We're pleased to announce our guest faculty for our upcoming 15 Year Anniversary Residency! If you're interested in applying to the program and want to visit for a day during December -- our residency runs December 1-10th at the Omni Rancho Las Palmas in Rancho Mirage -- please contact Kathryn McGee at kathryn.mcgee@ucr.edu.
Fall Guest Faculty
Megan Beatie is a veteran publicist with more than 25 years of experience in publishing, is President and CEO of Megan Beatie Communications (MBC), a book publicity and marketing agency. Megan has forged publicity campaigns for numerous bestselling authors including Linda Ronstadt, Robert Dugoni, Soman Chainani, Tess Gerritsen, Jenny Mollen, Ian K. Smith, Lee Goldberg, Becky Albertalli, Maureen Johnson, Marcia Clark, Melissa de la Cruz, Attica Locke, Tembi Locke, and Neil Gaiman and launched the debuts of many novelists such as Deborah Falaye, Victoria Lee, Robinne Lee, Sandhya Menon, and Amber Smith. She has represented authors in nearly every conceivable genre including literary and commercial fiction, mysteries and thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, and graphic novels, as well as nonfiction books covering pop culture, film, entertainment, health, lifestyle, parenting, and relationships. Representing the fifth generation of a farming family from Southern California's Ventura County, Megan was valedictorian of her high school and graduated from Middlebury College, Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, with a degree in English literature. Afterwards, she joined Goldberg McDuffie Communications as a publicist where she spent nearly two decades, rising to the level of Vice President, Director of Publicity. While there she cultivated strong, long-standing relationships with editors, journalists, and producers at the most influential television shows, radio programs, magazines, newspapers, websites, and blogs around the world.In 2015, she formed her own namesake agency so she would be able to focus on more personalized strategies and outreach opportunities for authors and books about which she's truly passionate. Since then, her company has grown to include a talented and hard-working support staff. All told, MBC has delivered dramatic results for its chosen authors and has promoted dozens of bestsellers. Megan is a fitness nut who has completed eight marathons, two Spartan races and one triathlon. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she's outnumbered in her all-male family by her husband, their two sons, and dog.
Grace Doyle is the Associate Publisher of Amazon Publishing, including Thomas & Mercer, 47 North, and Amazon Crossing.
Daphne Ming Durham joined Putnam in 2023, and acquires dark, genre-blurring fiction with sharp edges and strong female protagonists. She loves voice-driven, gorgeous, plotty books that readers devour in one sitting, but come away having learned something – stories that upend familiar tropes and push boundaries in horror, fantasy, crime, thriller, and suspense. Daphne was previously at MCD / Farrar, Straus & Giroux, where she published the New York Times bestseller Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone, Ivy Pochoda’s Sing Her Down, Andy Davidson’s The Boatman’s Daughter and The Hollow Kind, Gus Moreno’s This Thing Between Us, and novels by Araminta Hall, Sara Sligar, Rachel Moulton, and Sara Flannery Murphy, and forthcoming books including Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are and Tessa Hulls’ Feeding Ghosts. At Tor Nightfire, Daphne published Johnny Compton’s The Spite House and Jennifer Thorne’s Lute. Daphne also spent more than fifteen years at Amazon.com, in all manner of book-related roles, from Editorial Director of the bookstore to Editor-in-Chief and then Publisher for Amazon Publishing, where she launched and developed core genre imprints and managed acquisitions across all categories, including genre, literary fiction, and children’s books.
Gina Frangello’s fifth book, the memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint), has been selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and BookPage, and has been included on numerous “Best of 2021” lists including at Lithub, BookPage and The Chicago Review of Books. She is also the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting, which was included on several “Best of 2016” lists, including at Chicago Magazine’s and The Chicago Review of Books. Now a lead editor at Row House Publishing, Gina also brings more than two decades of experience as an editor, having founded both the independent press Other Voices Books and the fiction section of the popular online literary community The Nervous Breakdown. She has also served as the Sunday editor for The Rumpus, the faculty editor for both TriQuarterly Online and The Coachella Review, and the Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews and journalism have been published in such venues as Salon, the LA Times, Ploughshares, the Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, Dame, and in many other magazines and anthologies, and her column, “Not the Norm,” runs on the Psychology Today blog. She runs Circe Consulting, a full-service company for writers, with the writer Emily Rapp Black, and can be found at www.ginafrangello.org.
Ashley Granillo is a Mexican American author. She has many degrees, including a BA and MA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Fiction and an MFA in Fiction and a minor in Screenwriting from UCR Low Residency program. Ashley got her start as a writer from the young age of 5. She was a member of Telfair Elementary’s Student Author Project. This project paired kindergartners with fifth grade students, where they mentored, wrote, illustrated, and promoted their book collaboration. Many of the themes Ashley writes about are inspired about her home, family, her love for animals, and music. Cruzita and the Mariacheros (Lerner 2024), is a testament to home, family, and music, as well as her Mexican American heritage.
Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List (Scribner), A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, Inc.), a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press), featured as one of the "Best Books of Summer" in O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2013. Her essay collection, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies, Winner of the PEN Southwest Book Award for Best Creative Nonfiction, and her short story collection Ball, were both published in 2015 by Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press. At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf, a novel of life in WWII collaborationist France, from Ig Publishing, has been selected a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her short fiction, essays, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, BOMB, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publisher's Weekly, The Week magazine, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the cult movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead. She is the recipient of 2020 and 2008 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as multiple Yaddo residencies, fellowships at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, and l’Ancienne Auberge in France, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award. Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College. She has taught creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Goddard College, Antioch University Los Angeles, and UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program. She is currently Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University.
Liska Jacobs is the author of the critically acclaimed novels "Catalina", "The Worst Kind of Want" and most recently, "The Pink Hotel" which was a California Indie best-seller and listed as one of the best books of 2022 by Esquire. "The Worst Kind of Want" was long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates award and optioned by Anonymous Content. "Catalina" was featured as a must read in Huffington Post, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, and Literary Hub. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Literary Hub, Alta, The Millions, and Zyzzyva, among other publications. She holds an MFA from the Low Residency MFA @ UC Riverside.
Grace Jasmine writes theatre, film, fiction, and nonfiction. Jasmine’s play, The Masher—received The Hollywood Encore! Producers’ Award and was chosen Quarterfinalist, for the ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest for 2021, and placed #4 All Time for the Horror Stage Play on the Red List on Coverfly. Her Screenplay, Get a Life, won Quarterfinalist at the Hollywood International Screenplay Awards. Other theatre writing credits include: Rainbows, Tim Doran, composer (Jasmine wrote, directed, and starred in this show, which was produced first in multiple venues in Los Angeles and then off-off Broadway); The Lover-A Tale of Obsessive Love, Ron Barnett, composer (Lonny Chapman Theatre premier). Jasmine wrote two original musicals that premiered in summer 2017, at the Hollywood Fringe Festival: Sybil’s Closet and F**ked Up Fairy Tales. WeHo Times called the song, “Love is Love” Jasmine wrote (With David Anthony, composer) for F**ked Up Fairy Tales “…an incredible song that it merits a place among the classics of musical theatre.” (WeHo Times, July 2, 2017). Jasmine is currently collaborating with Ron Barnett on her new musical black comedy, SKIN DEEP—which is slated for a 2024 opening. Jasmine holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Screenwriting from the University of California at Riverside, is a native Californian living in Arizona with her family of humans and pack of wild dogs. Grace Jasmine is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and PEN America. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @beautynblog
Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of nearly thirty novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Stephen’s been an NEA recipient, has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, WLA’s Distinguished Achievement Award, ALA’s RUSA Award and Alex Award, the 2023 American Indian Festival of Words Writers Award, the Locus Award, four Bram Stoker Awards, three Shirley Jackson Awards, six This is Horror Awards, and he’s been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award. He’s also made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels, and is the guy who wrote Mongrels, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw, and Earthdivers. Up next are The Angel of Indian Lake and I Was a Teenage Slasher. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado.
AM Larks writing has appeared in NiftyLit, Scoundrel Time, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, Five on the Fifth, Charge Magazine, and the Zyzzyva and Ploughshares blogs. She has served as a judge for the Loud Krama Productions Emerging Female and Nonbinary Playwriting Award and has performed her stories at Lit Up at Town Hall Theatre in Lafayette, CA. She is the managing editor and blog editor at Kelp Journal. She is the former the former fiction editor at Please See Me, the former blog editor of The Coachella Review, as well as the former photography editor at Kelp Journal. AM Larks earned an MFA in Creative Writing from U.C. Riverside, Palm Desert, a J.D., and B.A. in English Literature.
Brian Lipson is an agent at the Intellectual Property Group.
Katherine MacDonald is currently an Independent Producer and was formerly a Producer at Netflix and previously served as the Senior Vice President of Paramount Animation at Paramount Pictures, the Director of International Research & Client Services at Nielsen Corporation, Director and Head of Research at MGM, as well as previous executive experience at Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. She is also the co-author of The Marketing Edge for Filmmakers: Developing a Marketing Mindset from Concept to Release: Developing a Marketing Mindset from Concept to Release. She holds an MFA from the Low Residency MFA at UC Riverside.
Anne Marie Mackay An Entertainment Industry producer for over 20 years, Anne-Marie Mackay has been responsible for creating and overseeing the extraordinary successes of Palomar Pictures and Propaganda Films. She helped launch the careers of current movie notables including David Fincher, Antoine Fuqua, Michael Bay, Alek Keshisian, and Alex Proyas; and provided established directors like David Lynch and James Foley with short form opportunities. While representing directors to the record industry, she presided over hundreds of music film projects. At the same time she introduced a fresh view to the advertising world and Propaganda's television commercial division was born. Propaganda accrued annual revenues of nearly $40 million by 1990 in her music division alone. As a result, she is credited as being a major force behind one of the largest and most prolific independent production companies in the world. In 1992, Anne-Marie co-founded Palomar Pictures. Under her direction, the music department produced hundreds of videos and concerts for renowned artists including The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Michael Jackson, Seal and Lenny Kravitz. And again she directed major talent like John Schlesinger, Gore Verbinski, Ben Stiller, Forest Whitaker, Joel Schumacher, Michael Caton Jones, and Sophia Coppola by diversifying their career paths. The same stable of directors were responsible for Palomar's highly successful commercial division which produced the original Bud frogs, Bud Bowl for the Super Bowl, Nike with Michael Jackson, the Anti-Smoking campaign -- a Cannes Gold Lion winner, and various notable spots for Coca Cola, Reebok, United Airlines, Converse, 7 Up, Mercedes, Saab and Skittles. Her work on television includes Walter Mosley's Always Outnumbered, William S. Burrough's The Junky's Christmas, and the Brian Wilson documentary I Just Wasn't Made for These Times. Anne-Marie has been nominated for multiple Emmys and Grammys, including her nomination for her work as Executive Producer on Stranger Adventures.
Jacqueline McKinley is the co-Executive Producer of The Neighborhood on CBS and previously served as a writer/producer on over two dozen shows, including The Bernie Mac Show, Are We There Yet, The Quad, Raven’s Home, Sacrifice, and the Ms. Pat Show. She is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA at UCR.
Isaiah Mustafa will next be seen starring in the James Patterson adapted series CROSS, based on the best selling series 'Alex Cross' for Amazon, opposite Aldis Hodge. Isaiah previously wrapped the psychological thriller BOY KILLS WORLD with Bill Skarsgard, Andrew Koji and Michelle Dockery for Raimi Productions. Previously, Isaiah has made his mark opposite A level talent in IT: CHAPTER TWO co-starring Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader and James McAvoy (which became the second-highest opening for any movie all-time in the September/October release corridor, and the second-highest opening for any horror movie all-time). Additionally, this June Isaiah’s starred in the indie Western MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE CITY opposite Gabrielle Byrne and Thomas Jane as a recently released slave who relocates to the West only to be unjustly accused of murder. Isaiah is equally adept at comedy and has been making his name in such comedies as Happy Madison/Netflix comedy HOME TEAM opposite Kevin James and the Sherry Thomas/NBC comedy pilot BLACK DON'T CRACK. Additionally, Isaiah had had great turns in iconic half hours such as BLACKISH. As the long standing iconic face of the Old Spice Campaign and working with such comedy greats as Kevin Hart and created an amazing fan base. The Hulu ad campaign directed by Craig Gillespie has amassed a whopping 130+ million views on YouTube. Isaiah’s loyal fan base is also supported by being a series regular for the cult hit series SHADOWHUNTERS, which includes a fanatical fanbase for Isaiah several years after the series has been off the air.
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the novel The Sympathizer, from Grove/Atlantic (2015). The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, an Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, le Prix du meilleur livre étranger (Best Foreign Book in France), a California Book Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Fiction from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association. It was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. The novel made it to over thirty book-of-the-year lists, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com, Slate.com, and The Washington Post. The foreign rights have been sold to twenty-seven countries. He is also the author of Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War from Harvard University Press (2016, foreign rights to four countries), which is the critical bookend to a creative project whose fictional bookend is The Sympathizer. Nothing Ever Dies, a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction, examines how the so-called Vietnam War has been remembered by many countries and people, from the US to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and South Korea. Kirkus Reviews calls the book “a powerful reflection on how we choose to remember and forget.” It has won the the John G. Cawelti Award for Best Textbook/Primer from the Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association and the Réné Wellek Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Literature from the American Comparative Literature Association. Foreign rights have been sold to four countries. His most recent work of fiction is The Committed, the sequel to The Sympathizer. Other books include The Refugees, a short story collection from Grove Press (2017, foreign rights to fourteen countries), and The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, which he edited. He has written for The New York Times, Time, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and other venues. Along with Janet Hoskins, he co-edited Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field (University of Hawaii Press, 2014). His articles have appeared in numerous journals and books, including PMLA, American Literary History, Western American Literature, positions: east asia cultures critique, The New Centennial Review, Postmodern Culture, the Japanese Journal of American Studies, and Asian American Studies After Critical Mass. Many of his articles can be downloaded here. Most recently, he has also edited the Library of America volume for Maxine Hong Kingston, his former teacher. He has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (2011-2012), the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2008-2009) and the Fine Arts Work Center (2004-2005). He has also received residencies, fellowships, and grants from the Luce Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the James Irvine Foundation, the Huntington Library, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation. Most recently he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, appointed as a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and received honorary doctorates from Uppsala University, Colgate University, and Franklin and Marshall College. His latest book, the memoir A Man of Two Faces, has just been released.
Ruth Nolan is editor of “No Place for a Puritan: the Literature of California's Deserts”. A former wildland firefighter in the Mojave Desert and beyond, her desert-centric writing has most recently been published in “Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California” (Angel City Press) Boom, California; McSweeney's; East Bay Times; KCET Los Angeles; Joshua Tree: Where Two Deserts Meet (Wildsam Guide); Los Angeles Fiction: Southland Writing by Southland Writers (Red Hen Press;) Campfire Stories Volume II: Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails. She is the author of the poetry books “After the Dome Fire” and “Ruby Mountain”, and is Professor of English and creative writing at College of the Desert. She lives in 29 Palms. She holds an MFA from the Low Residency MFA @ UC Riverside.
David Olsen is the editor-in-chief of Kelp and also a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and poet. He is a graduate of Stanford’s OWC program in novel writing and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside Palm Desert. He has published books of poetry, a novel, multiple anthologies, and various work in literary journals and magazines. He is at work on a crime novel series and a linked collection of short stories. He resides on California's central coast where he surfs regularly.
Maret Orliss is an assistant Op-Ed editor for the Los Angeles Times. She previously helped lead The Times events department, including programming the Festival of Books for 15 years. She is a former bookseller, a regular visiting faculty member for UC Riverside-Palm Desert’s MFA program, a lifelong Californian and a graduate of Occidental College.
Heather Scott Partington is a writer, teacher, and book critic. She lives in Elk Grove, California. 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 the president of the National Book Critics Circle, where she has previously served as vice president in charge of the Emerging Critics Program and Autobiography award chair. 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 holds an MFA from the Low Residency MFA @ UC Riverside.
Leena Pendharkar is a writer and director. She has made several short films, including Dandekar Makes Sandwich, which was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of LA. Her most recent short film, Tiny Joy is actively playing in film festivals. Leena also recently directed the Lifetime thriller, A Date with Deception, and two episodes of the Apple TV show, Hello Jack. She has also written and directed multiple indie features, her most recent being 20 Weeks which premiered at the LA Film Festival and many others, and was distributed in theaters and on Hulu. She is currently working toward making her next indie feature, Days with Dandekar on which Dandekar Makes a Sandwich is based. Her script was part of the Film Independent Script Lab and Tribeca All Access. Leena is an Associate Professor in the Film Production department at LMU, and recently earned her MFA in Screenwriting / Playwriting from the Low Residency program at UC-Riverside.
Jon Lawrence Rivera The recipient of the first Career Achievement Award from Stage Raw, his directing credits include the following world premieres for Playwrights’ Arena: March: A Parking Lot Play (co-produced with the Los Angeles LGBT Center), Southernmost by Mary Lyon Kamitaki, Baby Eyes by Donald Jolly, I Go Somewhere Else by Inda Craig-Galván, Bloodletting by Boni B. Alvarez (also at Kirk Douglas Theatre), The End Times by Jesse Mu-En Shao, Little Women by Velina Hasu Houston, The Hotel Play written by Paula Cizmar, Velina Hasu Houston, Jennifer Maisel, Nahal Navidar, Julie Oni, Janine Salinas Schoenberg and Laurie Woolery (performed in an actual hotel), @TheSpeedofJake by Jennifer Maisel, Circus Ugly by Gabriel Rivas Gomez, Painting In Red by Luis Alfaro, Cinnamon Girl by Velina Hasu Houston and Nathan Wang (also at the 2nd Beijing University International Musical Theater Festival 2014), Dallas Non-Stop by Boni B. Alvarez, The Anatomy of Gazellas by Janine Salinas Schoenberg, Girl Most Likely To by Michael Premrirat, Bonded by Donald Jolly and Euripides’ Helen by Nick Salamone (at the Getty Villa). Other recent work includes: Anna In The Tropics by Nilo Cruz at Open Fist Theater, America Adjacent by Boni B. Alvarez, and Obama-ology by Aurin Squire at Skylight Theatre; The Joy Luck Club by Susan Kim, The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, and Criers for Hire by Giovanni Ortega at East West Players; Honeymoon in Vegas by Jason Robert Brown and A Class Act by Ed Kleban for Musical Theatre Guild; Bingo Hall by Dillon Chitto, Fairly Traceable by Mary Kathryn Nagle, and Stand-Off At HWY #37 by Vickie Ramirez for Native Voices at the Autry (also at the University of South Dakota) and the landmark Los Angeles Premiere of Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn at SIPA and Kirk Douglas Theatre. Rivera is the recipient of a NY Fringe Festival Award for directing Hillary Agonistes, an LA Weekly Award for directing Sea Change, and 5 Ovation Award nominations.
BJ Robbins opened her Los Angeles-based agency in 1992 after a multifaceted career in book publishing in NY. She started in publicity at Simon & Schuster and was later Marketing Director and then Senior Editor at Harcourt. Her agency represents quality fiction, both literary and commercial, and general nonfiction, with a particular interest in memoir, biography, narrative history, pop culture, sports, travel/adventure, medicine and health. A member of AALA and PEN, Ms. Robbins has led workshops at UCLA Extension, UC Irvine Extension, the Writer's Pad, and at the Community of Writers Fiction Workshop. On behalf of PEN, she has been guest speaker in numerous cities in the West as part of their Writers Toolbox program, including Seattle, Portland, Santa Fe, Dallas, Las Cruces, Flagstaff and Oakland. She was profiled in Writer's Digest and mediabistro.com. The BJ Robbins Literary Agency has become one of Southern California's premier boutique agencies, having nurtured the careers of a wide array of award-winning and bestselling authors including Stephen Graham Jones, James Donovan, J. Maarten Troost, Renee Swindle, Nafisa Haji, John Hough, and Via Bleidner. Our authors are diverse in category and cultural background, telling stories that teach, entertain, and everything in between.
Clarinda Ross was born in Georgia and grew up in Boone, North Carolina, where both her parents were professors at Appalachian State University. Clarinda’s father, the late Dr. Carl A. Ross, Jr., was chairman of the Appalachian Studies Department at ASU and a respected historian. Her mother, Charlotte, is a renowned storyteller of the Appalachian region. Ms. Ross graduated from Appalachian State with a B.A., having majored in Theatre and minored in Dance. Upon graduation, she was immediately cast in the Acting Conservatory Program of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Clarinda worked for many years in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Alliance Theatre, the Horizon Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, Theatre in the Square, and ART Station, Inc. She also spent several seasons as a leading lady with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company. One of the youngest recipients ever, Ms. Ross received an individual artist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts at age twenty-four. She used the grant to create her first play, “From My Grandmother’s Grandmother Unto Me”, which was developed and directed by David Thomas. The play is based on Clarinda’s southern ancestors. “Grandmother” was a runaway hit at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC and was featured in the Olympic Arts Festival in Lillehammer, Norway in 1994 and at the summer games in Atlanta in 1996. Clarinda also starred in the film version of the play for PBS, directed by John David Allen. Her feature film credits include; “Flipped”, directed by Rob Reiner. “Blue Sky”, directed by Sir Tony Richardson and starred Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones. And, “Fluke”, with Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz, directed by Italian auteur Carlo Carlei. Ms. Ross has had numerous television Guest Star appearances including “The United States of Tara”, and several television movies – most notably the Emmy award-winning “Stolen Babies”. Clarinda recently received her MFA in Creative Writing for Performance from the University of California at Riverside’s Palm Desert low-residency program. While at UCR/PD she was the recipient of the Barbara Seranella Scholarship for Excellence in Creative Writing. She coordinated student play-readings and served as a graduate teaching assistant in playwriting. Her plays have been produced at several Equity theatres and published by Applause Theatre Books, The Coachella Review, and The Kenyon Review. Her first play, “From My Grandmother’s Grandmother Unto Me” just had it’s thirtieth production. Her screenplay adaptation of Lee Smith’s southern novel, “Family Linen” was a finalist for the New York Women in Television and Film Lab series for women over forty co-sponsored by Meryl Streep. Her mother/son letters play, “Love, M.” based on interviews with mothers, sons, and AIDS activists was featured in the Horizon Theatre’s New South Play Reading Series in Atlanta and nominated for the National New Play Showcase. She is an alumna of the National Winter Playwrights Retreat. Ms. Ross is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association having served as a National Councilor for many years. She is a Los Angeles delegate for SAG-AFTRA, and a Southern California Ambassador for the Dramatists Guild of America. She has three children, Clara, Frank, and Gus and is married to the actor/producer Googy Gress. Her family splits their time between California and North Carolina. She is increasingly sure that greed is the problem.
Susan Straight’s most recent novel Mecca, was published March 2022 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and released in paperback March 2023. Mecca was a national bestseller, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize, and named a best novel of the year by The Washington Post and NPR, as well as a Top Ten California Book by the New York Times, and winner of the Southwest Book of the Year for Fiction. Her memoir In the Country of Women: A Memoir (Catapult Books, paperback edition September 2020), was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, as well as a Finalist for the Clara Johnson Prize for Women’s Literature, named a best book of 2019 by NPR, Code Switch, Real Simple, and others. It was a Barnes & Noble September National Choice for Memoir. The book has gone into four printings. She has published eight previous novels: Aquaboogie (Milkweed Editions, 1990, 2006, fourth printing; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020); I Been In Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All The Pots (Hyperion, 1992; Anchor, 1993; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020), named one of the best novels of 1992 by both USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly, as well as named a Notable Book by the New York Times, is in its 14th printing; Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (Hyperion, 1994, Anchor paperback 1995; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020); The Gettin Place (Hyperion 1996, Anchor paperback 1997; Counterpoint Books, 2020); Highwire Moon (Houghton Mifflin, 2001; Anchor, 2002; Open Road Media, 2013, Counterpoint Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Commonwealth of California Gold Medal for Fiction. Highwire Moon was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and Los Angeles Times bestseller, and was named one of the year’s best novels by The San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post. It is taught in college and high school classrooms around the nation. A Million Nightingales (Pantheon Books, 2006, two printings; Anchor Books, 2007) was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. It was a Finalist for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and published in a new Spanish translation in 2014. Take One Candle Light a Room (Pantheon, 2010; Anchor, 2011) was named a best novel of 2010 by the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and Kirkus. Her novel Between Heaven and Here (McSweeney’s, 2012) was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and named a Best Book of 2012 by The Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast. Her middle grade reader, The Friskative Dog, was published by Knopf in21 2007. Her picture book Bear E. Bear was published in 1995 by Hyperion Books.
In 2021, she was named Woman of the Year for the 61 st Assembly District, by Assemblyman Jose Medina, for her thirty years of writing stories of African- American, Mexican-American, Asian-American, and immigrant life in southern California, bringing little-known histories, especially of women, into American books, museums, magazines and libraries. In 2014, Straight received the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2011, she received the Gina Berriault Award for Fiction from San Francisco State University. In 2007, Straight received The Lannan Prize for Fiction, for her body of work. In 1998, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction. She has published hundreds of essays and articles in numerous magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, O Magazine, Salon, Harpers, Reader’s Digest, The Believer, Orion, and The Sun.
Her fiction has appeared in Granta, Alta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope All-Story, McSweeney’s, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, and The Ontario Review, among other magazines. Her short story “The Golden Gopher,” published in Los Angeles Noir, won the 2008 Edgar Award. Her short story “El Ojo De Agua” won a 2007 O Henry Prize, and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2007. Her novels and stories have been translated into French, Italian, German, Polish, Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, and Spanish. She was born in Riverside, California in 1960, and still lives there with her family. She is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, where she has taught since 1988.
Oscar Villalon is the editor of ZYZZYVA, a recipient of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. His work has been published in several publications, including The Believer, Stranger’s Guide, Alta, and Lit Hub, where he is a contributing editor. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and their son.
Chih Wang holds a certificate in Copyediting from University of California, San Diego Extension and a Masters Degree of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from University of California, Riverside in Palm Desert. She served as Fiction Editor and Copyeditor at The Coachella Review and currently copyedits for Kelp Journal. She is a current member of the Editorial Freelancers Association. Before making her passion for writing and editing full-time, she studied at University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Conservation and Resource Studies. Afterward, she decided that science wasn’t for her and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Design Institute of San Diego, which led to remodeling homes for several years. Her path to the creative arts was a circuitous one. A San Diego native, she spends her free time working on her novel, a contemporary fantasy, or training in aerial silks and hammock.
Ryan Wilson is a manager at Anonymous Content. Anonymous Content is a prolific management and production company behind such high-profile films as Best Picture winner SPOTLIGHT, as well as recent projects like SWAN SONG, OUTLAW KING and BOY ERASED. On the television side, they have produced series such as DICKINSON (Apple TV+), MR. ROBOT (FX) and HOMECOMING (Amazon).
Lilliana Winkworth is an actor and screenwriter based in Los Angeles, CA. She recently wrote for Nick Jr. and appeared in 'Dead Enders' (SXSW, Audience Award 2023). Her comedy has been featured on Adult Swim and FunnyorDie. She was on The Second City's National Touring Company and performs weekly on Harold Night at UCB. She holds an MFA from UC Riverside.
Ben Winters is the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award–winning, and Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Quiet Boy, Golden State, Underground Airlines, the Last Policeman trilogy, and the mash-up novel Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Ben has also worked extensively in television; he was a writer on the FX cult hit Legion as well as Manhunt on Apple TV+, and he is the creator of the upcoming CBS drama Tracker. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, three kids, and one large dog.
Kent Wolf is founding partner and rights director, launched his agenting career in the depths of the 2008 recession—a fitting start, given his affinity for forging new markets in a risk-averse industry. A lover of the bizarre, the profane, the unsettling, the dark, and the darkly funny, he is drawn to writing that occupies a literary uncanny valley and to writers who move the cultural needle through direct confrontation, self-interrogation, the blurring of genres, the bending of language, and damn good writing. Once told that he would “be more successful if he weren’t so intentionally weird,” Kent has sold multiple bestselling and award-winning books to publishers both large and small. His clients’ titles have been translated into dozens of languages and many are in active TV/film development. He represents literary fiction (story collections and novels) and narrative nonfiction in the areas of immersive journalism, personal essay, pop culture, memoir, “anti-lifestyle,” and anything that aims to dismantle prevailing power structures.
Raised in rural Illinois, Kent lives in Manhattan with his husband. He currently serves on the board of Lambda Literary and is a member of The Association of Authors’ Representatives.
Matthew Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Father’s Day (Copper Canyon, 2019), as well as two books of prose: Why Poetry (Ecco, 2017) and Story of a Poem (Unnamed, 2023). He is editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. From 2016-7 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine, and was the Editor of Best American Poetry 2022. His awards include a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship in Marfa, TX, and the May Sarton prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has taught at New York University, The New School, the University of Houston, and at the University of California at Berkeley as the 2010 Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry. With Brian Henry, Zapruder co-founded Verse Press, which later became Wave Books. As an editor for Wave Books, Zapruder co-edited, with Joshua Beckman, the political poetry anthology State of the Union: 50 Political Poems (2008). He was the editor of Tyehimba Jess’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning volume of poetry, Olio. He teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California and was one of the founding faculty member of the Low Residency MFA at UCR.