Each residency, our award-winning faculty are joined by industry professionals from across publishing, the stage, TV, film, and streaming for ten days of amazing lectures, talks, screenings, seminars, and one-on-one meetings. If you're interested in visiting for the day prior to applying, please contact Kathryn McGee at Kathryn.McGee@ucr.edu:
Megan Beatie 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
Nicholas Belardes A writer of the American West, Nicholas Belardes’s debut eco-horror The Deading combines elements of literary, horror, and science fiction. Gabino Iglesias wrote in the New York Times Book Review that The Deading “perfectly balances social critique, lyricism and ghastliness. It’s a claustrophobic mosaic of a novel, and an outstanding debut.” Belardes’s follow up, Ten Sleep (2025), blends elements of the gothic with eco-horror and Western fiction. While attending UCR Palm Desert’s MFA Program, Belardes received its Founder’s Award. When not writing, he’s either birdwatching or teaching essay writing at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Ethnic Studies Program.
Robin Benway is a National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of nine novels for young adults, including Far From the Tree, Audrey, Wait!, the AKA series, and Emmy & Oliver. Her books have received numerous awards and recognition, including the PEN America Literary Award, the Blue Ribbon Award from the Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books, ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults, and ALA’s Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. In addition, her novels have received starred reviews from Bookpage, Kirkus, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly, and have been published in more than 25 countries. Her sixth novel, Far From the Tree, won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the PEN America Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, PBS, Entertainment Weekly, and the Boston Globe. In addition to her fictional work, her non-fiction work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Bustle, Elle, and more. Her newest book, The Girls of Skylark Lane, will be in stores on October 1, 2024 and she's currently working on an adult fiction novel with journalist Omid Scobie. Robin grew up in Orange County, California, attended NYU, where she was a recipient of the Seth Barkas Prize for Creative Writing, and is a graduate of UCLA. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her dog, Marnie Chicken.
Jami Brandli’s plays include The Magician’s Sister, The Romeo and Juliet Senior Citizens Project—A Comedy, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, Technicolor Life, M-Theory, Through the Eye of a Needle, Visiting Hours, The Caregiver's Guide and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the inaugural Kilroys List. Works produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, Kitchen Dog Theater, Launch Pad, The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Moving Arts, The Road, Inkwell Theater, Great Plains Theatre Conference, among other venues. Jami was a participating playwright at Center Theatre Group's 2022 L.A. Writers' Workshop led by Luis Alfaro where she developed her play about female magicians. The Magician's Sister was presented last September as part of CTG's New Works Festival at The Kirk Douglas Theater. The Magician’s Sister recently won the 2023 Jane Chambers Award and the 2023 Stanley Drama Award, and it was workshopped and publicly presented at the 2023 Kayenta New Play Lab in Ivins, UT. It was also a finalist for the 2023 Risk Award. O: A Rhapsody in Divorce is currently receiving a Rolling World Premiere with Mildred’s Umbrella (Houston, TX) in Jan-Feb of 2024, and then with Outside IN Theatre (Los Angeles) in early 2025. The Romeo and Juliet Senior Citizens Project—A Comedy will receive a forthcoming production at Westmont College (Santa Barbara) as part of their International Shakespeare Festival, Spring 2024. Additional accolades: BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) nominated for Best Playwriting for an Original Play; Los Angeles Ovation Awards. 2020 Under Construction Playwright with The Road. 2019 Humanitas Prize PLAY LA playwright. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company's GAP Prize. Finalist for the PEN Drama Award. Her short works are published with TCG, Dramatic Publishing Company, Applause Books, and Smith & Kraus. A proud member of The Playwrights Union and The Dramatists Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University's low-residency MFA program. She is represented by Navigation Media where she is developing film and TV projects. Her plays can also be found on the New Play Exchange.
Andrew Chapman was born and raised in New York City. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, and then got his BA in history and economics from the University of Michigan. He has worked as a bartender, a bicycle messenger, a bootleg T-shirt salesman and a TV commercial location scout. He moved to Los Angeles in his 20s and starting working in movie production, writing screenplays in his spare time. At 28, he sold an adaption of Jack London’s SEA WOLF to Sony Pictures for $1,000,000. By 32, he had spent every last penny. Andrew has written on numerous movies and television shows. He was the first writer on Disney’s POCAHONTAS, as well as Marvel’s IRON MAN, and has also written for Universal, Amblin, Warner Brothers and Fox Studios. He wrote and directed the indie movie STAND-OFF for Trimark Pictures. For the last decade, Andrew has worked almost exclusively in television. He has written pilots for most of the major networks, including ABC, NBC, Amazon, and FOX. He executive produced and was showrunner for ABC’s THE ASSETS, a Moscow-based spy mini-series. He was a co-EP on TNT’s LEGENDS, and is currently the Executive Producer and showrunner for FOX’s hit medical drama, THE RESIDENT. Under the pen name Drew Chapman, he has published two thrillers, THE ASCENDANT (Booklist, in a starred review: “a must-read for international-thriller fans”) and THE KING OF FEAR (WSJ: “a whirlwind thriller”), which were published by Simon & Schuster in 2014 and 2016 respectively and also sold in a dozen translation markets, including all major European territories. Last year he had his first play produced, 99 TROPES, a dramedy about a writers’ room in disarray.
Shivani Doraiswami is a literary and film/tv rights manager at Grandview Entertainment.
Gracie Doyle is the Associate Publisher of Amazon Publishing. She has worked on many bestsellers including Lee Goldberg’s Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestseller True Fiction, Robert Dugoni’s Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Amazon bestseller The Eighth Sister, and William L. Myers’s “impressive debut” (Publishers Weekly) A Criminal Defense, as well as acclaimed series from Barry Eisler and Matthew FitzSimmons. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Grace began her career as a publicist at Houghton Mifflin, where her projects included the annual Best American Mystery Stories collection, edited by Otto Penzler, and Buzz Bissinger’s New York Times bestseller Three Nights in August. Prior to joining Amazon Publishing, Grace spent several years in the wine industry, promoting the world-class wines of Washington State around the globe. When she’s not reading, she enjoys cooking for friends and traveling in search of the perfect meal.
Rae Dubow In 2013, Rae created Talking Out Loud, a communications company specifically to provide public speaking training in the professional and academic spheres. She has extensive performance training and worked as an actor for many years. This is the basis of her practice, which uses dramatic techniques to help clients relax and speak publicly as their most authentic selves. Public speaking is an enormous challenge for most people, outranking the fear of death. Having experienced her own performance anxieties, she discovered ways to work with these issues and keep them at bay. In addition to Talking Out Loud, Rae has taught at the University of Southern California, Antioch University Los Angeles, UC Riverside, and Woodbury University. Her private clients include actor/activist Edward Asner, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Kahn-Cullors, Los Angeles architect Barbara Bestor, and actress Genevieve Angleson. Her corporate and nonprofit clients include The Southern California News Group (SCNG), Dress for Success, and MOSTe, which offers similar training to high school girls from disadvantaged backgrounds who are working towards college admission.
Daphne Ming Durham joined Putnam as Executive Editor in 2023 from MCD / Farrar, Straus & Giroux and publishes twisty, genre-blurring fiction with sharp edges, diverse perspectives, and spiky protagonists. She loves voice-driven, surprising novels that readers devour in one sitting, but come away having learned something—vivid, gripping stories that upend familiar tropes and push boundaries in crime, mystery/thriller, suspense, horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy.Daphne edits Megan Abbott, C. J. Box, Robert Crais, Rob Hart, Mason Coile, Susan Barker, Ron Currie, Ivy Pochoda, and Rachel Eve Moulton, and has published the New York Times bestseller Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone, winner of the LA Times Book Prize Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda, cult-favorite This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno and the critically adored graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls. She has worked with acclaimed and celebrated authors Andy Davidson, Araminta Hall, Asale Angel-Ajani, Johnny Compton, Sara Sligar, Jennifer Thorne, Kristi Coulter, and Louisa Luna. Prior to Putnam, Daphne was the founding Executive Editor of MCD / FSG. She also spent nearly sixteen 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 core genre imprints and managed acquisitions across all categories.
Charli Engelhorn Born to a white professor and Caribbean model, Charli Engelhorn stuck out in the sea of white in her hometown of Ames, Iowa. Her struggles with identity drove her to books, television, and movies to escape, and eventually, she started writing her own stories. Charli’s continued struggles with identity led her on a journey of discovery after college. She worked as a book editor in New York, an apothecary’s assistant in Maui, a ski instructor in Breckenridge, and an award-winning reporter in Moab. After moving to Los Angeles and having her first script place in several competitions, she enrolled in an MFA program to hone her craft. Charli’s travels gave her a deep understanding of the human condition, and her work examines the heart of life through characters on their own journeys of discovery. Charli was a fellow in the 2020/2021 WBTV Writers’ Workshop, a story editor on the hit FOX show The Cleaning Lady and is currently executive story editor on NBC’s Found.
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. Her sixth book, on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, was released as part of IG Publishing’s “Bookmarked” series in July 2024. Gina 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. Her first two books, My Sister’s Continent and Slut Lullabies, out of print for some time, are soon being reissued by Northwestern University Press. 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. Gina obtained her PhD in English/Creative Writing from the University of Illinois Chicago, with a specialization in Gender Theory. She is on the low residency MFA faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and runs Circe Consulting, a full-service company for writers, with the writer Emily Rapp Black.
Mag Gabbert is the author of SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS, which was selected by Kathy Fagan as the winner of the 2021 Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry; the chapbook The Breakup, which was selected by Kaveh Akbar as the winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residencies Chapbook Award; and the chapbook Minml Poems. She's the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Discovery Award from 92NY's Unterberg Poetry Center, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Idyllwild Arts, and Poetry at Round Top. Her work can be found in The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review Daily, Copper Nickel, Guernica, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Mag has an MFA from UC Riverside and a PhD from Texas Tech. She teaches at Southern Methodist University and serves as the 2024-2026 Poet Laureate of Dallas, Texas.
Lauren Galit is a former editor and since 2010 has been a literary agent at her own boutique agency, LKG Agency.
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 recently scripted an adaptation of the graphic novel UNIKORN for Armory Films (Mudbound, Peanut Butter Falcon) 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 the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine.
Annemarie Hauser holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside. She began working for the Los Angeles Times in 2018 as an events manager, and transitioned to the Los Angeles Times Studios department for video production in 2022. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and she has produced several segments for the LA Times Today show with Spectrum News 1, which earned her an Emmy in 2024.
Kate Hinterberger is a writer, editor, and marketing professional based in Seattle. She is the former non-fiction editor of the Coachella Review where she edited the publication’s first Best American Essays recognition and is the out-going non-fiction editor at Kelp Journal. Her freelance editing work ranges from non-fiction to space operas, and she advises writers on submission. Her writing has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Chinook Observer, and Verily Magazine’s poetry anthology, “Poems About Home.” She holds an MFA from UCRPD, is a recipient of its Omni Award, and has received acceptance and funding from The Community of Writers.
Peter Houlahan is an author, freelance writer, and book review contributor. His work has appeared in CrimeReads, Police1, L.A. Magazine, Criminal Element, Hearst Newspapers, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Daily Mirror, and Southern California Newspaper Group. His first book “Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History” was released in 2019 and was a finalist for the Edgar Award, Hammett Prize, and Macavity Award. The book has been chosen as a New York Times “Summer Pick,” NPR “Favorite Book of 2019,” Wall Street Journal “Readers Pick,” Amazon “Best Book,” and Junior Library Guild “Gold Standard Selection.” Norco ‘80 has been produced as a multi-episode podcast by NPR and optioned for film. His second nonfiction book, "Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race, Justice and the Story of Sagon Penn" received prestigious starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist and is an Amazon “Editor’s Pick" for nonfiction. It will be released on July 23, 2024. Houlahan lives and works as an emergency medical technician in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Charles Jensen wrote Splice of Life: A Memoir in 13 Film Genres, forthcoming in May 2024 from Santa Fe Writer’s Project. His most recent collection of poetry is Instructions between Takeoff and Landing. His previous books include two collections of poetry and seven chapbooks of cross-genre work. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a 2019-2020 Cultural Trailblazer, and he is the recipient of the 2020 Outwrite Nonfiction Chapbook Award, 2018 Zócalo Poetry Prize, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, the 2007 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award, and an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Journal, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner, and essays have appeared in 45th Parallel, American Literary Review, Exposition Review, The Florida Review, and Passages North. He founded the online poetry magazine LOCUSPOINT, which explored creative work on a city-by-city basis. He hosts The Write Process, a podcast in which one writer tells the story of crafting one work from concept to completion. He lives in Long Beach and directs the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.
Jessica Kubzansky is a champion of innovation and artistic excellence, and as such she was invited to be one of two founding artistic directors of Boston Court Pasadena, creating a mission and vision for the company that produces risky adventurous new work coupled with intimate artistic excellence. Now Kubzansky shepherds all the art created at Boston Court, including rich and eclectic music concerts as well as theatre. She is a passionate music lover and also an award-winning director working both locally and in regional theatres nationally. She is committed to illumination of texts and scores to create works that crack open minds and hearts so that people who experience the work walk out changed. Kubzansky creates inventive work across many genres. She is known as a play-whisperer for her ability to dramaturg new plays, breathe powerful life into classic adaptations, and create exciting new takes on old classics; and she nurtures innovative approaches to classic music, as well as urging musicians and composers to innovate their own practices. Her recent work at Boston Court includes staged excerpts of Philip Glass’s Madrigal Opera, a development workshop of Julia Adolphe and Stephanie Fleishman’s new children’s opera, as well as world premieres of Kit Steinkellner’s Ladies, Sarah B. Mantell’s Everything That Never Happened, plus for Boston Court elsewhere, Luis Alfaro’s Mojada, A Medea in Los Angeles (The Getty Villa), Sheila Callaghan’s Everything You Touch (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre at The Cherry Lane). Recently at other venues: The Father with Alfred Molina (The Pasadena Playhouse), Othello (A Noise Within), Jeanne Sakata’s Hold These Truths (San Diego Rep, Arena Stage), Aditi Kapil’s Orange (South Coast Rep), Stupid Fucking Bird (ACT, Seattle), Most recently she directed a piece for Flash Acts, an international play festival of Russian and American artists produced by Arena Stage in D.C. Kubzansky teaches graduate playwrights and directors at UCLA, has her MFA in Direction from the California Institute of the Arts, and her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. She has received many awards and honors, among them the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s Margaret Harford Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre.
Sarah Langan is a Columbia MFA graduate and three-time recipient of the Bram Stoker Award, and is the author of five novels, including A BETTER WORLD and GOOD NEIGHBORS. She grew up on Long Island and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughters.
Greg Mania's words have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, HuffPost, Oprah Daily, PAPER, among other international online and print platforms. He is also a contributing editor to BOMB magazine, he hosts The Rumpus’s #ShowUsYourDesk on Instagram Live, and co-hosts Empty Trash, a reading series in Los Angeles. His debut memoir, Born to Be Public, is out now from CLASH Books. He lives in Los Angeles, where he spends his days writing and hanging out with his boyfriend, the poet and TV writer Tommy Pico, whose commitment to the bit rivals his own.
Daniel Nieh is a writer and translator. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and has also lived in China, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He studied Chinese Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Daniel's translation clients include publishers, universities, nonprofits, and museums around the world. He served as an interpreter at 2008 Beijing Olympics and also works as a contract linguist for the US Department of State. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Esquire. He is the author of two acclaimed novels Take No Names, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and Beijing Payback, a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
Jack Novak writes plays for adults and young people. His works include THE GREAT LIEUTENANT SPRINKLE DIDN'T SAVE ME (commissioned by Field Trip Theatre), TRANSFERAL (workshops at Spooky Action Theatre and Rorschach Theatre), the collection THIS HISTORIC NIGHT (Capital Fringe Festival), the plays for young actors INTERFACE and FANATICS (commissioned by Imagination Stage), JOURNEYING JACK (co-written with David Novak; Aurand Harris Memorial Playwriting Award), FOX CRIED (Source Festival), CRAZY WEIRD (winner, Dramatic Writing Competition at Adirondack Shakespeare Theatre), and A DECADE OF WANDERING (Agnes Nixon Playwriting Award at Northwestern University). Jack is also an actor, improviser, Mime, and teaching artist. He holds an MFA from University of California Riverside - Palm Desert and is currently a lecturer at Cal State Fullerton.
Maret Orliss is the 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 the President of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Alta Journal, among other publications. She lives in Elk Grove, California. She holds an MFA in Fiction from UC Riverside.
Leena Pendharker is an Emmy nominated, Award-Winning Director and Writer. She is currently in the process of making her third independent feature film, Days with Dandekar, which Iqbal Theba (Glee) is attached to play the lead in. Leena premiered her sophomore independent film, 20 Weeks, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It was described as an “intimate, compassionate take on abortion” by the Los Angeles Times, and was released theatrically in 10 cities in April of 2018, and on Hulu and a number of other platforms. Her most recent work is the television movie, A Date with Deception for Mar Vista/Lifetime. She also directed episodes of Hello Jack! for Apple TV Plus, for which she was recently nominated for a Children’s and Family Emmy award. Leena is an alum of the Warner Brothers, CBS, and Sony Diverse Directors programs. Leena has also written/directed several-award winning short films, including the most recent, Tiny Joy, which played in the Bentonville Film Festival, and is currently airing on Omeleto. She also wrote and directed the short, Awaken, which is now playing on Shorts TV. Her short film, Dandekar Makes a Sandwich, was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of LA. She is also an Associate Professor at LMU’s School of Film + Television, and has an MFA in Screenwriting from UC-Riverside.
Perrin Pring has worked as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer since 2010 as a National Park Service Ranger. As a uniformed officer, she has worked thousands of cases, ranging from traffic violations to felonious assaults and deaths. Her office just isn't a city, it's the National Parks across the country, where it turns out, people are people and they bring their problems on vacation. Perrin is also a writer, having graduated from the University of California Riverside, Palm Desert Low Residency MFA program. She has a screenplay under contract with Anne-Marie Mackay and is represented by Jud Laghi. Her first novel, Cash and Gravity, is out on submission. Her writing has appeared in The Backcountry Journal, Kelp Literary, and she's written and been a reader for The Coachella Review.
Bree A. Rolfe is a writer, union organizer, and works as an advocate for students experiencing homelessness in Austin, TX. She lives with six cats and Cystic Fibrosis both of which bring her much joy and frustration. Her work has appeared in the Saul Williams’ poetry anthology Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, the Redpaint Hill Anthology Mother is a Verb, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Coachella Review, 5AM Magazine and others. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College. Her first chapbook Who’s Going to Love the Dying Girl was released in September of 2021 by Unsolicited Press.
Angeline Rodriguez joined WME in 2022 after serving as an editor at Penguin Random House and Hachette Book Group, where she worked with a variety of fiction in genre, upmarket commercial, and literary categories, as well as select platform-driven nonfiction. She specializes in speculative fiction and loves high-concept stories that push the boundaries between genres. She is looking to work with writers that have a keen sense of worldbuilding in both real and surreal landscapes and is particularly passionate about highlighting underrepresented voices in new ways. She is first generation Venezuelan American, and now lives in New York.
Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which The New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. NPR described the novel as “masterful” and The L.A. Times called it “a magnetic read.” Secret Identity received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, was listed as one of the Best Mysteries of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, Booklist, LitReactor, Gizmodo, BOLO Books, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover, the Lefty and Barry Awards for Best Novel, the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, and won the LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category. His upcoming work includes the YA superhero adventure Araña/Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow, the follow-up to Secret Identity, Alter Ego, and the sci-fi/espionage thriller, Dark Space (with Rob Hart). Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Anthony Award-nominated Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, Mara Llave – Keeper of Time, Blood Oath, stories featuring Marvel heroes the Avengers, Sunspot, White Tiger, Spider-Man and DC’s Superman, Sinestro, and The Question, to name a few. His short story, “90 Miles” was included in The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories for 2021 and won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story. Another short story,“Red Zone,” won the 2020 Anthony Award for Best Short Story. Alex is also the co-creator of the Lethal Lit podcast, named one of the best fiction podcasts of 2018 by The New York Times. A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.
Keri Picolla Stanbra is a writer/filmmaker. Most recently, she penned an adaptation for Kiana Davenport of her best-selling novel “The Shark Dialogues” set against the tumultuous history and landscape of contemporary Hawaii. The project is currently in development. As a director, she has helmed a handful of film festival darlings including “The Lifestyle” and “Prime Candidate.” Her adaptation of Paulo Coelho’s novel “The Witch of Portobello” was hand-picked by the author as a finalist in his international film competition. She worked as a Junior Manager at the Los Angeles based boutique talent management company Pop Art Management helping actors and other writers make their dreams come true. She holds a BA in Cinema and Television Arts from California State University, Northridge, and an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside’s low-residency MFA program in Palm Desert. And if she wasn’t busy enough, she is currently pursuing a degree in Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawaii.
Sarah Treem is a television writer, producer and playwright. Treem is the co-creator and showrunner of the Golden Globe-winning Showtime drama The Affair. Previously, Treem was a co-executive producer on the inaugural season of House of Cards. She also wrote on all three seasons of HBO's In Treatment. Treem began her career writing for theater. Her plays When We Were Young and Unafraid, A Feminine Ending, The How and the Why and Mirror Mirror have been produced multiple times over and published by Samuel French and the Dramatists Play Service.
Kim Yau Originally from Maryland, Kim Yau began her career in Hollywood in 2011 working at the Cheng Caplan Company. In 2015, she transitioned to Paradigm Talent Agency as a Media Rights Agent, handling the sale of film/TV rights for intellectual property including books, comics, graphic novels, articles, podcasts, blogs, and life rights. Kim continues to specialize in intellectual property at Echo Lake and is particularly passionate about supporting and advocating for diverse voices and creators. Kim served on the Hollywood Radio & Television Society Associates Board from 2017 - 2020. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in English and a minor in Chinese Language.
Matthew Zapruder is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently I Love Hearing Your Dreams, forthcoming from Scribner in September 2024, 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. He teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship in Marfa, TX, and the May Sarton prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many others.
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