Black and white portrait of Lisa Alvarez

Lisa Alvarez

Lisa Alvarez’s debut collection of short fiction, Some Final Beauty and Other Stories is forthcoming in 2025 from the University of Nevada Press, as part of their New Oeste series. Her poetry and prose have appeared in journals including About Place Journal, Air/Light, Anacapa Review, Huizache, So It Goes, and in anthologies including most recently, Rumors, Secrets and Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice (Anhinga Press) and Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters (Stanford University Press) edited by David Kipen. She has edited three anthologies including Why to These Rocks: 50 years of Poetry from the Community of Writers (Heyday). She teaches at Irvine Valley College where she co-directs the Puente Program. She co-directs the Writers Workshops at the Community of Writers and serves as Assistant to the Poetry Director.

Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones

Chris Feliciano Arnold

Chris Feliciano Arnold is the author of The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon. He has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, and more. The recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has published fiction in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone and other magazines. Along the way, his work has been noted in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Short Stories. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California. [F/NF] cfarnold.com

Photo: Reyna Tenorio

Lynn Freed

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

Molly Giles

Molly Giles is the author of five award-winning short story collections (Rough Translations, Creek Walk, Bothered, and All The Wrong Places) and a novel, Iron Shoes. Her collection of short stories, Wife With Knife, recently won the Leap Frog Fiction Contest and was published in October of 2021. Her new novel, The Home for Unwed Husbands will be published by Leapfrog in spring 2023. Her memoir, Life Span, will appear in 2024. She attended the Community of Writers Summer Workshop a thousand years ago as a scholarship student and has happily returned as student and staff member many times since. She has won an NEA, an NBCC award for book reviewing, and has taught Fiction Writing at San Francisco State University and The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. [F] mollygiles.com

Debra Gwartney

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

Black and white portrait of Sands Hall

Sands Hall

Sands Hall is the author of the memoir Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint). Blackstone Audio produced the audio book, read by the author. Other books include the novel, Catching Heaven (Ballantine), a Random House Reader’s Circle selection and Willa Award Finalist (Woman Writing the West); and a book of essays and exercises, Tools of the Writer’s Craft. Her stories and essays have appeared in such journals as Alta, New England Review, Iowa Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Professor Emeritus at Franklin & Marshall College, she lives in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada. www.sandshall.com [Fiction/Memoir]

Photo Credit: Tracy Hall
Black and white portrait of Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is the author of the national bestsellers A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, California Arts Council Fellowship, and a Steinbeck Fellowship, among others. Previously, she was an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program and elsewhere. Her novel, El Nido, is forthcoming. [Fiction/Nonfiction]

Black and white portrait of Louis B. Jones

Louis B. Jones

Louis B. Jones is the author of five novels, three on The New York Times annual 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. 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. [Admin/Fiction]

Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones 

Devi Laskar

Devi S. Laskar (’04, ’08, ’14, ’15, ’21) is the author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, winner of 7th annual Crook’s Corner Book Prize (2020) for best debut novel set in the South, winner of the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (selected by APALA); selected by The Georgia Center for the Book as a 2019 book “All Georgians Should Read,” finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award, long-listed for the DSC Prize in South Asian Literature and the Golden Poppy Award. The novel was named by The Washington Post as one of the 50 best books of 2019. Laskar’s second novel, Circa, was published on May 3, 2022, by Mariner Books. Her third novel, Midnight, At the War, will be published by Mariner Books in Spring 2024. In 2022, USA Today named Laskar among “50 AAPI authors” to read and Goop selected Circa as its June Goop Book Club pick. Laskar holds degrees from Columbia University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. A native of Chapel Hill, N.C., she now lives in California with her family. www.devislaskar.com

Photo Credit: Anjini Laskar

Krys Lee

Krys Lee is the author of the story collection Drifting House and the novel How I Became a North Korean, and the translator of two books by Young-ha Kim. She is the recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and the Story Prize Spotlight Award, the Honor Title in Adult Fiction Literature from the Asian/Pacific American Libraries Association, a Granta New Voices pick, and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the BBC International Story Prize. She teaches creative writing at Yonsei University, Underwood International College. www.kryslee.com

Photo Credit: Matt Douma

Edan Lepucki

Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels California, Woman No. 17, and Time’s Mouth. She is also the editor of Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them. Her nonfiction has been published in Esquire Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The Cut, among other publications, and her short story “People in Hell Want Ice Water” is available as an Audible Original. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

www.edanlepucki.com

Photo credit: Ralph Palumbo
Black and white portrait of Maceo Montoya

Maceo Montoya

Maceo Montoya is an author, visual artist, and educator who has published books in a variety of genres, including four works of fiction: The Scoundrel and the Optimist, The Deportation of Wopper Barraza, You Must Fight Them: A Novella and Stories, and Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces. Montoya has also published two works of nonfiction: Letters to the Poet from His Brother, a hybrid book combining images, prose poems, and essays, and Chicano Movement for Beginners, which he both wrote and illustrated. Montoya is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and English at the University of California, Davis where he teaches courses on Chicanx culture, literature, and creative writing. He is the editor of the literary magazine Huizache and lives in Woodland, CA. [Fiction/Nonfiction]

Keenan Norris

Keenan Norris’s latest novel is The Confession of Copeland Cane, the winner of the 2022 Northern California Book Award. As an essayist, he’s earned a 2022 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award and a 2021 Folio: Eddie Award (for the essays “She Who Remembers” and “One Coyote” respectively). His debut novel Brother and the Dancer received the James D. Houston Award. He’s also authored the book of essays Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings and the novella Lustre. Keenan is Associate Professor of American literature and creative writing at San Jose State University and coordinator of the Steinbeck Fellows Program. He has been the Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia and is a Callaloo fellow. [F/NF]

Photo: Akubundu Amazu-Lott
Black and white portrait of Peter Orner

Peter Orner

Peter Orner is the author of seven books, the memoirs/ essay collections, Still No Word from You, a finalist for the PEN: Diamonstein/Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as the story collection, Maggie Brown and Others, a New York Times Notable Book, and the novel, Love and Shame and Love, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize), and Esther Stories, (finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award). Peter is also the editor of three books of oral history for the McSweeney’s/ Voice of Witness series. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper’s, the Paris Review, and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes as well as the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A new novel, the Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, will be published by Little, Brown in 2025. Peter has taught at San Francisco State University, the University of Iowa, Northwestern, and currently is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. Orner recently led a major CW short course on James Joyce’s Ulysses. [Fiction]

Photo: Pawel Kruk

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, On The Rooftop, was a September 2022 Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her second novel, The Revisioners, won a 2020 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and was a national bestseller as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National. Book Award. She lives in Oakland with her family. [F] margaretwilkersonsexton.com

Photo Credit: Smeeta Mahanti
Black and white portrait of Julia Flynn Siler

Julia Flynn Siler

Julia Flynn Siler is an award-winning author and journalist. A former London-based staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, her writing has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Her books are The White Devil’s Daughters (Knopf), The House of Mondavi (Gotham/Penguin), and Lost Kingdom (Grove/Atlantic). She serves on the Board of Directors and is also the co-director of the Community of Writers’ Narrative Nonfiction Program. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a competitive rower and mountain biker. She will be a visiting scholar at Oxford University in 2025. www.juliaflynnsiler.com [Nonfiction]

Photo credit: Stephanie Mohan
Black and white portrait of Greg Spatz

Gregory Spatz

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. He teaches in and directs the program for creative writing at Eastern Washington University. [Fiction]

Photo Credit: Julia Graff

Héctor Tobar

Héctor Tobar is the Los Angeles-born author of six books, including the nonfiction Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino,” and the novels The Tattooed Soldier and The Last Great Road Bum. His nonfiction Deep Down Dark was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times bestseller. His books have been translated into 15 languages. His novel The Barbarian Nurseries won the California Book Award, and his fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories. He earned his MFA from UC Irvine. As a journalist, he has been a foreign correspondent and has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and others. [F/NF]  www.hectortobar.com

Photo: Patrice Normand, Opale Agency
Black and white portrait of Andrew Tonkovich

Andrew Tonkovich

Andrew Tonkovich is the longtime editor of the Santa Monica Review and founding editor of Citric Acid: An Online Orange County Literary Arts Quarterly of Imagination and Reimagination. His writing has appeared widely, including in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Orange County Register, ZYZZYVA, Ecotone, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Los Angeles Times, Faultline, and Juked. He was for many years a contributing writer to the OC Weekly on books and politics. He is the author of two fiction collections, The Dairy of Anne Frank and More Wish Fulfillment in the Noughties and Keeping Tahoe Blue and Other Provocations. With Lisa Alvarez, he co-edited the landmark anthology Orange County: A Literary Field Guide. He taught at UC Irvine for twenty-five years, serving as president and grievance steward of the union representing adjunct faculty. Tonkovich hosts a weekly books show and podcast, Bibliocracy Radio, which airs on Pacifica Radio KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California, and edits the Community of Writers’ OGQ. [Fiction]

Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones

Claire Vaye Watkins

Claire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop, California in 1984 and raised in the Mojave Desert, in Tecopa, California, and Pahrump, Nevada. A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno and the Ohio State University, Claire is the author of three books: two novels (Gold, Fame, Citrus, and I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness), and the short story collection Battleborn. She has been awarded the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, theNewYorker.com, The Believer, on Granta‘s list of “Best Young American Novelists,” and elsewhere. She is a professor at UC Irvine, lives in Twentynine Palms, and can often be found at Camp Yellow Pine in the South Pahrump Valley, where she engages in direct action against for-profit industrial solar on public wilderness and for free, distributed community solar in the built environment alongside local conservation groups Basin and Range Watch and Mojave Green. [F/NF]

Photo credit: Lise Watkins