Brian Asman is a writer, actor, director, and producer from San Diego, CA. He’s the author of the hit indie novella Man, Fuck this House (recently optioned by a major streaming service). His other books include I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today from Eraserhead Press, Neo Arcana, Nunchuck City and Jailbroke from Mutated Media, and the forthcoming Return of the Living Elves. He’s recently published short stories in Pulp Modern, Kelp, Welcome to the Splatter Club and Lost Films, and comics in Tales of Horrorgasm. A film he co-wrote and produced, A Haunting in Ravenwood, is available now on DVD and VOD from Breaking Glass. His short “Reel Trouble” won Best Short Film at Gen Con 2022 and Best Horror Short at the Indie Gathering. Brian holds an MFA from UCR-Palm Desert. He’s represented by Dunham Literary, Inc. Max Booth III is his hype man. Find him on social media (@thebrianasman) or his website www.brianasmanbooks.com

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a first generation Chicana born and raised in San Gabriel, California, who fondly remembers weekends spent haciendo travesuras with her cousins around her grandparents’ Boyle Heights home. Her debut collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016), was written while living in a house in the shadows of Dodger Stadium in historic Solano Canyon. Most recently, Bermejo was chosen as the first “Poet in the Parks” resident at Gettysburg National Military Park in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the National Parks Arts Foundation. She is a former Steinbeck fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women grantee, Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD newer poet, and her poetry received 3rd place in the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books literary awards. She has received residencies with Hedgebrook and the Ragdale Foundation and is a proud member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. Bermejo is a cofounder of Women Who Submit, a literary organization using social media and community events to empower women and non-binary authors to submit work for publication. She received a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University, Long Beach and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She facilitates online and in-person workshops in poetry and submission strategies with UCLA Extension, Antioch University Los Angeles, Los Angeles Writing Classes as well as being available for classroom visits for university, high school, and junior high communities. She is a workshop coordinator for teen art classes with ArtworxLA.

Ahmed Best is a Futurist, Writer, Director, Producer, Actor, Musician, and Host. Ahmed was a founding member of the acid jazz group The Jazzhole and starred in the Broadway musical Stomp. He then he went on to be the first CGI lead character in a motion picture starring as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. A graduate of the the American Film Institute, Ahmed is an Ovation Award, LACC Award, Stage Raw Award, and an ANNIE award winner. He’s the Executive Producer of The DL Chronicles(GLAAD award winner for Best Anthology series) Co- Director of the web series Bandwagon, Creator writer and director for the web series This Can’t Be My Life, and the Sci-fi comedy The Nebula. He is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC and is the Echo Theater Company's associate artistic director.

Francesca Lia Block is the author of more than twenty-five books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, including House of Hearts and The Thorn Necklace: Healing Through Writing and the Creative Process and many bestselling and award-winning novels, including The Elementals, Beyond the Pale Motel, Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books, Necklace of Kisses, and Roses and Bones and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.Her work has been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, poems, essays and interviews in The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Review of Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock, The Fairy Tale Review and Rattle among others. In addition to writing, Francesca is a beloved and devoted teacher. She was named Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College in 2014 and in 2018-19 became a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Redlands where she was a finalist for Professor of the Year award. Currently she teaches fiction at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, and privately in Los Angeles where she was born and raised. She holds an MFA from UC Riverside.

Adam Deutsch is the author of a full-length collection, Every Transmission, forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2023. He has work recently in Poetry International, Thrush, Juked, AMP Magazine, Ping Pong, and Typo, and has a chapbook called Carry On (Elegies). He teaches in the English Department at Grossmont College and is the publisher of Cooper Dillon Books. He lives with his spouse and child in San Diego, CA. AdamDeutsch.com

HelenKay Dimon/Darby Kane is a former divorce lawyer turned bestselling author of more than 40 Romantic Suspense, Contemporary, and Erotic Romance books and novellas. Her books have been featured in various national and international venues and she has had two books named Red-Hot Reads in Cosmo magazine. She is a four-time RITA® Award finalist in romantic suspense (for Mr. and Mr. Smith, Facing Fire, Guarding Mr. Fine and The Fixer) and is 2018 RITA® Award winner for The Fixer. She’s also a Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award winner in romantic suspense for The Fixer. In addition to writing, HelenKay is Chair of the Policy Advisory Committee of the Romance Writers of America and frequently teaches workshops and classes on fiction writing and romance writing. She lives in San Diego where she is (or should be) working on her next series but might be streaming a show on Netflix. Just in case you were wondering…HelenKay is her real name. Yes, that’s a capital K in the middle, all one word and no space (blame her two grandmothers – Helen and Kay). Dimon is pronounced Die-Mon. HelenKay is also…Darby Kane who is the #1 international bestselling author of domestic suspense. Her first two thrillers, Pretty Little Wife and The Replacement Wife, have been optioned for television and featured in numerous venues, including The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, The New York Post, Popsugar, Refinery29, Goodreads, The Skimm, and The Huffington Post. Her new book The Last Invitation is out in December.

Casey Dolan is a digital consultant, web designer, and radio host living and working in the Palm Springs, California Area.

Grace Doyle is the associate publisher of Amazon Publishing. Her bestselling authors include Patricia Cornwell, Robert Dugoni, Barry Eisler, Dean Koontz, Lee Goldberg, Kendra Elliott, Melinda Leigh, and countless others.

Jennie Dunham has been a literary agent in New York, New York since May 1992. In August 2000 she founded Dunham Literary, Inc. She represents literary fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Her clients have had both critical and commercial success. Books she has represented have appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers in adult hardcover fiction, children’s books, and children’s book series. Her clients have won numerous awards including: New York Times Best Illustrated Book, The Schneider Family Award, Boston Globe Horn Book Honor, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist. She has been a member of AALA (American Association of Literary Agents, formerly AAR) since 1993. She served on the Program Committee and was Program Committee Director for several years. She was also a member of the Electronic Committee. She started her career at John Brockman Associates and then Mildred Marmur Associates. She was employed by Russell & Volkening for 6 years before she left to found Dunham Literary, Inc. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Anthropology and .has a master's degree in Social Work from New York University (although she only practices with characters on the page).

Samantha Dunn is senior editor of engagement/premium content of the OC Register and the former executive editor of Coast Magazine. She is the author of several books including the novel Failing Paris, a finalist for the PEN Center Fiction, and the bestselling memoirs, Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life and Faith in Carlos Gomez. Dunn’s writing has been featured in many publications including O the Oprah Magazine, Ms., Glamour and the Los Angeles Times. Her work is anthologized in a number of places, including the short story anthology, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles, which she co-edited. Dunn is a member of the Writers Guild of America and teaches memoir writing at Chapman University. Also, she directs Writers Camp founded by Cheryl Strayed at the Esalen Institute and is on the faculty of the literary nonprofit begun by Pam Houston, WritingxWriters.

Chris Fields is a Los Angeles based director, actor and teacher. As founding Artistic Director of The Echo, he’s produced, to date, 63 Los Angeles premieres, 48 of which were world premieres, and of those, 28 were commissioned. As a director, most recently: the Los Angeles Premiere of Miki Johnson’s AMERICAN FALLS, and the World Premieres of Tommy Smith’s FUGUE and FIREMEN He won the LADCC award for direction for FIREMEN as well as winning the LA Weekly Award for Best Comedy Direction for his production of Gary Lennon’s A FAMILY THING. Additionally, among many others: the world premiere of Kate Robin’s WHAT THEY HAVE at South Coast Repertory, the Los Angeles Premiere of Jessica Goldberg’s BODY POLITIC which received four Ovation nominations, the World Premiere of THE ILLUSTRIOUS BIRTH OF PADRAIC DUFFY, the Los Angeles Premieres of Kate Robin’s ANON and Sarah Ruhl’s MELANCHOLY PLAY, the World Premiere of Paul Zimmerman’s PIGS AND BUGS, and the World Premiere of EAT ME by Jacqueline Wright, which was nominated for six LA Weekly Awards including Best Director. His work in film includes his adaptation of Neal Bell’s OUT THE WINDOW, which he produced and directed, and his recent short SUNNSLOPE, which was awarded Best New York Film at the New York Film and Video Festival and nominated for Best in Fest at the Great Lakes Film Festival. In 1995, he founded the Ojai Playwrights Conference, serving as Artistic Director until 2000. While there, he was responsible for bringing David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp, Kira Obolensky, Deborah Jo Laufer, Neena Beber and Ari Roth, to Southern California as well as work-shopping BETTY’S SUMMER VACATIION by Christopher Durang and David Ives’ POLISH JOKE, among many others. As an actor, he has appeared on Broadway in James Duff’s HOMEFORNT with Carroll O’Connor and Frances Sternhagen directed by Michael Attenborough, off Broadway in Gary Sinise’s original Steppenwolf production of ORPHANS, Michael Greif’s MACHINAL at both Naked Angels and The Public and the world premiere of David Ives’ WORDS WORDS WORDS at The Manhattan Punchline, to name just a few. Regionally, he’s worked at The Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, The Philadelphia Drama Guild, The Rep Theatre of St. Louis, and The Missouri Repertory Theatre and was a proud member of the acting ensemble for Lloyd Richards at The Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. On film: ALIEN3, THE GAME, FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC for David Fincher as well as JURASSIC PARK, APOLLO 13 and STARGATE among others. He’s also been in numerous hour, half-hour, mini-series and mow’s on television. Chris was an adjunct professor of drama at SUNY Purchase and maintains a workshop in Los Angeles

Don Handfield was the co-creator and Executive Producer of History Channel's drama series Knightfall and producer of critically-acclaimed films The Founder starring Michael Keaton, and Kill The Messenger starring two-time Academy-Award nominated actor Jeremy Renner. Handfield is currently writing an original scripted comedy series for Paramount + and adapting the graphic novel UNIKORN for Stampede Ventures with Debbie Berman (editor of Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Homecoming) attached to direct. Handfield is a partner and board member of top-indie comic label Scout Comics and his original comic series The Rift was optioned by Steven Spielberg and produced as the season finale for the Apple + reboot of Amazing Stories.  Handfield is a fellow of the WGA Showrunner Training Program, the Film Independent's Director's Lab and was named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine.

Vanessa Hua is an award-winning, best-selling author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her novel, A River of Stars, was named to the Washington Post and NPR’s Best Books of 2018 lists, and has been called a "marvel" by O, The Oprah Magazine, and "delightful" by The Economist. Her short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities,  a New York Times Editors' Choice, received an Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature and was a finalist for a California Book Award, and a New American Voices Award.  Her  novel, Forbidden City—called “magnificent” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “new classic” by the San Francisco Chronicle,  and “masterful” by the Washington Post— is a national bestseller. For more than two decades, she has been writing about Asia and the diaspora, filing stories from China, Burma, Panama, South Korea, and Ecuador. She began her career at the Los Angeles Times before heading east to the Hartford Courant. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Newsweek, among other publications. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she also received a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan literary award, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing.  She is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Riverside's MFA program. Other achievements include the Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice coverage; the Asian American Journalists Association’s National Journalism Award — online/broadcast, print, and radio; the Society of Professional Journalists,  the James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the San Francisco Press Club Greater Bay Area Journalism Award, San Francisco Press Club, and Best of the West. She was the Featured Literary Artist at APAture, an Asian American arts festival in San Francisco, and her short story collection was El Cerrito's pick for One City, One Book. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Guernica,  The Sun, and elsewhere. She received an Emerging Writer Fellowship from Aspen Words,  a fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference,  and a writer's residency at Hedgebrook, among other honors.  She has taught at the  University of San Francisco, Sewanee Writers’ Workshop,  Aspen Autumn Words., Warren Wilson MFA program, Writers’ Grotto, Hedgebrook, Writer’s Winter Break,  Community of Writers , Tin House Workshop,  Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, Rooted & Written, Kearny Street Workshop, and elsewhere.

Toni Ann Johnson is the winner of the 2021 Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction with her linked collection Light Skin Gone to Waste, forthcoming on October 15, 2022, by UGA Press. Roxane Gay selected the book for the prize and is also editing. Johnson’s novella Homegoing was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner Wisdom Award in fiction. It won Accents Publishing’s inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2021. The novel Remedy For a Broken Angel was released in 2014 and earned Johnson a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. In 1998 Johnson won the Christopher Award and the Humanitas Prize for her screenplay “Ruby Bridges,” the Disney/ABC movie and true story of the young girl who integrated into the New Orleans Public School system. In 2004 Johnson won a second Humanitas Prize for her screenplay “Crown Heights” (Showtime), also a true story. The film examined the relationship between a Hasidic Jewish teen and an African-American teen that came together to form a hip hop group in the wake of the 1991 Crown Heights Riots. In 2000, Johnson wrote the Lifetime movie “The Courage to Love,” starring Vanessa L. Williams, based on the life of Henriette Delille, a free woman of color in mid-19th Century New Orleans, who became one of the first nuns of African descent. In 2002, she wrote the television pilot “Save The Last Dance,” produced for Fox Television and based on the hit feature film, on which she was a participating writer. Johnson also co-wrote the 2008 feature, “Step Up 2: The Streets,” the second installment of the international Step Up franchise. The Fountainhead Theater Company produced Johnson’s stage play Gramercy Park is Closed to the Public in Los Angeles in 1994 with Johnson in the lead role of Luna. The play subsequently received a main-stage production by The New York Stage and Film Company at Vassar College in 1999 and starred Nicole Ari Parker, David Warshofsky, and Eddie Cahill.  She co-wrote the play “Here In My Father’s House” along with Leslie Lee, Ellen Cleghorne, Cheryl Lane, Zelda Patterson, and Jewel Brimage. It was directed by DouglasTurner Ward, produced Off-Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company, and starred, James Pickens Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson. Johnson, along with the other participating women writers also appeared in the production. In 2013, Johnson began publishing short stories based on her experience as a person of color, growing up in Monroe, New York, which at the time was a conservative town with few people of color. The stories examine race and class and have appeared in Callaloo, Hunger Mountain, Vida Review, The Coachella Review, The Emerson Review, Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor, Elohi Gadugi Journal, Arlijo Journal, Red Fez, Serving House Journal, Soundings Review, Xavier Review, the Reading Out Loud podcast, and The Missouri Review’s Miller Aud-Cast. She won the 2021 Miller Audio Prize for prose with her reading of her short story “Time Travel.” Johnson holds a BFA in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She’s an alumna of the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab and the Prague Summer Program For Writers. She was a 2016 Callaloo Writer’s Workshop Fellow, and in 2018, Johnson was a participant in the One Story Summer Conference. In 2017, Johnson joined the University of Southern California faculty, where she taught screenwriting to undergraduates and graduate students in the School of Cinematic Arts through 2020. In the spring of 2022, she joined the faculty of Antioch University Los Angeles where she teaches fiction and screenwriting.

Lia Langworthy is a published essayist, screenwriter, filmmaker and educator. She has published essays in Mutha Magazine, Angel’s Flight Literary West and Writers Resist. She has written for CBS (Young and the Restless), Showtime (Soul Food), FX (The Shield), TvOne (Media) and ABC (General Hospital). She has appeared in Rogue Theatre’s writers-who-read series, Rant & Rave, sharing her original narrative non-fiction. She appeared in Survivors, a Stand Up 2 Cancer short film shot by Errol Morris. In 2018, Lia was a semi-finalist for Universal’s Writing Program and a semi-finalist for Imagine Impact. Lia attened UC Berkeley (BS) and UC Riverside (MFA). Lia currently has several film and TV projects in development. She is a professor of screenwriting at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Edan Lepucki is the author of the novella If You’re Not Yet Like Me and the novels California and Woman No. 17. California debuted at #3 on the New York Times Bestseller  List and was a #1 bestseller on the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestsellers lists. California was a fall 2014 selection of Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program. Edan and Stephen Colbert are now besties. Woman No. 17 received rave reviews from the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications, and was #3 on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List. People Magazine’s books editor Kim Hubbard selected Woman No. 17 for the Book of the Month Club. It was named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, PopSugar, and The Maine Edge. Edan created the popular Instagram Mothers Before, and she has edited a book inspired by the project, published by Abrams Press in 2020. Edan is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire, Narrative Magazine, The New York Times, The Cut, and McSweeney’s, among others. The Los Angeles Times named her a Face to Watch for 2014. She is contributing editor to The Millions and the founder of Writing Workshops Los Angeles.

Chris Levinson is a writer and executive producer whose credits include Party of Five, Charmed, Dawson’s Creek, Law & Order, Law & Order:SVU, Tyrant, and many more, including several pilots.

Sara Marchant received her MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside/Palm Desert. Her work has been published by The Manifest Station, Every Writer’s Resource, Full Grown People, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Coachella Review, Writers Resist, East Jasmine Review, ROAR, and Desert Magazine. Her work has been anthologized in  All the Women in My Family Sing, and by Running Wild Press.  Her novella, The Driveway Has Two Sides, was published by Fairlight Books.  Her memoir, Proof of Loss, was published by Otis Books. Her essay Haunted recent was named a Notable Essay by Best American Essays. Long ago and far away, she worked at The San Diego Natural History Museum in their Bi-national Education Department utilizing her BA in Latin American History. In her spare time, she teaches Critical Thinking and Writing at Mt. San Jacinto College to the new generation that she hopes will someday save our society from its nihilistic impulses. She lives in the high desert of Southern California with her husband, two dogs, two horses, a goat, and five chickens. She is working on a memoir reflecting upon her experience as Mexican-Jewish woman in our current political hellscape. Sara is a founding editor of Writers Resist. 

Marya Mazor is an award winning and critically acclaimed director of theatre & film. Mazor’s February 2020 production of Fun Home won the Ovation Award for Best Production of a Musical. She also recently directed the web series Sophie in Hollywood (coming soon to Amazon Prime and Now Streaming on Asian American Movies). Her productions have received multiple LA Times Critic's Pick designations, Ovation Award Nominations, and Stage Raw Award Nominations. She directed Donald Margulies' The Model Apartment for The Geffen Playhouse, Tribes at The Chance Theater (OC Register Best Play 2017) and The Rescued at The Road Theater Company (Stage Raw Award Nominee), as well as Ivy & Bean at South Coast Repertory, Out of Our Father's House for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, That Pretty Pretty... or the Rape Play at Son of Semele, Mad Forest at the Open Fist, The English Bride at the Road, and The Goat (OC Weekly Best Play). She also directed a Broadway scale Aladdin for the Disney Cruise Lines. Her AFI Directing Workshop for Women short film The Winged Man was lauded at festivals worldwide including ComiCon and Rhode Island International. Marya was a founding Artistic Director of Voice & Vison, a theatre developing the voices of women and girls in New York. She is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts TCG Fellowship and holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Marya has taught at USC, Pepperdine University, Fordham University, and Chapman University among others.

Robert Mitas is a film and TV producer and screenwriter. Robert ran Furthur Films, the production company of Academy Award-winning actor/producer Michael Douglas from 2010-2017. During his tenure at Furthur, Robert was responsible for development, production, and delivery of all film and television projects. He is the executive producer of Ratched on Netflix and previously was the producer of Flatliners and executive producer of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. He is currently Head of Originals for Voyage Media an innovative production company, incubating client IP for film, television, podcast and all media.

Patrick Newman is a manager at Mosaic Media Group.

Patrick O’Neil is the author of the memoirs: ANARCHY AT THE CIRCLE K (Punk Hostage Press, 2022), GUN, NEEDLE, SPOON (Dzanc Books, 2015), and HOLD-UP (13e Note Editions, 2013). He is the co-author on two instructional writing manuals, WRITING YOUR WAY TO RECOVERY: HOW STORIES CAN SAVE OUR LIVES (Independent Press, 2021), with the author James Brown. And PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program's, THE SENTENCES THAT CREATE US: CRAFTING A WRITER'S LIFE IN PRISON (Haymarket Books, 2022). His writing has appeared in numerous publications including: Juxtapoz, Salon, The Fix, Decible, and Razorcake. O'Neil is a contributing editor for Sensitive Skin Magazine, a Pushcart nominee, a two time nominee for Best Of The Net, and a PEN Center USA Professional and former Emerging Voices Mentor. His novel, LA COUNTY - the first book in a trilogy of noir crime novels set in LA - will be forthcoming with Punk Hostage Press (TBA). O'Neil holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles where he is adjunct faculty for their Continuing Education program. He also teaches at a Los Angeles community college and various rehabs, correctional facilities, institutions, and workshops.

Heather Scott Partington is a writer, teacher, and book critic.  She lives in Elk Grove, California with her husband and two kids. Her criticism and interviews have appeared in major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, the Star Tribune, and Paste Magazine, as well as top literary publications such as The Believer, The National Book Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, The Millions, On the Seawall, The Nervous Breakdown, Entropy, Kirkus, and Literary Hub. She is a contributor to Alta Magazine and the inaugural Critic-in-Residence for UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program. She is currently a board member and Vice President of the Emerging Critics program for the National Book Critics Circle. In 2017, Heather was awarded one of seven inaugural emerging critic fellowships from the National Book Critics Circle. Her nonfiction, journalism, and features have appeared in Under the Gum Tree, Las Vegas Weekly, Sacramento News & Review, Electric Literature, and Goodreads, among others. Heather’s interview of author Yann Martel was included in the paperback edition of his novel, The High Mountains of Portugal. Heather is the former book reviews editor of The Coachella Review and has appeared as a guest on Literary Disco and KCOD’s Open Book. A classically trained dancer, Heather’s pre-writing life included decades of ballet and contemporary dance. She performed as an apprentice to Sacramento Ballet, and was a company member of CORE Contemporary Dance. Heather earned her Associate professional certificate in Cecchetti Classical Ballet from the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Since 2002, Heather has been teaching in the Elk Grove Unified School District, where she has served at various points as a dance teacher, English teacher, Independent Study Teacher, AVID teacher, Performing Arts Department Chair, and AVID Program Coordinator. Heather holds a BA in English Literature from the University of California, Davis and an MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Riverside.

Annmarie Sairrino is CEO of Ammo Entertainment. s an experienced international producer who has specialized in adapting Japanese creative properties for global, English-language production. She has led AMMO Entertainment since establishing the company in 2020. Ms. Sairrino began her entertainment career in 2003 with Golden Globe-winning producer Sandy Climan (THE AVIATOR) and his firm Entertainment Media Ventures. In 2012, she joined All Nippon Entertainment Works (ANEW), rising to senior vice president of development and production and serving with the company for five years. During her time with ANEW, Ms. Sairrino set up a diverse slate of projects derived from Japanese properties, including the superhero action title TIGER & BUNNY (Imagine Entertainment), the action-thriller SHIELD OF STRAW (Depth of Field), the horror-thriller GHOST TRAIN (Depth of Field, with Sonic the Hedgehog franchise screenwriters Josh Miller and Patrick Casey), the action-horror SOUL REVIVER (Bedford Falls), the dramatic horror BIRTHRIGHT (Depth of Field), the action-sci-fi GAIKING (Valhalla Entertainment), and the survival horror 6000 (Phoenix Pictures). In 2017, Ms. Sairrino left ANEW and established Akatsuki Entertainment USA, a film division of leading Japanese mobile game developer Akatsuki. While leading the company, she developed a large slate of projects and produced the feature films ROOM 203 and ROOT LETTER. Today, under the auspices of her AMMO Entertainment banner, Ms. Sairrino manages the properties and slate of projects initiated by Akatsuki Entertainment USA, and is additionally developing further adapted and original properties from across the globe. 

Dan Smetanka is the Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of the Catapult Book Group, which includes Counterpoint Press, for which he is Editor-in-Chief, Catapult, and Soft Skull. Books he's acquired recently include winners and finalists for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The Hammett Prize, The Edgar Award, NAACP Image Award, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Story Prize, plus countless New York Times Best Books of the Year, LA Times Best Books of the Year, USA Today Best Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist STARRED titles, national and international bestsellers, and so much more...all while currently corralling a motley crew of authors including Natashia Deon, Gina Frangello, Maggie Downs, Elizabeth Crane, Dana Johnson, Joan Silber, Ben Ehrenreich, Karen Bender, Elizabeth Rosner, Jaret Yates Sexton, Nawaaz Ahmed, Maria Hummel, Joe Meno, Jaime Harrison, Tod Goldberg, and many more.

Bridget Smith joined JABberwocky as an agent in May 2019. She grew up in Connecticut and graduated from Brown University with a BA in anthropology in 2010. After graduation, she interned at Don Congdon Associates, worked at a secondhand bookstore, and read submissions for Tor.com. In 2011, she started as an assistant at Dunham Literary, and she remained there as an agent for nearly eight years. In her spare time, she runs, plays Irish fiddle, and co-hosts the podcast Shipping & Handling with agent-turned-freelance-editor Jennifer Udden.

Barbara VanDenburgh is the books editor of USA Today and the former film critic of the Arizona Republic.

Antoine Wilson’s new novel, Mouth to Mouth, recently named one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2022, is out from Avid Reader (Simon + Schuster) in the US and Canada, and from Atlantic Books in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Antoine is also the author of the novels The Interloper and Panorama City. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Quarterly West, and Best New American Voices, among other publications. He is a contributing editor at A Public Space. He has received the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the San Fernando Valley Award for Fiction, and has been a finalist for The National Magazine Award, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, and the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award. He has taught writing at the University of Iowa, the University of California San Diego, the University of California Los Angeles Extension Writers’ Program, Stanford Continuing Studies, and the Otis School of Art and Design. Born in Montreal and raised in California and Saudi Arabia, he now lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Luke Yankee is a writer, director, producer, actor and teacher. He is the author of the memoir, Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart (published by Random House, with a foreword by Mary Tyler Moore).  Critics have called it “One of the most compassionate, illuminating showbiz books ever written.” His play, The Last Lifeboat is published by Dramatists Play Service and has had more than 40 productions in North America.  His other plays include The Lavender Mafia, and The Man Who Killed the Cure. His play The Jesus Hickey is the winner of the TRU Voices Award, as well as the Joel and Phyllis Ehrlich Award, given for “a socially relevant, commercially viable, new work of theatre.”  He directed the Los Angeles premiere at the Skylight Theatre, starring Harry Hamlin. Luke’s first play, A Place at Forest Lawn has been produced at several regional theatres around the country. It is the recipient of the New Noises Award as well as the Palm Springs International Playwriting Festival. It was developed in workshops in New York and Los Angeles featuring Betty White, Marion Ross, Tony Goldwyn, Marcia Cross, Barbara Rush, Pat Carroll, Frances Sternhagen, John Glover and Millicent Martin. Luke has served as the Producing Artistic Director of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera (one of the largest musical theatres in America) and the Struthers Library Theatre (an historic opera house in Northwestern Pennsylvania). He has assistant directed six Broadway plays, including The Circle starring Sir Rex Harrison, Light Up the Sky with Peter Falk, Grind starring Ben Vereen (directed by Harold Prince) and has directed and produced Off-Broadway and at regional theatres throughout the country and abroad. For several years, he wrote, directed and produced the Los Angeles Actors Fund Tony Awards gala, honoring some of the biggest names in show business, including Barbara Cook, Tim Curry, Joe Morton, Jason Alexander, June Lockhart and Theodore Bikel.  Celebrity hosts and presenters have included Sean Penn, Tommy Tune, Martin Sheen, Bryan Cranston, Kate Burton, Florence Henderson and Annie Potts. He has taught and guest directed extensively at colleges, universities and conservatories throughout the U.S. and abroad. He holds an MFA in Playwriting and Screenwriting from UC Riverside. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Cal State Fullerton and Chapman University. Luke also studied at the Juilliard School of Drama, NYU, Circle in the Square and Northwestern. His new book is The Art of Writing for Theater.

If you're interested in applying to the program and would like to visit our upcoming residency, please contact us at palmdesertmfa@ucr.edu.