Lisa Alvarez’s debut collection, Some Final Beauty and Other Stories, was published in August 2025 by the University of Nevada Press, as part of their New Oeste imprint which promotes Latinx writers of the American West. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely including About Place Journal, Air/Light, Citric Acid, Huizache, Santa Monica Review, and in anthologies such as Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America (Norton) and most recently, Women in a Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond (Gunpowder Press). Devoted to promoting the writing of California, she has edited three anthologies including Orange County: A Literary Field Guide (Heyday) and Why to These Rocks: Fifty Years of Poems from the Community of Writers (Heyday). She teaches at Irvine Valley College, where she co-directs the PUENTE program.
2015 Writers Workshops Staff
Max Byrd (’83, ’96-’13, ’15, ’18) is the author of detective novels and historical novels, and several scholarly books about 18th-century literature. A former teacher at Yale and the University of California, Davis, Byrd is a winner of the Shamus Award for detective fiction, and the former President of the Board of the Community of Writers. He writes often for the New York Times Book Review and other journals. His more recent novels are The Sixth Conspirator and Pont Neuf.
Author Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio’s longtime book commentator, was the author of five novels, five collections of short stories and novellas, the memoir Fall Out of Heaven, and A Trance After Breakfast, a collection of travel essays. For more than three decades Cheuse was a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Idaho Review, and The Southern Review, among other places. He taught in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Alan died in July of 2015, but his voice and his writing will always be with us.
Mark Childress is the author of seven novels, three books for children, several screenplays, and many articles, reviews and essays. His books include A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender, Crazy in Alabama, Gone for Good, One Mississippi, and Georgia Bottoms. He has participated in the Community of Writers since 1980. [F] markchildress.com
John Daniel’s books of prose, including Rogue River Journal and Looking After, have won three Oregon Book Awards for Literary Nonfiction and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and have been supported by fellowships from Literary Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Daniel has taught as a writer-in-residence at colleges and universities across the country. Gifted, his first novel, came out in Spring 2017 from Counterpoint. His latest work, a collection of poetry called Lighted Distances: Four Seasons on Goodlow Rim, wass published in April 2023. He lives with his wife, Marilyn Daniel, in the Coast Range foothills west of Eugene, Oregon. https://www.johndaniel-author.net/
Photo credit: Alexandra Shyshkina
Leslie Daniels in the author of the novel, Cleaning Nabokov’s House, published by Simon & Schuster, translated into four languages and optioned for film. Her fiction and essays have been published in literary journals including The Santa Monica Review, Ploughshares, and The Missouri Review. Her background in publishing includes over a decade as a literary agent, as well as serving as the fiction editor for Green Mountains Review. Two of her theatrical pieces have been produced recently. Daniels lives in Ithaca, New York. llesliedaniels.com [F]
Tyler Dilts is the author of five novels, including the Edgar Award-nominated Come Twilight and the #1 Amazon Bestseller, A Cold and Broken Hallelujah. He earned his MFA in Fiction from California State University, Long Beach where he now teaches fiction writing and theory of fiction and film. He’s also served as the Visiting Writer at John Cabot University in Rome and taught as visiting faculty at the UCR Palm Desert Low Residency MFA Program. His newest novel, Everything That Dies, is forthcoming in 2027. [F]
Photo credit: Nicole Gharda
Alex Espinoza’s (’04, ’05) debut novel, Still Water Saints, was published to wide critical acclaim. His second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, was the winner of a 2014 American Book Award. He is the author of the nonfiction book Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime and has written for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, VQR, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR. His short story “Detainment” was selected for inclusion in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories. His latest novel is The Sons of El Rey (Simon and Schuster, June 2024). Alex lives in Los Angeles and is the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair and Professor of Creative Writing at UC Riverside.
Janet Fitch is the bestselling author of White Oleander, an Oprah Book Club selection and chosen as a Winter ’26 California Book Club selection; Paint it Black, adapted and directed for the screen by Amber Tamblyn; and a duet of novels set during the Russian Revolution, The Revolution of Marina M. and Chimes of a Lost Cathedral. Her short stories have appeared in journals and anthologies including Los Angeles Noir and Palm Springs Noir, and a film of her noir story “The Method,”was recently released as “The Long Game” starring Kathleen Turner. Longtime faculty with the Community of Writers, Fitch hosts her popular Writing Wednesdays writing series on YouTube.
Lynn Freed’s books include seven novels, a collection of stories, and two collections of essays. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, among numerous others. She is the recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two O. Henry Awards for fiction, and has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Guggenheim Foundation, among others. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Davis, and lives in Northern California. [F] http://www.lynnfreed.com/
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Dagoberto Gilb is the author of Before the End, After the Beginning; The Flowers; Gritos; Woodcuts of Women; The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña; and The Magic of Blood, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in many magazines, including Harper’s, The New Yorker, and Texas Monthly, and are reprinted widely. A union high-rise carpenter for nearly two decades, Gilb is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Writers Award, and has been a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Awards. He is the founding editor of Huizache magazine. He makes his home in Austin.
Photo Credit: Jean Luc Bertini
Sands Hall is the author of the award-winning memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint); Blackstone Audio produced the audio book, read by the author. Her novel, Catching Heaven, is a Willa Award finalist. Her award-winning essays and stories have appeared in such journals as Alta Journal, New England Review, Iowa Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She co-directs the Nonfiction/Memoir program at the Community of Writers. sandshall.com [F/NF/M]
Photo Credit: Tracy Hall
Dana Johnson is the author of the short story collection In the Not Quite Dark. She is also the author of Break Any Woman Down, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and of the novel Elsewhere, California. Both books were nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, ZYZZYVA, The Paris Review, Callaloo, and The Iowa Review, among others, and was anthologized in On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library, Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest, Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, and California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Recent work includes Trailblazer: Delilah Beasley’s California, a fictional account of the life of historian and newspaper columnist Delilah Beasley. Collaborations include WE, with Los Angeles artist Susan Silton, whose etchings accompany Dana’s short story, “We See It Differently, You and I”, and UC Irvine’s dance theater production of The Story of Biddy Mason, produced by Annie Loui, artistic director of Counter-Balance Theater. Dana Johnson serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers. danajohnsonauthor.com [F]
Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones
Louis B. Jones is the author of five novels, three on The New York Times list of Notable Books. A Fellow of the NEA and the MacDowell Colony, he has published stories and essays in ZYZZYVA, Santa Monica Review, and The Threepenny Review, and been included in the Pushcart Prize Stories and Best American Essays. He has served as Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis and Wichita State University; and has for many years helped run the Community of Writers. [Fiction]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Yiyun Li has published two story collections and two novels, including her latest, Kinder Than Solitude. She has won numerous awards, including the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. [F] www.yiyunli.com
Elizabeth Rosner (’82, ’83, ’87, ’99) is a novelist, poet, and essayist living in Berkeley, California. Her book of nonfiction, published in September 2017, is entitled Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory. It was chosen as a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice. Interviews with Ms. Rosner have been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and in The New York Times. Her most recent novel, Electric City, was named one of the best books of 2014 by National Public Radio. Her highly praised autobiographical poetry collection, Gravity, was published by Atelier26 Books in Fall 2014. The Speed of Light, her debut novel of 2001, was translated into nine languages, and won several literary prizes in both the US and Europe, including the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, the Prix France Bleu Gironde, and the Great Lakes Colleges Award in Fiction. It was short-listed for the prestigious Prix Femina in 2002, and picked as the “One City One Book” choice of Peoria, IL that same year. BlueNude, her second novel, was named among the best books of 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.elizabethrosner.com/
Photo credit: Judy Dater
Martin J. Smith is the author of five crime novels and five nonfiction books including Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads, a finalist for a 2022 Colorado Book Award. The veteran journalist and magazine editor has won more than fifty newspaper and magazine writing awards, and his novels have been short-listed for three of the publishing industry’s most prestigious honors, including the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award. He is a former senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. [F/NF] martinjsmith.com
Gregory Spatz’s most recent book publications are the novel Inukshuk and the collection of interconnected novellas and stories What Could Be Saved. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Southern Review, New England Review, Santa Monica Review, ZYZZYVA and in many other publications. Among other honors and awards, he’s the recipient of a Washington State Book Award and an NEA Fellowship. A new novel, The Vivaldi Church, and collection of short fiction, Brake For Miracles, are both forthcoming in 2026, as well as a brief memoir, Whale Vision. He teaches in and directs the program for creative writing at Eastern Washington University. gregoryspatz.com [F]
Photo credit: Julia Graff
Diana Wagman is the author of five novels for adults and one for young adults. Her second book, Spontaneous, won the PEN West Award for Fiction. Her fourth, The Care & Feeding of Exotic Pets, was a local bestseller. She has recently published essays, articles, reviews and short stories in a variety of journals and anthologies, most recently Lit Hub and The Santa Monica Review. She started her career at AFI as a screenwriting fellow and had one feature film, Delivering Milo, produced. She teaches writing and for the last three years has been a judge for the LA Times Book Prizes. [F] www.dianawagman.com
Tiphanie Yanique is the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the 2016 Bocas Prize in Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s 2016 Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection. Tiphanie is also the author of the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, and was listed by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2014. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is the author of a collection of stories, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, which won her a listing as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5Under35. Her writing has won the Bocas Award for Caribbean Fiction, the Boston Review Prize in Fiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship and an Academy of American Poet’s Prize. She has been listed by the Boston Globe as one of the sixteen cultural figures to watch out for and her writing has been published in the New York Times, Best African American Fiction, The Wall Street Journal, American Short Fiction and other places. Tiphanie is from the Virgin Islands and is a professor at Emory University. She lives in Atlanta with her family. www.tiphanieyanique.com