Chris Feliciano Arnold has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Believer, The New York Times, Folha de São Paulo and more. His fiction has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and published in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, and as part of Subway Library, a partnership between the New York Public Library and the MTA. Along the way, his work has been translated into six languages and 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. His first book, The Third Bank of the River (Picador 2018) is a work of personal journalism about the Brazilian Amazon. [NF/M] cfarnold.com
2026 Teaching Staff Authors
Mac Crane is the award-winning author of the novels, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself and A Sharp Endless Need, and the short story collection, Perverts. Their stories and essays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Passages North, Joyland, The Offing, No Tokens, The Florida Review, TriQuarterly, Lit Hub, Catapult, and elsewhere. They currently live in San Diego with their wife and two children. marisacrane.org/ [F]
Photo credit Ryan Pfluger
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
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. janetfitchwrites.com [F]
Photo credit: Cat Gwynn
Francisco Goldman’s novel Monkey Boy (2021) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and an American Book Award Winner. His novel Say Her Name won the Prix Femina Etranger. The Art of Political Murder won The WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Award and was the basis for an HBO documentary. The Interior Circuit won the Premio Metropolis Azul. The Long Night of White Chickens won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. The Ordinary Seaman was a Dublin Literary Award and PEN/Faulkner finalist. His work has appeared in The New Yorker; Harper’s; and many other publications. He has received a Cullman Center Fellowship; a Guggenheim; a Berlin Prize; and a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was awarded a 2018 PEN Mexico Award for Literary Excellence. He co-directs and co-founded the Premio Aura Estrada, and lives in Mexico City with Jovi, Azalea & Jojo. [F]
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce Francisco Goldman comes to us through the support of the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, of which he is a fellow.
Photo Credit: ©Ana Hop
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 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
Dylan Landis is the author of three works of fiction in the Rainey Royal Cycle set in 1970s Greenwich Village: List of All Possible Desires, a novel in stories; the novel Rainey Royal, a New York Times Editors’ Choice; and the novel in stories Normal People Don’t Live Like This. Her work has appeared in The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and she has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction. She lives in Los Angeles. dylanlandis.com [F]
Photo Credit: Cat Gwynn
Krys Lee is the author of the story collection Drifting House and the novel How I Became a North Korean, and the translator of I Hear Your Voice and the story collection Diary of a Murderer by Young-ha Kim. She received 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, and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the BBC International Story Prize. She currently teaches creative writing at Yonsei University, Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea. kryslee.com [F/M]
Photo Credit: Matt Douma
Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (Tor Books, 2024) and Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio Chicago. Craft, her fiction debut, was longlisted for the Story Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and elsewhere. anandalima.com [F]
Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan
Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah’s top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film The Atomic States of America, a 2012 Sundance selection, and the anthology she co-edited with Margot Kahn, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017), was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The American Scholar, Literary Hub, Newsday, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, Romper, and The Rumpus, among others. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia’s School of the Arts and is the recipient of a Pushcart nomination and an Orion Book Award nomination. McMasters has spoken about creative nonfiction at TEDx, authors@google, and more, and has taught at mediabistro.com, Franklin & Marshall College, and in the undergraduate writing program and Journalism Graduate School at Columbia University, among others. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University in New York. kellymcmasters.com [NF/M]
Photo Credit: Sylvie Rosokoff
Keenan Norris is a novelist, essayist and scholar. His latest novel is The Confession of Copeland Cane, the winner of the 2022 Northern California Book Award. His essays have garnered the 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award in Music, Theater and Performing Arts and the 2021 Folio: Eddie Award. His other books include the non-fiction work Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings and his debut novel Brother and the Dancer, which received the James D. Houston Award in 2012. Keenan has served as Lannan Visiting Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts (2023) and Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia (2021). Since 2022, he’s served as coordinator of the Steinbeck Fellows Program at San Jose State University. In 2025, he became Areas Editor (nonfiction) for Callaloo Literary Journal. His feature pieces and articles have appeared in numerous forums, including The Nation, Alta Journal, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TED-ED, and ZYZZYVA, while his short fiction has been published in several anthologies of California literature. He is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University. keenannorris.com [F/NF/M]
Photo: Akubundu Amazu-Lott
Peter Orner is the author of eight books, most recently the novel, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, named one of the best books of 2025 by the New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune, as well as the essay collections, Still No Word from You, a finalist for the PEN Award for the Art of the Essay, and Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. His story collection Maggie Brown and Others was a New York Times Notable Book. Other books include Love and Shame and Love (Winner of the California Book Award) Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), and Esther Stories. A recipient of the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Orner is also the editor of three books of oral history for the Voice of Witness series, and co-editor with Laura Lampton Scott of a new oral history series from McSweeney’s called “Dispatches.” His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper’s, the Paris Review and has been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. With Yvette Benavides, he’s the co-host of the Lonely Voice Podcast on Texas Public Radio. Orner recently led short courses on James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Melville’s Moby-Dick for the Community of Writers/Writers’ Annex. He teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont. [F/NF]
Photo: Brett Hall Jones
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
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, On the Rooftop, was a 2022 Reese’s Book Club Pick. 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 has been a Distinguished Visiting Writer in the MFA program at St. Mary’s College of California and she serves as vice president of the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers. She lives in Oakland with her family. [F]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Her most recent book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown (Knopf) and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a nonfiction finalist for the California Book Award. Her other books include The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty (Gotham Books, Penguin Random House), a finalist for a James Beard Award and a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished reporting, and Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure (Grove/Atlantic). She co-directs the Nonfiction/Memoir program at the Community of Writers, and a contributor to National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle, a juror for the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards, and directs a 2026 literary series at Oxford University. She has spoken at TEDX, Google, and Harvard University, and was named a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar. She is currently at work on a book of narrative nonfiction that explores the world of polar exploration. juliaflynnsiler.com [NF]
Photo credit: Stephanie Mohan
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
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
Andrew Tonkovich is the longtime editor of the West Coast literary arts journal the Santa Monica Review and founding editor of Citric Acid, an online Orange County, California quarterly. He hosts a weekly books show, Bibliocracy Radio, on Pacifica’s KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California. He co-edited the landmark anthology Orange County: A Literary Field Guide with Lisa Alvarez and is the author of two collections, The Dairy of Anne Frank and More Wish Fulfillment in the Noughties and Keeping Tahoe Blue and Other Provocations. His short stories, book reviews, essays, and journalism have appeared in Ecotone, ZYZZYVA, Faultline, Solstice, Journal of the Plague Years, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Best American Nonrequired Reading. For many years he was a regular contributor to the OC Weekly. [F]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Oscar Villalon is the Editor of ZYZZYVA, the award-winning California literary journal. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, The Approach, Virginia Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. A former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction three times, including once as jury chair, and has served as a judge for the National Book Awards. He lives with his family in San Francisco, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers.
Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones
Josh Weil is the author of the novels What Came West and The Great Glass Sea, the novella collection The New Valley, and the story collection The Age of Perpetual Light. A Fulbright fellow, he has been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation, among others. He has taught widely—including in graduate programs at Columbia University, UC Irvine, and the University of Leipzig. joshweil.com [F]