiction award from the Mississippi Library Association. His political satire, Heart Seizure, was published in March 2003. His sixth novel, Radio Activity will be published in 2004. The author lives in Los Angeles where he is currently at work on his next book.

“Fitzhugh is a strange and deadly amalgam of screenwriter and comic novelist and his facility and wit, and his taste for the perverse, put him in a league with Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard.” — The New York Times

website: www.billfitzhugh.com.e-mail: bfitzhugh@earthlink.net.good works: www.flight711.com

Elaine Flinn A California native, and former San Francisco antiques dealer, Elaine Flinn’s debut novel, Dealing in Murder, A Molly Doyle Mystery (Avon) was published in 2003.

The antiques game is a killer, and it takes an antiques dealer to tell the tale.

website: www.elaineflinn.com.e-mail: ejflinn@sbcglobal.net

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Anjuelle Floyd A psychotherapist and writer, Anjuelle Floyd reveals the torment of secrets in Keeper of Secret … Translations of an Incident, a collection of short stories. She lives in the Oakland East Bay Area.

“Karmic truth, the effect of our decisions with our secrets and our deepest loves, comes back and squeeze the hearts of these characters…” — Clive Matson, author of Let the Crazy Child Write! and winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award for Outstanding Writing.

website:www.anjuellefloyd.com

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Sesshu Foster Sesshu Foster teaches composition and literature in East L.A. He is the author of four volumes of poetry — Angry Days, City Terrace Field Manual, American Loneliness and World Ball Notebook — and a novel, Atomik Aztex.

“This is pure California mainlined straight into language that sears the skin off 99 percent of what purports to be literary competence.” — Alvin Lu, The San Francisco Bay Guardian

website: www.citylights.com . www.english.uiuc.edu.e-mail: sesshu@earthlink.net

Amy Friedman has published two memoirs, Kick the Dog and Shoot the Cat and Nothing Sacred: A Conversation with Feminism. Amy also writes “Tell Me A Story,” the internationally syndicated column for children. Tell Me A Story, the audiobook she recently wrote and produced, was awarded the 2006 Parents’ Choice Silver Honors for Story telling and the NAPPA Gold Medal for 2006. She lives in Los Angeles.

website: www.mythsandtales.com.e-mail: kellsmom@comcast.net

A. J. Garrotto A California native, A. J. Garrotto’s fourth novel, I’ll Paint a Sun, celebrates the healing power of love. Garrotto explored another favorite theme — international adoption — in Circles of Stone (2003) and Finding Isabella (2000). His debut novel was A Love Forbidden (1996).

website: www.blsinc.com/garrotto.htm.e-mail: alg@blsinc.com

John Gilmore A native Los Angeles son, raised in Hollywood, Gilmore is the author of hard-boiled true crime, literary fiction, and Hollywood memoirs. His works include Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder; Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives & the Hollywood Death Trip; Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean; Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family; Fetish Blond; Cold-Blooded: The Sage of Charles Schmid; The Real James Dean; and The Tucson Murders. Several books forthcoming and in press.

“John Gilmore is one of America’s natural-born gifts to literature. His books aren’t just wicked and inspiring by-products of genius: they’re miracles. I don’t know how he keeps telling the truth of things when so much of our mental landscape is shrouded in darkness and stupidity. I adore him. He’s the best ever.” — Gary Indiana

website: www.johngilmore.com.e-mail: johngilmore@usa.com

Dana Gioia Poet, critic and President Bush’s choice to lead the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia is the author of Can Poetry Matter: Essays on Poetry and American Culture; Interrogations at Noon, Nosferatu: an Opera Libretto and other books. He lives in Sonoma County.

website: www.danagioia.net.good works: founded Teaching Poetry

Kathi Kamen Goldmark is the author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, a novel published by Chronicle Books in 2002. She is the co-author of The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book and Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude. She also is the founder of the all-author rock band The Rock Bottom Remainders; president and janitor of Don’t Quit Your Day Job Records; and producer of the coast-to-coast radio show “West Coast Live.” She lives in San Francisco.

Website: www.dqydj.com

Sue Grafton Author of the popular alphabet mystery series, Sue Grafton lives in Santa Barbara. Her books Q is for Quarry (2002).

website: www.suegrafton.com

Peter Grandbois is the author of the novel, The Gravedigger (Chronicle Books 2006). He received a Pushcart Prize honorable mention for “All or Nothing at the Fabergé,” a work from his short story collection titled A Single, Straight Line. His translation into English of San Juan: Ciudad Soñada by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá was nominated for both the PEN Book of the Month Club award and the Lewis Gallantiere award. Grandbois is a former member of the United States National Fencing Team and a silver medalist at the 1993 U.S. National Championships. He is a professor of Creative Writing and Contemporary Literature at California State University in Sacramento.

“Readers who revel in magic realism will embrace this poignant debut about a poor but honest Spaniard with a gift for communicating with the dead. Reminiscent of the work of Luis Alberto Urrea and Gabriel García Márquez, this luminous first offering brims with earthy humor and heart” — Booklist starred review

website: brothersgrandbois.com.email: peter@brothersgrandbois.com

Reyna Grande Born in Guerrero, Mexico, Reyna Grande moved to the U.S. in 1985 at ten years of age. She was a 2003 Emerging Voices Fellow. In her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains (Simon & Schuster, June 2006), Grande uses her own experience of growing up in Mexico without her parents, and then crossing the border as an undocumented person, to give life to her main character. She lives in Los Angeles.

website: www.reynagrande.com.e-mail: reynagrande@yahoo.com

Andrew Sean Greer was born in Washington, DC, the son of two scientists. He studied writing at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation. His books include The Path of Minor Planets (2001), The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004), and The Story of a Marriage (2008). He lives in San Francisco.

website: www.andrewgreer.com

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Diana L. Guerrero is an author, speaker, and the founder of the Alliance of Writers. This scribe is contributing editor to Resources For Crisis Management in Zoos and Other Animal Care Facilities (American Association of Zoo Keepers, 1999), and author of What Animals Can Teach Us about Spirituality: Inspiring Lessons of Wild and Tame Creatures (SkyLight Paths, 2003). Guerrero is a columnist for Ark Animals, the Journal of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, and On the Mountain magazine. She consults and speaks on inspiration, creativity, animal behavior and related topics. Her next book is scheduled for release in 2006.

website: www.dianalguerrero.com.e-mail: guerreroink2005@yahoo.com.good works: www.arkanimals.com

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Sands Hall is the author of the novel, Catching Heaven, a Random House Reader’s Circle Selection and a finalist for a Willa Award (Women Writing the West), Best Contemporary Fiction. She is also the author of a book of essays and exercises, Tools of the Writer’s Craft. Her produced plays include an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and the drama Fair Use.

website: www.sandshall.com.e-mail: sands@sandshall.com

Daniel Handler is the author of the bestselling A Series of Unfortunate Events (under the pen name of Lemony Snicket), a collection of books for children, and three books for adults: Basic Eight (based on a true story of a teenaged girl who commits murder), Watch Your Mouth (a melodramatic satire of family life), and Adverbs. He lives in San Francisco.

website: www.lemonysnicket.com

Jean Harfenist is the award-winning author of A Brief History of the Flood (Knopf 2002; Vintage 2003). A native of Minnesota, she now lives in Southern California.

“Wonderfully wry-melancholy….An auspicious and stirring debut.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

website: www.randomhouse.com.e-mail: harf@west.net

Gerald Haslam Known for celebrating California’s small towns, Gerald Haslam has published eight collections of short stories, including The Other California, That Constant Coyote and Condor Dreams. He also is the author of Workin’ Man Blues: Country Music in California, Manuel and the Madman, and Straight White Male. He lives in Penngrove.

“Gerald Haslam writes wonderfully about the California that few of us know, the farmlands and oilfields of the Central Valley, and the children of the “Okies” who grew up there. His characters may grow up and move away, but they’ve been formed by the Valley and never really leave it in spirit.” — Cyra McFadden

website: www.geraldhaslam.com.e-mail: ghaslam@sonic.net

Robert Hass served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997 and teaches at UC Berkeley. His books of poetry include Sun Under Wood, Human Wishes, Praise, and Field Guide.He collaborated for years with Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz to bring his major works into English.

website: www.barclayagency.com/hass.html.Cause website: River of Words.

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Eloise Klein Healy is the author of six books of poetry, including the The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho (Red Hen Press, 2007). She founded the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles and Arktoi Books (an imprint of Red Hen Press), and co-founded ECO-ARTS, an eco-tourism arts venture.

website: www.eloisekleinhealy.com.e-mail: contact.ekh@mac.com

Annamaria Hemingway Author of Practicing Conscious Living and Dying: Stories of the Eternal Continuum of Consciousness and writer of various magazine articles on conscious living and dying. Lives in Southern California.

website: www.annamariahemingway.com

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Jack Hicks Jack Hicks teaches at the University of California , Davis and is the founding director of “The Art of the Wild”, an annual summer program on writing creatively with nature, wilderness and the environment. Publications include two critical books on contemporary fiction (Cutting Edges and In the Singer’s Temple ) and he co-edited The Literature of California, Volume I (2000) and California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (2003).

website: http://wwwenglish.ucdavis.edu/Faculty/hicks/hicks.htm

Jack Hirschman Named Poet Laureate in San Francisco in 2006, Jack Hirschman was born in New York City in 1933 and has lived since 1973 in San Francisco. He has published more than 25 translations of poetry from eight languages. Among his many volumes of poetry are A Correspondence of Americans (Indiana University Press., 1960), Lyripol (City Lights, 1976), The Bottom Line (Curbstone, 1988), Endless Threshold (Curbstone, 1992), and Front Lines (City Lights, 2002).

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Jane Hirshfield The author of numerous poetry collections — among them, Given Sugar, Given Salt — and a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry.

“Her poems are meant to endure.” — The Antioch Review

website: www.barclayagency.com/hirshfield.html

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. He attended Santa Clara University and graduated from UC San Diego School of Medicine. The Kite Runner was his first novel.

website: www.khaledhosseini.com

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Freeman House Author of Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species, winner of the BABRA best non-fiction award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D.Vursell Award for quality of prose.

“Discovering salmon proves to be a path to self and community, to a large spiritual and natural etiquette … As someone said, ‘To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture.’ This grave and delightful book — both personal and cosmic — shows how that works.” — Gary Snyder

website: www.freemanhouse.net.e-mail: lfhouse@inreach.com.good works: www.mattole.org

Laurel House Co-author, The Gurus’ Guide to Serenity: A Me-Time Menu of Celebrity Stress Reducers (HarperCollins). Co-author, Raise the Barre (HarperCollins 2006). Co-author, Foundation Fitness (Wiley, January 08). West Coast Editor, Fit Magazine and Fit Yoga Magazine. Beauty Editor Healing Lifestyles and Spas Magazine.

website: www.byLaurelHouse.com.e-mail: laurel@bylaurelhouse.com

James D. Houston is the author of numerous novels, including the trilogy, Continental Drift, Love Life, and The Last Paradise, which received a 1999 American Book Award. His Snow Mountain Passage was cited by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Los Angeles Times as one of the Year’s Best Books. Among his several nonfiction works is Farewell to Manzanar. He also co-edited The Literature of California, Volume I. Houston lives in Santa Cruz.

website: www.jamesdhouston.com

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Kate Hovey is the award–winning author of three books of poetry for young people, Arachne Speaks, Ancient Voices and Voices of the Trojan War, all published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. A maskmaker and poet, Hovey combines her lifelong love of Greek mythology with poetry and the 20,000 year–old art of the mask to bring the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece to life for students in classrooms across the country.

“Kate Hovey’s verse is an excellent storytelling medium–clear, pictorial, full of action…the poems use a great variety of perspectives and (with good classical precedent) let us in on the very human feelings of the immortals.” — Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate of the United States, 1987

website: www.KateHovey.com

Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist, author of ten books and co-founder and editor of the HuffingtonPost.com. She is also co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” public radio’s political roundtable program. Her books include Pigs at the Trough and Fanatics and Fools. She lives in Los Angeles.

website: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Edward Humes A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Edward Humes is the best-selling author of nine nonfiction books, including Baby E.R., No Matter How Loud I Shout, Mean Justice, Mississippi Mud, and Monkey Girl. His latest is Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who are Saving the Planet(2009). Ed frequently lectures at universities and conferences, and enjoys teaching narrative nonfiction writing workshops. He lives in Southern California.

“Humes succeeds where many would have failed because he is working out of the best American tradition of nonfiction narrative, of literary journalism, by paying homage to practitioners of the craft such as John McPhee, Joan Didion, Richard Rhodes and Tom Wolfe.” — The Los Angeles Times

website: www.edwardhumes.com.e-mail: contact@edwardhumes.com

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Jessica Barksdale Inclan is the author of six novels for New American Library, including The Instant When Everything is Perfect (2006). Her five paranormal romances from Kensington include When You Believe (2006) and Intimate Beings (October 2008).

“Jessica Barksdale Inclán brings a profound understanding of human nature to her characters–each is flawed, each is heroic, and their lives are comic and tragic, often simultaneously.” — New York Times bestselling author Sally Mandel

website: www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com   E-mail: littlephi@aol.com

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Susan Ito is the author of A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption (North Atlantic Books). She lives in Oakland.

website: www.readingwritingliving.blogspot.com.e-mail: susanito@mac.com

Pico Iyer has been writing about his adopted home on and off for twenty-five years now. He is the author of numerous books about the romance between cultures, including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, Sun after Dark: Flights Into the Foreign, and Abandon, an Islamic Californian romance set in Santa Barbara. His work often appears in Harper’s, Time, and the New York Review of Books. He divides his time between Japan and California.

Website: http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/home.html

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Tony Johnston A former fourth grade teacher, Tony Johnston is