Tom Barbash is the author of four books as well as reviews, essays, and articles for publications such as McSweeney’s, Tin House, The Believer, Narrative Magazine, ZYZZYVA, and The New York Times. His short story collection Stay Up With Me was nominated for the Folio Prize and picked as a Best Book of the Year by The Independent of London, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. His novel The Last Good Chance was awarded The California Book Award and was a Publishers Weekly and Anniston Star Best Book of the Year. His nonfiction book On Top of the World, about the fate of the bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald on 9/11, was a New York Times Best Seller. A well-regarded speaker, panelist, and interviewer, Barbash teaches the novel, short fiction, and nonfiction at California College of the Arts. His most recent book, the novel The Dakota Winters, was a national bestseller, and named as an Editors Choice by The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Magazine, Rolling Stone and People.
2022 NF Staff
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.
Debra Gwartney is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize and the Willa Award for Nonfiction. Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, VQR, and others. She is the recipient of two Pushcart prizes and her essay, “Fire and Ice,” was recently selected for Best American Essays. She is co-editor, along with her husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon. [M] www.debragwartney.com
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
Jason Roberts is a writer of nonfiction and fiction. His most recent book, Every Living Thing, was honored with the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for biography, as well as the PEN America/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing award. His previous book, A Sense of the World, was a national bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and longlisted for the international Guardian First Book Award. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers, and lives in Oakland and Montreal. [F/NF]
Photo Credit: Christopher Michel
Héctor Tobar is the author of seven books, including the novels The Tattooed Soldier and The Last Great Road Bum. His non-fiction Deep Down Dark was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times bestseller. His novel The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable Book and won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Tobar’s fiction has also appeared in Best American Short Stories. He earned his MFA from the UC Irvine, where he is currently a professor. As a journalist, has been an op-ed writer for the New York Times and a contributor to The New Yorker. His most recent book, Our Migrant Souls, won the Kirkus Prize. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship. hectortobar.com [F/NF/M]
Photo: Patrice Normand, Opale Agency
David L. Ulin is the author, most recently, of the novel Thirteen Question Method. His other books include Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay; The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time; and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He is the books editor of Alta and the former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Paris Review, and The Best American Essays 2020. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Ucross Foundation, as well as a COLA Individual Master Artist Grant from the City of Los Angeles, he is a Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light. [F/NF] theshipmanagency.com