Lisa Alvarez’s debut collection of short fiction, Some Final Beauty and other Stories is forthcoming from the University of Nevada Press, as part of their New Oeste series. Her poetry and prose have appeared in journals including 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
Meriwether Clarke (’14)’s poetry and prose have appeared in Best New Poets, The Rumpus, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, Tin House, Poetry Daily, The Journal, Gigantic Sequins, The Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of UC Irvine’s Programs in Writing and Northwestern University, she has been supported by the Vermont Studio Center, the Community of Writers, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her chapbook, twenty-first century woman, was released by Dancing Girl Press in 2019. https://meriwetherclarke.com/
Lorene Delany-Ullman’s (’98, ’14) book of prose poems, Camouflage for the Neighborhood, won the 2011 Sentence Award. She recently published her poetry and creative nonfiction in Citric Acid, Zócalo Public Square, and TAB: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics. The following anthologies have included her work: Orange County, A Literary Field Guide, Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease, and Alternatives to Surrender. Her manuscript, The Grief Contest, was a finalist for the 2023 Louise Bogan Award (Trio Press) and the 2020 Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry. She works with artist Jody Servon on Saved: Objects of the Dead, a photographic and poetic exploration of the human experience of life, death, and memory. Excerpts from their collaborative project have been published in AGNI, Tupelo Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, Palaver, and Lunch Ticket and exhibited nationwide in over thirty museums, galleries, and libraries. Saved: Objects of the Dead, as a book was published by Artsuite in January 2023. Delany-Ullman currently teaches writing at the University of California, Irvine.
Glen David Gold is the author of the best selling novels Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside and the memoir I Will Be Complete. He has written short stories, essays and journalism for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy, McSweeney’s, Wired and Zyzzyva, and comic books for DC, Marvel and Dark Horse. His dramatic work includes stuff you’ve never heard of nor seen anywhere, and easily-available episodes of the podcasts Welcome to Night Vale and The Thrilling Adventure Hour.
Rhoda Huffey’s novel 31 Paradiso is published by Delphinium Books. Her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Santa Monica Review, Tin House, and other magazines. She holds an MFA from the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine; and she was a student at the Community of Writers on multiple occasions. Her first novel, The Hallelujah Side, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Book, and is being republished alongside the second. She lives in Venice Beach with her husband, Bill McDonald, and a host of animals. www.rhodahuffey.com
Photo Credit: Daniel Shapiro
Michael Jaime-Becerra is a writer from El Monte, California, a working-class suburb east of East Los Angeles. He is the author of This Time Tomorrow, a novel awarded an International Latino Book Award, and Every Night Is Ladies’ Night, a story collection that received the California Book Award for a First Work of Fiction. Recent essays of his have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, ZYZZYVA, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Photo Credit: EVJ
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. [F]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Michelle Latiolais is Professor of English at the University of California at Irvine and Director of the Programs In Writing. She 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 in 2008 by Bellevue Literary Press, as was Widow, a collection of stories, Involutions and essays, released in January 2011. She was released in May 2016 by W.W. Norton & Company. Recent work has appeared in ZYZYVVA and the Santa Monica Review.
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
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
Photo Credit: John Beran
Robin Page was raised in Cincinnati and has degrees from UCLA and UC Irvine’s MFA program. She lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, and has powerfully mined her experience as a displaced Midwesterner, a woman of color, and a mother in her newest book Small Silent Things. She attended the Community of Writers in 2002.
Jan BuschoJan Buscho
Max ByrdMax Byrd
Joanne MescheryJoanne Meschery
