Elana Kuczynski Arnold (’95, ’98 ’15) is the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning young adult novels and children’s books, including the Printz Honor winner Damsel, the National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of, and Global Read Aloud selection A Boy Called Bat and its sequels. Several of her books are Junior Library Guild selections and have appeared on many best book lists, including the Amelia Bloomer Project, a catalog of feminist titles for young readers. Elana teaches in Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program and lives in Southern California with her family and menagerie of pets.
2015 Writers Workshops Special Guests
Kim Culbertson‘s first YA novel, Songs for a Teenage Nomad, was published in 2010. It was followed closely in 2011 by her second novel, Instructions for a Broken Heart, which was named a Booklist Top Ten Romance Title for Youth: 2011 and also won the 2012 Northern California Book Award for YA Fiction. Scholastic published her third YA novel, Catch a Falling Star, in April of 2014 and will release her next YA novel, The Possibility of Now, in 2016. She facilitates the creative writing classes for the high school program at Forest Charter School in Nevada City. In 2012, Kim wrote her eBook novella The Liberation of Max McTrue for her students.
Frances Dinkelspiel is the author of Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and winner of a Golden Poppy award, and Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, a New York Times bestseller that the Wall Street Journal and Food and Wine magazine named a best wine book of the year. She co-founded Cityside, the news organization behind Berkeleyside, The Oaklandside and Richmondside. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Beast, and People. [Nonfiction]
Photo Credit: Nathan Phillips
Anne Lamott is the author of seven novels, Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also written several bestselling books of nonfiction, including, Operating Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son’s first year; Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son; and the classic book on writing; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She has also authored several collections of autobiographical essays on faith; Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith; and Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. In addition, she has written, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers; Stitches; A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair; Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace; and Hallelujah Anyway; Rediscovering Mercy. Her most recent book is Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (Riverhead Books). Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Mock has made a documentary on Lamott, entitled Bird by Bird with Annie (1999). Anne Lamott has also been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Photo Credit: Sam Lamott
Michelle Latiolais is the author of the novel, Even Now, which received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her second novel, A Proper Knowledge, was published by Bellevue Literary Press, as was Widow, a collection of stories, involutions and essays. Her novel She was released in 2016 by W.W. Norton & Company. Recent work is forthcoming in Mississippi Review in 2025.
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Malcolm Margolin is the founder of Heyday Books, established in 1974. The mission of Heyday Books is to deepen people’s appreciation and understanding of California’s cultural, natural, historic, literary, and artistic resources. He is the author of four books, including The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. To mark Heyday’s 40th anniversary, Heyday just published The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher. www.heydaybooks.com
Kem Nunn is the author of six novels, including the National Book Award nominee, Tapping the Source; Tijuana Straits, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller; The Dogs of Winter; Pomona Queen, Unassigned Territory; and Chance. In addition to writing novels, he writes screenplays for television and film, most notably John from Cincinnati, which he co-created with David Milch; Chance, adapted from his novel and co-created for television with Alex Cunningham; Deadwood; and Sons of Anarchy. His articles and book reviews have appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Surfer, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.
Photo Credit: Ulrike Nunn
Charlie Olsen started his publishing career at InkWell in 2007 representing children’s books, graphic novels and illustrated works, and compelling narrative non-fiction. He represents award-winning graphic novelists, including New York Times bestsellers Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire, and Cartoonist’s Studio Prize-winner Noelle Stevenson; distinguished children’s book authors including New York Times bestseller Andrea Cremer, Amy Ewing, Zoë Ferraris, and Gus Gordon; and he also represents non-fiction, including Whisk(e)y Distilled by Heather Greene.
Jason Roberts is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. His most recent book is Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, published this year by Random House. His previous book, A Sense of the World: How Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler, was a national bestseller and a finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award. [NF]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Amy Tan’s novels are The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and Valley of Amazement. She is the author of two memoirs, The Opposite of Fate and Where the Past Begins; and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat. Tan served as co-producer and co-screenwriter for the film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club and creative consultant for the PBS television series, Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat. She wrote the libretto for the opera The Bonesetter’s Daughter and is the subject of the American Masters documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir. Tan is an instructor of a MasterClass on Fiction, Memory, and Imagination. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent book, The Backyard Bird a Chronicles (Knopf, April 2024) marks her debut as a nature journalist and bird artist. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers.
Pauls Toutonghi is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of the novels Red Weather and Evel Knievel Days. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, VQR, The Boston Review, Zoetrope, Glimmer Train, The Harvard Review, and One Story, as well as online for Salon, The Rumpus, Bookslut, The Millions, and elsewhere. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. www.paulstoutonghi.wordpress.com