We're kicking off our spring residency in grand style on Friday, June 6th at our new residency home, the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort in Indian Wells! Below is our full residency schedule, guest list, and faculty. If you're applying and would like to visit for the day, please contact Kathryn McGee at kathryn.mcgee@ucr.edu. 

To download a full schedule, click here. 

Spring Residency 2025

JUNE 6-15

3:00 | Check In

4:00 | Faculty & Staff meeting in Citrus

5:00 | New Student Orientation in Date Palm

*Required for New Students

6:00 | Opening celebration on White Sands Foyer & Sunset Terrace 

8:00 | Breakfast 

9:00 | All Student/Faculty/Staff Orientation in GB I

*Required for ALL students & faculty & staff 

10:30 | The Publishing Marketplace (All) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Amanda Orozco & Amara Hoshijo in conversation with Gabino Iglesias

The whole world is in flux. Maybe you’ve noticed. We’ll sit down with a top agent, a top editor, and a top writer & critic to talk about where things are, where things are going. We promise it won’t be completely depressing. 

10:30 | Creating the Writing Career You Want (S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Jalysa Conway

Being a writer in today’s day and age is like being your own marketer, editor, publicist, admin, fan club, and social media brand specialist. For lack of a better phrase, you are the CEO of the company that is YOU. And it’s not enough to just write your book, or your screenplay, or your short story or comic. In the ever-shifting landscape of entertainment, sometimes you need to do ALL OF THE ABOVE to have the kind of career you’ve dreamed of. So, let’s stop dreaming and start crafting, as we strategize and discuss pragmatic, actionable steps to building not just the career you want, but the career you’re more than capable of making happen.

10:30 | The Future of Journalism (NF) GB III

Guest Faculty Lecture: Laura Nelson & Matt Pearce in conversation with David Ulin 

The whole world is in flux. Maybe you’ve noticed. We’ll sit down with three of the best journalists in the whole world to talk about where things are, where things are going. We promise it won’t be completely depressing.

12:00-1:00 | Lunch 

1:15 | Main Genre Workshops

8:00 | Special Evening Program: Kaira Rouda launches her new book Jill Is Not Happy. 

Book signing to follow 

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-10:30 | Flash and the Snapshot: A Cross-Genre Workshop (F/NF) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Dinah Lenney

Let’s discuss: What’s the difference between illustration and inspiration? How might we use photographs to prompt our material and guide us in shaping it? When should we include the image? When can we afford to leave it out? We’ll consider published work by famous writers, among them Tod Goldberg, Ivy Pochoda, and David Ulin (also Teju Cole, Annie Ernaux, Judith Kitchen, Hilton Als, Janet Malcolm, and Naomi Shihab Nye), and we’ll begin to craft shorts of our own— prose poems, micro-stories, mini-essays: what’s the difference, you ask? We can talk about that, too. Maybe bring a favorite image or three (of a person/place/thing). Or just bring your phone.

9:00-10:30 | Travel Writing: A Primer (NF) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Maggie Downs

Do you want to travel around the world and get paid to write about it? In this talk, we’ll look into the hallmarks of great travel writing, be it in some foreign land or in your own backyard, plus we’ll examine just how you get to go to fabulous places on someone else’s dime…

10:30-12:00 | Writing The Query Letter (All) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Dara Hyde 

From query to representation to a long career…how the author/agent relationship works, how it’s sustained, and why it is fundamental to the publishing business. 

10:30-12:00 | Working With Your Manager Across Platforms (S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Chelsea Benson

A manager’s role in your career ain’t what it used to be. In this talk, we’ll examine how your manager will work with you across all the burgeoning platforms. 

12:00-1:00 | Lunch 

1:15-4:15 | Cross-Genre Workshops

SPECIAL EVENT! 

A staged reading of Aspen Kleppe’s play directed by Katie Gilligan

7:00 | Doors (with lite refreshments!)

7:30 | Performance 

UCR Palm Desert

75080 Frank Sinatra Drive

Palm Desert, CA 92211

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-10:30 | Inside a Publishing Contract (F/N/P) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Dan Smetanka 

You’ve just sold your book. Let’s go through every step of your contract. What it means, what it really means, and what to expect. Bring your questions, we’re going to go deep into the ins and outs of just how you get paid and how your book ends up on a shelf. 

9:00-10:30 | Pitching Across Media (S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Katherine MacDonald 

With the explosion of markets for your work, we’ll talk about both the traditional pitching process for films and television (in all its iterations) as well as YouTube content, digital graphic novels, adult animation and games. All of which are getting optioned at a record pace. 

9:00-10:30 | A constant state of becoming (PL) GB III

Guest Faculty Lecture: Jason Nodler

Jason Nodler, founding artistic director of The Catastrophic Theatre and Infernal Bridegroom Productions, will address increasing challenges to emerging playwrights, the punk/DIY ethos, the marriage of culture and counterculture, reaching new and non-traditional audiences, and the charge of the next generation of playwrights to make a new theatre: one that remains in a constant state of becoming.

10:30-12:00 | Writing and Publishing a Novella (F) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Sara Gran

In this talk, we'll discuss: the mechanics of what a novella is and how to write one, the creative pros and cons of the form, and the options for publication and distribution. I'll use examples from the long life of my own novella, Come Closer, discuss what I did right and wrong in the process, and what I would do differently today.  

10:30-12:00 | The Greatest TV Episode in History and How It Can Teach Us to Write for the New Market (S) GB II

Faculty Lecture: Bill Rabkin 

Now that the entire TV industry is demanding procedurals over serials, it’s time for many new writers to learn a discipline that had once seemed as useless as typewriter repair – the design and construction of the individual episode. Because in a procedural, episodes aren’t simply the next chapter in the story, they are individual works that have to be able to stand on their own. To understand the key elements that separate an average episode from one that can make a career, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the greatest episode of dramatic TV in history…still every bit as brilliant and audacious a quarter century after its initial airing.

10:30-12:00 | STFU: Subtext Without Pity (P/F) GB III

Faculty Lecture: Jill Alexander Essbaum 

How to write less but mean more.  

12:00-1:00 | Lunch

1:15-4:15 | Main Genre Workshops

8:00 | Evening Program: The Student Reading hosted by the Coachella Review (Palm Foyer)

8:00 | Breakfast 

9:00-10:30 | Playing In Someone Else’s Sandbox (F) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Christopher Farnsworth 

People working in TV do this all the time: They take on someone else’s characters and stories and make them their own, an hour at a time. But what is it like taking over the a hugely successful book series from a venerated writer who is, well, no longer among the living? In this talk, Christopher Farnsworth will talk about the challenges and joys of playing in someone else’s sandbox with the whole world watching. 

9:00-10:30 | Writing Grief (NF) GB II

Faculty Lecture: Elizabeth Crane 

In this conversation, we will discuss all things grief and loss: what it is, how to write it, when to write it, when not to write it, can it be funny (eff yes). We will look closely at the work of a number of authors in order to consider different approaches and maybe we’ll even scribble some sad stuff while we’re at it.

9:00-10:30 | Obscure Forms and Writers Who Use Them (P) GB III

Guest Faculty Lecture: Adam Deutsch

Across genres, writers experiment with form, which we might think about as parameters or constraints that are challenging, yet inspiring. Forms place us into conversation with other writers who have created in the same spaces, and help us contribute to traditions that help us grow in a context, and helps audiences read our work with a deeper understanding. They’re also fun to write. In this session, we’re going to look at some forms (that can be used whether writing poetry or prose) that are more elusive in contemporary works, and also look at some recent books that are using forms in ways that entertain, and also demonstrate skills we can build on our own!

10:30-12:00 | So, What Does the Managing Editor of a Publishing Company DO? (ALL) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Rachel Kowal 

You see all these different titles. You’re a little scared of them. We’re going to demystify the process for you. You’re going to know exactly what a managing editors does and how it directly relates to you and your book.

10:30-12:00 | Intellectual Property Management (S) GB 2

Guest Faculty Lecture: Tara Timinsky 

It’s not just your spec script anymore. We’ll go through all the phases of IP management. 

10:30-12:00 | How To Become A Small Press Mogul (ALL) GB III

Guest Faculty Lecture: Brian Townsley 

Starlite Pulp is an indie label/small press, that publishes all of the sub-genres underneath the pulp umbrella, produces podcasts, creates and sells merch and poster art, and is a standard bearer for pulp culture. Starlite Pulp is Brian Townsley's vision, and he'll break down where it came from, what the future is, and how you can do it as well. 

12:00-1:00 | Lunch

1:15-4:15 | Cross-Genre Workshops

8:00| Special Screening: Red Snelling for Mayor

Alums Shelbi Addison Glover and Becky Lauer share their debut feature film Red Snelling For Mayor, a 70-minute mockumentary showcasing a simple man from small town Oregon as his run for mayor is hijacked by his Machiavellian campaign manager. This scathing critique of the post-Trump political landscape is likely the first ever political satire by Zoomers. The movie will be followed by a Q&A regarding low-budget filmmaking, and how to turn the limitations of these productions into strengths.

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-10:30 | Writing Criticism (NF) GB I 

*REQUIRED FOR SPRING ‘25 NEW STUDENTS*

Guest Faculty Lecture: Heather Scott Partington

Whether criticism is your vocation, your side hustle, your MFA requirement, or your barbaric yawp, it has value. I’ll teach you how to get started, how to build a career, and how to shut down the voice in your head that says you don’t have the authority. Have questions about your critical papers? I’ll answer those too.

9:00-10:00 | Writing Great Dialog in Fiction & Nonfiction (F/NF) GB II

Faculty Lecture: Rob Roberge 

How to learn and recognize dialog’s complexities, while also optimizing its use on the page. When do you write it, when do you summarize it, and how do you find the deeper meanings? We’ll figure that all out in exactly one hour.

10:00-11:00 | The Path to Being An Overnight Success After About 20 Years (F/S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Stefanie Leder 

Stefanie Leder’s first novel is coming out this week – you’re the first people who will get the chance to buy it! – but she started to write it in a workshop nearly twenty years ago. She never stopped believing in it. So she did what anyone would do: She became a successful screenwriter…only to return to the book a few years ago, with fresh eyes and a new outlook. We’ll talk about how one becomes an overnight success, after twenty years. 

10:00-11:00 | The Close Read (S) GB III

Faculty Lecture: John Schimmel & Joshua Malkin

Professors Schimmel and Malkin will screen and lead a close read of the screenplay for the short film “Curfew.”  Why is it both of our very favorite example of great, intentional screenwriting?  What does it manage to do especially well on the page and what can great shorts, in general, teach us about effective screencraft?  Come and find out.

10:30-12:00 | The Coachella Review Needs You (All) GB I

Faculty Lecture: Yennie Cheung 

The literary magazine of our program needs you. Plus, you’re required to take part. So it’s a win-win. Yennie will go over open spots, needs, wants, and where you can fit in.

11:00:-12:00 | Special Info Session: An Introduction to SMU’s PhD GB III

SMU PhD program in literature boasts a celebrated faculty who mentor grad students closely, as well as leading initiatives in prose, poetry, and alternative forms of storytelling. The program offers top ten funding, in a beautiful campus in a great literary city.

12:00-1:00 | Lunch

1:15-4:15 | Main Genre Workshops

Dark Night

8:00 | Breakfast 

9:00:-10:30 | Who Are You Really Writing For? Navigating the Evolving Landscape of New Play Development (PL) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Padraic Duffy 

Playwright and artistic director Padraic Duffy delves into a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of the writing process: understanding your primary audience beyond the general theatergoer. Drawing on his experience as a produced playwright and his work within literary departments and small arts organizations, Padraic will examine the intricate relationship between playwrights and literary managers, artistic directors, and theater staff who champion new work. This lecture will explore how recent shifts in the theater ecosystem, including the impact of AB5 and the changing dynamics of volunteerism, are reshaping the landscape of new play development and influencing the perspectives of those who hold the keys to production. Gain valuable insights into crafting work that resonates with the gatekeepers of today's theater world.

9:00-10:30 | Lessons From Hosting One of the Top Podcasts On The Planet…While Developing One Nothing Like It (S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Rider Strong 

With over 40 million downloads, Pod Meets World is one of the most popular podcasts on the planet. Which is why Rider Strong is developing a podcast that is nothing like it. We’ll talk about the podcast industry and what it’s like developing a new show from the ground up.

10:30-12:00 | By With and And: Writing a Collaboration from Pitch to Proposal to Publication (F) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Lindsay Jamieson 

As soon as you have an MFA, expect old friends, distant acquaintances, and anyone with a “great story” to approach you seeking a “collab.” You may even find yourself hired for this job. Either way, the goal is to sell the project and write it for publication. Sometimes, a celebrity or athlete has a story to tell but isn’t a seasoned writer. Or you might be privy to a true story you’d love to write—like a former classmate was the victim of (or perpetrator of!) a notorious crime; offering the subject of that story a collaboration is one way to acquire the rights. But more often than not, collaboration does not mean you and your partner will write the book together, side-by-side. In this lecture, Lindsay Jamieson, whose recent collaboration with Krysten Ritter is already a bestseller, will talk you through the process. You will learn how to discern a good partnership opportunity, how to approach a pitch (or an audition), and then, most importantly, how to successfully co-author the book. Once you agree to a shared credit—whether ”with” or “and,” it’s no longer your project alone. You’ll need to manage the back-and-forth with your partner and editorial team and find the right balance of confidence and ego throughout the process so you can execute your best work.

10:30-12:00 | Two Roads Diverged in A Wood (And I Took Them Both) (F/S) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Robin Wasserman 

Robin has written literary fiction, TV, children’s books, YA, Star Wars novels, essays, and even the occasional Scooby Doo. In this talk she’ll explore how the constraints of different forms and categories can shape the creative process—along with how to bounce between them without losing your mind.

12:00-1:00 | Lunch

1:15-2:30 | Creating Prestige TV from Your Own Special Interests (S) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Alexander Cary in conversation with Ivy Pochoda

Is it possible to create award-winning, critically lauded TV from your passions? In this conversation, we’ll answer that question (Spoiler: yes.). 

1:15-2:30 | What Does A Literary Agent Actually Do? (All) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Gideon Pine in conversation with Elizabeth Crane 

You know you want one. You know you need one. But what do they actually do? We’ll get all the nuts and bolts ordered up so you know just want you’re getting when you get an agent and the right questions to ask when the time comes. 

3:00 | SUPER SPECIAL SUPER SECRET THING IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE BALLROOM! 

8:00 | Special Event: Ivy Pochoda launches her brand new novel, Ecstasy

A conversation followed by a book-signing! 

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-10:30 | Writing for Kids for Adults (F) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Ashley Granillo 

Ashley invites writers to tap into their inner child. In this collaborative lecture, she discusses her own journey of transitioning from writing for adults to writing for a middle grade audience. In addition to discussions of genre and craft (plot, emotional landscape, and voice and identity), Ashley also guides graduate writers through a series of meditations and exercises to help them rediscover literature through the eyes of a child.

9:00-10:30 | Unleash Your Body's Voice (PL) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Boni Alvarez 

Think playwriting is all in your head? Think again! This dynamic workshop, led by playwright-actor Boni Alvarez, flips the script. We often forget that plays are brought to life by actors embodying characters – a deeply physical act. Break free from writing "from the neck up" and discover how to tap into your own physicality to create richer, more authentic monologues. Come ready to move, explore, and connect your body to the page. 

9:00-10:30 | Narrative Depth (NF) GB III

Faculty Lecture: Emily Rapp Black

Prose feeling a bit…flat? Do you write an essay and think, hmmm, but there’s got to be more here? This 90 minutes will give you strategies about how to move your piece from a simple sheet cake to a layer cake full of insights, surprises and the kind of depth that will make readers come back for a second slice.

10:30-12:00 | The Buffalo Hunter Hunter: A discussion (F) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Stephen Graham Jones with Gabino Iglesias

Did you read the runaway NY Times bestseller by Stephen? Did you wonder how the hell he did that? We’ll get down to the craft decisions and story choices that drove this book from idea to universal acclaim and sales.

10:30-12:00 | Dramaturgy: Because Even Playwrights Need (Gentle) Correction (PL) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Scott Horstein 

Let's be honest, the playwright's ego is a fragile thing. Thankfully, there are dramaturges. In this potentially eye-opening lecture, dramaturge Scott Horstein will bravely undertake a live dramaturgical examination of a ten-minute play penned by our own Mickey Birnbaum. Through a direct conversation with the author, Scott will model the dramaturgical process in action. The anticipated outcome? Mickey will gain invaluable insights into the areas where his work could perhaps be... improved. He will, of course, be eternally grateful for this constructive feedback, as all playwrights invariably are.  

12:00-1:00 | Lunch

1:15-4:15 | Main Genre Workshops

4:30 | Fall Graduate Meeting GB I

If you’re planning to graduate in December…you need to come to this meeting. 

8:00 | Special Event: Mark Haskell Smith Retirement Party! 

Grand Lawn

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-10:30 | Getting Your Work on Submission (F/NF/P) GB I

Guest Faculty Lecture: Leanne Phillips 

All those stories, essays, and poems you’ve been writing? There’s a place for them. In this talk, we’ll examine the marketplace for your work in the literary magazine world. 

9:00-10:30 | Literary Citizenship in the year 20?? (All) GB II

Guest Faculty Lecture: Jesenia Chavez 

What does it mean to be a good literary citizen? Don’t worry you don’t need papeles to be one. You don’t even have to be a “good” one. Just read and show up for other writers. What does it mean to show up? What does that look like in the digital age? Let’s discuss. Let’s share strategies and create actionable items. As I dove into the MFA, I continued to connect with writers near and far and it has fueled my writing and creative life. All it takes is time and a little planning.  Let’s build and show up for each other as it all comes crashing down.

10:30-11:30 | AMA (All) GB I

Faculty Lecture: Mark Haskell Smith

Write novels? He did it. Write movies? He did it. Write TV shows? He did it. Write journalism? He did it. Write memoir? He did it. Write historical nonfiction? He did it. Write criticism? He did it. Sing in an iconic punk band? He also did that. Start an MFA program 17 years ago with his lunatic friend just because said lunatic asked him to drop everything and do that? Well, he also did that. In his last sit down before riding off into the sunset, ask Mark Haskell Smith anything.   

11:30 | Private Graduate Lunch (GB III)

11:30 | Lunch 

1:15-4:15 | Cross-Genre Workshops

7:30 | Graduation & Farewell Party in Grand Ballroom

Presentation of Graduates

Desserts, drinks, and dancing! 

8:00 | Breakfast

9:00-12:00 | Main Genre Workshops & Final Meetings

12:00 | Sad Lunch….and then why don’t you come back in December and we’ll check out the holiday decorations Tommy has…

Boni B. Alvarez is a Los Angeles-based playwright-actor and faculty member at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. His plays include America Adjacent, Bloodletting, Fixed, Nicky, Dallas Non-Stop, Dusty de los Santos, Ruby, Tragically Rotund, The Special Education of Miss Lorna Cambonga, Marabella, Driven, The Debut of Georgia, Emmylu, and Refuge for a Purple Heart. 

His plays have been produced at Center Theatre Group – Kirk Douglas Theatre, Echo Theater Company, Coeurage Theatre Company, Skylight Theatre Company, and Playwrights’ Arena. His plays have been developed/given readings at Chalk Rep, Moving Arts, Artists At Play, The Vagrancy, Los Angeles Theatre Center, EST/LA, The Blank, Pork Filled Players (Seattle), Theatre Rhinoceros (San Francisco), Second Generation (2g, NYC), InterAct Theatre (Philadelphia), and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He has been a semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and a Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project, and Clubbed Thumb’s Biennial Commission. Alum of the CBS Writers Mentoring Program, CTG Writers’ Workshop, Moving Arts’ MADlab, Echo Writer’s Lab, Skylight Theatre’s Play Lab, and the Humanitas Play LA Workshop.  He is currently in the Geffen Playhouse’s Writer’s Room and a Resident Playwright with New Dramatists. He holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA (Acting) from A.R.T./MXAT Institute at Harvard University, and an MFA (Dramatic Writing) from USC.

Chelsea Benson is a Manager at Echo Lake Entertainment

David Caplan is the Daisy Deane Frensley Chair in English Literature and the author of seven books of literary criticism and poetry. Caplan’s main research areas are poetry, poetics, and American literature. He has presented his research and given poetry readings in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Germany, and Portugal, and his scholarship has been translated into French and Urdu. A contributing editor to Pleiades and the Virginia Quarterly Review, an Affiliated Researcher (Chercheur Affilié) with the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Poétique Appliquée, and an Affiliated Professor with the University of Haifa, Caplan chaired the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association's Creative Writing Forum and currently serves on the Executive Board of the International Network for the Study of Lyric. He also is the Founding Director of SMU Project Poëtica, an initiative which aims to make SMU a hub of the English poetry world. Project Poëtica hosts the biennial SMU Symposium on Poetic Form and three book lines of poetry and poetry scholarship with Bridwell Press, as well as numerous events on campus and in greater Dallas. More information about SMU Project Poëtica can be found on Instagram @smu.projectpoetica

 and at https://www.smu.edu/dedman/academics/departments/english/project-poetica.

Alexander Cary is the Emmy-award winning writer & executive producer of A Spy Among Friends, Taken, Legends, Homeland, Lie to Me, and more. 

Jesenia Chavez is a Chicanita, poeta, public school teacher, and storyteller.  She is inspired by the borderlands, and her parents’ migration to Los Angeles from Chihuahua, México #abolishice. Her poetry collection, This Poem Might Save You (me) is a journey through the streets of Los Angeles that explores intersectionality and the rituals of survival. She has an MFA in creative writing from UCR Palm Desert, where she was the poetry editor for The Coachella Review. Her work has been published in Latino Book Review, DTSL Arts, Air/Light Magazine, Acentos Review, The Coachella Review, and most recently in the Somos Xicanas Anthology. Find more of her work at jeseniachavez.com.

Jalysa Conway is a television writer and executive producer, whose credits include Grey’s Anatomy, the longest running medical drama in history, Netflix’s animated darling The Last Kids on Earth, and the hit FOX show, 9-1-1: Lone Star, starring Rob Lowe and Gina Torres. Her own original work explores themes like self-empowerment, ambition, and aspiration, and spans across action, YA, and other commercial genre fare. She previously sold an untitled coming-of-age television series about cadets in a rigorous ROTC program to Amazon Studios, with Spike Lee directing and co-producing. And she’s currently developing another military drama with Spike Lee, called Liberty, based on an original feature script. A U.S. Air Force veteran who specialized in Cyber Warfare, Jalysa loves chronicling characters that push themselves to their limits and achieve the impossible (or fall flat on their faces aiming for it). She also writes comics and video games, and is a proud alumni of the Low Res MFA program from UC Riverside Palm Desert.

Adam Deutsch is the author of a full-length collection, Every Transmission (Fernwood Press 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

Maggie Downs is the bestselling author of the memoir Braver Than You Think and 50 Things to Do Before You're 5 and penned the popular McSweeney’s column “Been There, Smelled That” where she explored the world’s scents. Her essays and journalism have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet’s True Stories From the World’s Best Writers, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing anthology, among countless other publications.

Padraic Duffy has worked at theaters throughout Los Angeles., including The Met Theater, The Echo Theater Co., Sacred Fools Theater Co., Theater of Note, Cypress College, The Road Theatre, and Ensemble Studio Theatre LA. His full-length plays include The Illustrious Birth of Padraic T. Duffy, Feet, The Mechanical Rabbit, Tell the Bees, Something is Hidden Inside the Couch, Beaverquest! The Musical!, Puzzler, Copy, and Past Time. He is a proud member of the Playwright’s Union and The Sacred Fools Theater Company, serving as the Managing Director of the latter.

Christopher Farnsworth is a novelist, screenwriter, and journalist. His latest book was an instant USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestseller, and his other works have been published in more than a dozen countries, translated into ten languages, and optioned for film and television. He is the author of the President’s Vampire series, which was twice a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards and the winner of an Audie for Best Audiobook — Thriller & Suspense, and of Flashmob, which was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year. He was the co-author with worldwide bestseller James Patterson of Dead Man Running, and is currently continuing the Jesse Stone series for the estate of the legendary mystery writer Robert B. Parker. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.

Christopher González is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Endowed Chair in the Department of English at Southern Methodist University. He is the author and editor of many books including the International Latino Book Award-winning Reel Latinxs: Representation in U.S. Film & TV; the Perkins Prize Honorable Mention Permissible Narratives: The Promise of Latino/a Literature; Reading Junot Díaz; and Graphic Borders: Latino Comic Books, Past, Present and Future. His research and teaching areas include 20th century American literature; Multiethnic Literatures of the United States; Latinx Literary and Cultural Production; Film; Comics and Graphic Novels; Narrative Theory; and American Studies. He received his PhD in English from The Ohio State University.

Sara Gran is the author of the novels The Book of The Most Precious Substance, Marigold, Dope, Come Closer, Saturn's Return to New York, and the Claire DeWitt series. Her work has been published in over a dozen countries and as many languages. She also writes for TV and film, including Berlin Station, Southland, and Chance. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now living in California, Ms. Gran has worked with books as a writer, bookseller, and collector for most of her career. Her latest book, Little Mysteries, is out now. 

Ashley Granillo is the author of the Pura Belpré Honor Book, Cruzita and the Mariacheros. She is a Mexican American writer and an associate professor of English in Los Angeles, California. She holds a BA and MA in English: Creative Writing from California State University Northridge, and an MFA in fiction with a cross-study in screenwriting from the University of California Riverside Palm Desert. Many of the themes Ashley writes about are inspired about her home, family, her love for animals, and music. Choir Grrrl (Lerner 2026) emphasizes the need for queer, Latina musicians in the world of rock. Pura Belpré Honor Book, Cruzita and the Mariacheros (Lerner 2024), is a testament to home, family, and music, as well as her Mexican American heritage. In her short story, "Besitos," which appears in the Latine/x Anthology, Where Monsters Lurk & Magic Hides, explores the various ways in which young adults experience love.

Scott Horstein directs the Theatre Studies program at Sonoma State. Recent publications include the book chapter "Dramaturgy as Prophecy:  Facing Our Truth and Dramaturging the Predominantly White Institution," in Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy, published by Routledge.  In his review of the volume, critic Stephen Greenblatt notes "the diverse and distinctive voices assembled here are agents of radical change in the theater and in the world beyond its boundaries." Prof. Horstein's freelance dramaturgy credits include Denver Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, San Diego Rep, and the Old Globe, where he dramaturged for Arthur Miller on his penultimate play Resurrection Blues.  Other freelance credits include Native Voices at the Autry, Alter Theater, Watts Village Theater Company, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, National New Play Network, Greenway Court Theatre, and the Evidence Room.  New York credits include Port Out, Starboard Home with foolsFURY at La Mama, and Good Bobby at 59E59 (Off-Broadway). Prof. Horstein was formerly Manager of Play Development for Cornerstone Theater Company and Literary Director for the Black Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles.  He has dramaturged productions for leading playwrights including Larissa FastHorse, Sheila Callaghan, Sarah Ruhl, Octavio Solis, David Edgar, Austin Pendleton, and James Still, and for leading directors, including Bill Rauch, Mark Lamos, and Kyle Donnelly.  Directing credits include Native Voices, East West Players, and the West Coast Ensemble. He has taught at South Coast Rep, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, American Musical and Drama Academy, UC San Diego, and East West Players. Scott is a proud and active member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA); co-editor of LMDA’s Employment Guidelines and Sample Contracts; and for many years was co-VP for the NorCal/SoCal region.  He was the recipient of LMDA’s Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy.  He holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from UCSD.

Amara Hoshijo Isa senior editor at Saga Press. She specializes in speculative fiction of all kinds—science fiction, fantasy, and horror—with an eye toward secondary worlds and unique cultural lenses. She first came up as an editor in the international crime fiction space, so immersive worldbuilding and a tightly knitted plot are at the forefront for her, rather than character voice. Thematically, she gravitates toward coming-of-age (at any age!), societal disenchantment, found family, and family legacy. Her authors at Saga include New York Times bestseller Chloe Gong, USA TODAY bestseller Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Sascha Stronach, M. J. Kuhn, Rin Chupeco, and Matt Wallace. 

Dara Hyde is Senior Agent at the Hill Nadell Literary Agency and represents a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including literary and genre fiction, graphic novels, narrative non-fiction, memoir, young adult, and children’s literature. Her clients have been winners or finalists for the Women’s Prize, NAACP Image Award, Carnegie Medal, Eisner Award, Anthony Award, YALSA Award, Harvey Award, International Latino Book Award, and the Reading the West Award, among others.

Lindsay Jamieson is a writer, editor, and English tutor based in Los Angeles, where she’s raised two kids. Retreat, her collaboration with actress Krysten Ritter, was published by Harper Collins in March 2025 and debuted on the USA Today bestseller list. Her short story “Neighbor North” was recognized in Best American Short Stories: Mystery & Suspense 2024. She has taught fiction at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, currently teaches screenwriting at Ed2Go, and previously served as Fiction Editor for The Coachella Review and Kelp Journal. Before earning her MFA in Fiction and Screenwriting from the University of California, Riverside’s Low-Residency program, she published the novel Beautiful Girl under the pen name Lida James and sold a screenplay to Davis Entertainment.

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of thirty-five or so 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 Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the August Derleth British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, the Western Literature Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the American Library Association’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, and six This is Horror Awards. Stephen’s also been inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, he’s been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and the Eisner Award, and he’s made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels. He’s the guy who wrote Mongrels, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw, Earthdivers, and I Was a Teenage Slasher. Up next are True Believers, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, and Killer on the Road. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Rachel Kowal is the Managing Editor of Soho Press. 

Stefanie Leder is a TV showrunner and writer whose credits include the MTV teen dramedy Faking It, TBS comedy Men at Work, Netflix’s Boo, Bitch, and the long-running ABC Family comedy Melissa & Joey. Her short story “Not A Dinner Party Person,” was featured in Eight Very Bad Nights and was selected for Best American Mystery & Suspense. Her first novel, Love, Coffee, and Revolution will be released in June. 

Dinah Lenney is the editor of the anthology Snapshots. She has played countless roles on stage and television, among them Murphy Brown’s Secretary number three, Eileen/Abraham on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a nun with a gun on Sons of Anarchy, ER’s no-nonsense Nurse Shirley, Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude (in Hamlet), and also his Lady Macbeth (of course). She’s a graduate of Yale, where she didn’t study theater, the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she did, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she eventually joined the core faculty to teach literary nonfiction for almost two decades. Dinah’s taught writing and acting in schools all over the country, and co-wrote Acting for Young Actors with director Mary Lou Belli. The author of two memoirs, The Object Parade and Bigger than Life (excerpted for the “Lives” column in The New York Times Magazine), Dinah served as a long-time nonfiction editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, and co-edited Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction with the late Judith Kitchen. Her most recent book, Coffee, was published in Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series.

Katherine MacDonald is the head of development at Baobab Studios and formerly was a Producer at Netflix and 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.

Laura J. Nelson is a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times covering California politics and policy, including the 2026 governor's race and the efforts to clean up Los Angeles County after the January wildfires. She covered Congressional races during the 2024 election, including Adam Schiff's election to the U.S. Senate and the efforts by Democrats to flip three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has also worked as an investigative reporter and as a beat reporter covering transportation and mobility. She was a part of the team that won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the terror attack in San Bernardino, and the team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for coverage of a deadly dive-boat fire off the coast of Santa Barbara. Nelson grew up in Kansas and graduated from USC.

Jason Nodler founded The Catastrophic Theatre with Tamarie Cooper in 2007. His original plays include Bluefinger: The Fall and Rise of Herman Brood, Life is Happy and Sad, Speeding Motorcycle, Meatbar, King Ubu is King, and In the Under Thunderloo. He has directed more than 50 productions in Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Providence, Pittsburgh, and New York. For The Catastrophic Theatre he directed Song About Himself, Thom Pain (based on nothing), Marie and Bruce, The Pine, Waiting for Godot, Fleaven, American Falls, Endgame, Anna Bella Eema,There Is A Happiness That Morning Is, Crave, Bluefinger, The Designated Mourner, Our Late Night, Life is Happy and Sad, Hunter Gatherers, Spirits to Enforce,The Strangerer, and Big Death and Little Death. Jason was recently awarded the Best Artistic Director Award by The Houston Press, is a NEA/MacDowell Colony fellow, a four-time MAP Fund grantee and recipient of an individual artist grant from Creative Capital. He was artistic director of Infernal Bridegroom Productions for ten years.

Before joining the Transatlantic Agency in the fall of 2020, Amanda Orozco gained a breadth of experience in academic publishing, publicity, subsidiary rights, and agenting. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Physiological Science and an English minor and worked as a fine art instructor and freelance editor for several years before moving to New York to complete the NYU Masters of Science in Publishing: Digital and Print Media. While at NYU, she worked at the National Book Foundation, Shreve Williams Public Relations, and The Gernert Company; she was also selected to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Beijing International Book Fair. Upon graduating from NYU in 2019, she worked in Subsidiary Rights at Little, Brown, where she helped sell rights for authors such as Michael Connelly, Elin Hilderbrand, and Sarah Knight, until discovering agenting was her true calling. She worked at Park & Fine Literary and Media before moving back to Los Angeles, where she is working with authors such as Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Vickie Vertiz, Dr. Anthony Christian Ocampo, Nick Medina, Tania De Rozario, Raksha Vasudevan, Roya Marsh, Kay Chronister, Shoshana von Blanckensee, and Vanessa Friedman. Amanda is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA); her aim is to elevate and amplify marginalized voices always.

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.

Matt Pearce is a former longtime Los Angeles Times staff writer and the Director of Policy at Rebuild Local News, the leading nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition developing and advancing effective public policies designed to strengthen community news and information. At The Times, he covered national news, politics and culture and was a contributing reporter for the Times' 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of leaked audio of Los Angeles city leaders discussing redistricting. He also helped unionize The Times and was a co-founding officer and president of Media Guild of the West, representing journalists across Southern California, Arizona and Texas. He attended the University of Missouri, where he was an English major with an emphasis in creative writing, and he lovingly read slush pile submissions at The Missouri Review.

Leanne Phillips is a writer, a paralegal, a professional editor, and a certified book coach. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Coachella Review, Kelp Journal, and elsewhere. Leanne earned an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California at Riverside, Palm Desert. She earned a BA in English, with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in history, from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a copyediting certificate from the University of California at San Diego.

Gideon Pine is an agent at InkWell Management. Gideon is a sucker for a good premise whether it is a thriller/mystery/suspense, domestic fiction and literary fiction. If you think your book is destined to be the next book club bestseller or a cult classic that will live on forever, he wants to read it. He’s looking for thrillers in any form, whether they’re commercial or have a healthy literary injection. Strong sense of place is a major plus. Literary novels are always welcome, as long as there’s a plot. Also looking for suburban dysfunction (aka, domestic fiction) in any form, whether it’s suspenseful like Little Fires Everywhere or darkly comedic like The Corrections and The Stepford Wives or even with a dose of supernatural like Lost Man’s Lane, he wants to read it. He is also interested in narrative nonfiction with a compelling point of view, true crime, health and wellness, and long form investigative journalism.

Dan Smetanka is the Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of the Catapult Book Group, and the Editor in Chief of Counterpoint Press. His authors have been 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 others. His authors include Joan Silber, Dana Johnson, Natashia Deón, Ben Ehrenreich, Karen E. Bender, Tod Goldberg, Gina Frangello, Vanessa Hua, Elizabeth Rosner, Nawaaz Ahmed, Abby Geni, Maria Hummel, and Jamie Harrison, among others.

Rider Strong began his career on stage with LES MISERABLES at the age of ten. He became best known for his roles on BOY MEETS WORLD and the cult horror film CABIN FEVER, before moving behind the camera. He wrote and directed shorts that played over 60 festivals worldwide and won audience and juried awards. His commercial for Obama’s 2008 campaign was a viral hit, a MoveOn.Org winner, and the first political ad to air on Comedy Central. He returned to his roots, this time as the in-house director for three seasons of the Emmy-nominated GIRL MEETS WORLD. Rider’s essays and short stories have appeared in The Believer, Bullet Magazine, Whiskey Island, and his play NEVER EVER LAND premiered in 2019. He holds an MFA from Bennington College and teaches screenwriting at Chapman University and has served as guest faculty at the Low Residency MFA @ UC Riverside. He created and cohosted the podcasts Literary Disco and Pod Meets World, the latter of which is one of the most popular podcasts in the nation. 

Tara Timinsky is a manager at Grandview working with screenwriters, playwrights, journalists and authors and previously held similar roles at Gotham and Anonymous Content. 

Brian Townsley is an award-winning writer, as well as a podcaster, and the founder and executive editor of Starlite Pulp.  He is the author of the crime fiction books A Trunk Full of Zeroes and Outlaw Ballads, the western novella Days of Bone, Nights of Ash, and three books of poetry.  His short fiction has appeared in various publications, including Mystery Tribune, Black Mask, Quarterly West, Frontier Tales, Connecticut Review, and many others, and he had a story make the distinguished list in Best American Mystery Stories, 2019.  He is a graduate of the Professional Writing Program at USC and is also an alum of the mighty California Golden Bears.

Robin Wasserman is the New York Times bestselling author of Mother Daughter Widow Wife, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner, and Girls on Fire, an NPR and BuzzFeed Best Book of the Year, and ten YA novels, including the acclaimed Seven Deadly Sins series, The Waking Dark, and The Book of Blood and Shadow.  Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and several short story anthologies. She is a graduate of Harvard College with a Master’s in the history of science. She lives in Los Angeles, where she writes for television, including The Summer I Turned Pretty and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

Mickey Birnbaum’s play Big Death & Little Death inaugurated Woolly Mammoth’s new Washington D.C. theatre in 2005. It has been produced subsequently at Perishable Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island; Crowded Fire in San Francisco; the Road Theatre in Los Angeles; and the Catastrophic Theater in Houston. The play was nominated for a 2006 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, and was a 2006 PEN USA Literary Awards Finalist. His play Bleed Rail premiered at the Theatre@Boston Court in Los Angeles in 2007, and won a 2008 Garland Award for Playwriting. Mickey spent two months living in playwright William Inge’s boyhood home in Independence, Kansas as the recipient of a 2006 Inge Fellowship. He has written numerous children’s plays for L.A.’s celebrated non-profit organization, Virginia Avenue Project. He is a founding member of Dog Ear, a Los Angeles collective of nationally-renowned playwrights (visit www.dogear.org), as well as The Playwrights’ Union, and was a member of the 2008-2009 Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop. Over a thirty year career, Mickey has written screenplays for Universal, Paramount, Columbia/Sony, Interscope, Warner Brothers, and Leonardo di Caprio’s Appian Way Productions. He collaborated with director Steven Shainberg (Secretary, Fur) on the screenplay for The Big Shoe and recently adapted the John Irving novel The Fourth Hand in collaboration with Shainberg. He wrote The Tie that Binds (1995), starring Keith Carradine and Darryl Hannah, for Interscope/Hollywood Pictures. Mickey received his MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of Riverside, Palm Desert in 2013. He teaches screenwriting at Santa Monica College as well. Mickey plays bass accordion for the Accordionaires, an accordion orchestra. Hs most recent play, Backyard, was a finalist for the 2015 PEN Center USA Award for Drama.

Emily Rapp Black is the author of Sanctuary, Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, Poster Child: A Memoir and The Still Point of the Turning World. A former Fulbright scholar, she was educated at Harvard University, Trinity College-Dublin, Saint Olaf College, and the University of Texas-Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. A recent Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient, she has received awards and fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Jentel Arts Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Fundación Valparaíso, and Bucknell University, where she was the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence. Her work has appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, Salon, Slate, Time, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, O: The Oprah Magazine, Los Angeles Times, and many others. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and frequently publishes scholarly work in the fields of disability studies, bioethics, and theological studies. She is currently associate professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches medical narratives in the School of Medicine.

Yennie Cheung is the Executive Editor of the Coachella Review and co-author of DTLA/37: Downtown Los Angeles in Thirty-seven Stories. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside-Palm Desert, and her writing has been published in such places as The Los Angeles Times, Writers Resist, Angels Flight • Literary West, The Rattling Wall, and The Best Small Fictions. 

Elizabeth Crane is the author of four collections of short stories, When the Messenger is Hot, All this Heavenly Glory, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, and Turf, and the novels The History of Great Things and We Only Know So Much.  Her work has been translated into several languages and has been featured in numerous publications including Other Voices, Ecotone, Guernica, Catapult, Electric Literature, Coachella Review, Mississippi Review, Florida Review, Bat City Review, Hobart, Rookie, Fairy Tale Review, The Huffington Post, Eating Well, Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Reader and The Believer, and anthologies including Altared, The Show I’ll Never Forget, The Best Underground Fiction, Who Can Save Us Now?, Brute Neighbors and Dzanc’s Best of the Web.  Her stories have been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts.  She is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award, and her work has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater company.  A feature film adaptation of her debut novel, We Only Know So Much, won Best Feature at the Big Apple Film Festival in 2018.  Her debut memoir, This Story Will Change (Counterpoint), was released in 2022 and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her next book This May Not Mean What Think will be released in 2026.

Jill Alexander Essbaum is the New York Times bestselling author the novel Hausfrau, which was translated into 26 languages, and several prize-winning collections of poetry, including Heaven (winner of the Katherine Bakeless Nason prize), Necropolis, Harlot, and most recently, Would-Land. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals including Poetry, The Christian Century, Image,  and The Rumpus, and has been included in textbooks and anthologies including The Best American Erotic Poems and two editions of the annual Best American Poetry anthology. A two-time NEA fellow, Jill lives and writes in Austin, Tx. 

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times-bestselling author of sixteen prize-winning books, including the acclaimed Gangsterland trilogy – Gangsterland, a finalist the Hammett Prize, Gangster Nation, a Times of London Best Book of the Year, and Gangsters Don’t Die, named both an Amazon Best Book of the Year and Southwest Book of the Year – the novels The House of Secrets, which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer, and Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and three acclaimed collections of short fiction, most recently The Low Desert, named a Southwest Book of the Year and the finalist for numerous literary awards. His short fiction has been widely anthologized, including in Palm Springs Noir, Las Vegas Noir, and Best American Mystery & Suspense, where he has also twice received Distinguished Story of the Year citations. His nonfiction appears regularly in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Alta and has been widely anthologized as well, including in Best American Essays, and has won five Nevada Press Association Awards for excellence. For his body of work, Tod was honored with the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. Tod Goldberg holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Literature from Bennington College and is a Professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside where he founded and directs the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. His most recent book, Eight Very Bad Nights, an anthology of Hanukkah noir, is a finalist for the Anthony Award. His next book, Only Way Out, will be released this fall. 

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and book critic living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Zero Saints, Coyote Songs, The Devil Takes You Home, and House of Bone

and Rain, currently a finalist for the Locus Award. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Wonderland Book Award, among others. His reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Locus Magazine, and the Boston Globe and he is the horror fiction columnist for the New York Times. Iglesias teaches creative writing at the UC Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program. You can find him online talking books on X at @gabino_iglesias.

Joshua Malkin has written feature projects for Sony, Fox, Universal Pictures among more than a dozen other companies. He also wrote and produced three documentaries: two about the art of puppetry, and the other about underground comics. In 2008 he wrote Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever for Lionsgate. Joshua co-authored top-selling fantasy comic book series The Source (Scout Comics, Publisher – top title, 2018) and the YA graphic novel, Unikorn. The book and screenplay for Unikorn have been acquired by Armory Films and is slated to be the directorial debut of Marvel editor Debbie Berman (Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Spiderman Homecoming.) Joshua is a professor of screenwriting at the University of California Riverside, an occasional story architect for the video game industry, and the proud – if bewildered - father of twins.

Kathryn E. McGee is the Program Manager for and a graduate of the UC Riverside Palm Desert MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. Her horror stories have appeared in Kelp Journal, Ladies of the Fright, Scoundrel Time, Gamut Magazine, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Chromophobia anthology. Her story, “Mondays Are for Meat,” was recently optioned for film. “The Creek Keepers’ Lodge” (Horror Library Vol. 6) was an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Vol. 10. She writes about horror books and film for The Lineup. She also co-authored a book about downtown Los Angeles, DTLA37: Downtown Los Angeles in Thirty-seven Stories (Enville Publishing). Kathryn is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and represented by Dara Hyde at Hill Nadell Literary Agency. For more information, visit www.kathrynemcgee.com.

Ivy Pochoda holds a BA in Classics and Literature, with a focus on Dramatic Literature, from Harvard, where she graduated cum laude, and an MFA in fiction from Bennington College. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels These Women, Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, and The Art of Disappearing, and has won or been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (twice!), the California Book Award, the International Thriller Award, the Strand Critics Award, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award, the Macavity Award, and others too numerous to list. Ivy is also the author of the YA/fantasy series created by the late Kobe Bryant,  Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof, an immediate New York Times bestseller, and Epoca: The River of Sand, and is an in-demand ghost writer as well. Her nonfiction and criticism appears regularly in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Wall Street Journal, among others. Her most recent novel, Sing Her Down, was released last summer and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize while her short story “Jackrabbit Skin” was selected for Best American Mystery & Suspense. Her next novel, Ecstasy, will be released this June. 

William Rabkin, creator and writer of HBOAsia’s science fiction series Dream Raider, has written and/or produced hundreds of hours of dramatic television. He served as show runner on the long-running Dick Van Dyke mystery series “Diagnosis Murder” and on the action-adventure spectacle “Martial Law” and is currently creating series in Asia and Europe. He has also written a dozen network TV pilots. His work has twice been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Television Episode from the Mystery Writers of America. He has written four books on writing for television, “Writing the Pilot”(2011), “Writing the Pilot: Creating the Series”(2017), Writing the Pilot: Streaming and, with Lee Goldberg, “Successful Television Writing” (2003) and seven novels. He is the co-creator and co-editor of “The Dead Man,” a 28-book series of supernatural action thrillers published by Amazon’s 47 North imprint. Rabkin is part of the core faculty of UCR-Palm Desert’s M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts. He recently wrote the miniseries Estonia: The Last Wave for the Nordic Entertainment Group and has just finished a pilot for them.  He is currently consulting on a new series in South Africa.

Rob Roberge is the acclaimed author of several books, including the memoir Liar, named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and best of the year selection by Powell’s and Entropy, the novels The Cost of Living, More Than They Could Chew, and Drive, and the short story collection Working Backwards from the Worst Moment of My Life. His short fiction and essays have been widely published and anthologized, most recently in Palm Springs Noir and Silver Waves of Summer, and acclaimed by media outlets such as the New York Times Book Review, NPR, and the LA Times. In addition to writing and teaching, he is a guitarist and singer/songwriter in The Hitchcock Brunettes and the seminal LA art punk band, The Urinals, who’ve shared bills with Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, The Dream Syndicate, and the Go-Go’s, and whose songs have been covered by Yo La Tengo, The Minutemen, The Gun Club, No Age, and many others. He also wrote and directed the short film This Regrettable Event. He holds an MFA from Vermont College and is an assistant professor and core faculty member of the Low Residency MFA at UC Riverside. He is at work on a new novel and several music projects and lives with his wife and fellow Hitchcock Brunette, the writer Gina Frangello, in Wonder Valley.

Heather Scheeler is the Administrative Assistant for the UC Riverside Performing Arts Admin department and the UC Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program, where she received her MFA in Fiction in 2018. She is the Swiss Army Knife of Circe Consulting, run by Gina Frangello and Emily Rapp, and has worked as an event producer and freelance script writer for the Los Angeles Times. In her free time, she tends to the maximum number of houseplants she can fit into her tiny apartment in Long Beach and the menagerie of cats, reptiles, tarantulas, and bugs that truly make her jungle a home.

John Schimmel is in the middle of an extraordinarily diverse career as a writer/producer. He’s been the President of Michael Douglas’Furthur Films and President of Production at Ascendant Pictures, an executive at Douglas-Reuther Productions, Belair Entertainment, and Warner Bros, co-penned the Tony-nominated musical “Pump Boys And Dinettes,” published fiction and nonfiction, including his first book, Screenwriting Behind Enemy Lines: Lessons from Inside the Studio Gates. He currently works as Executive Producer for Cloud Imperium Games and most recently executive produced or produced the films Shaquile O’Neal Presents Foster Boy with Matthew Modine and Lou Gossett Jr., written and produced by his student Jay Paul Deratany; the documentary The Great 14th: Tenzin Gyatzo, The 14th Dalai Lama, In His Own Words; and AM I, the first generative AI feature film, created and directed by conceptual artist Kevin Abosch and premiering at the Helsinki Art and Film Festivals. John is part of the core screenwriting faculty at the University of California at Riverside’s Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts, providing not just an insight into how to write screenplays, but how to write screenplays that sell.

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of seven novels with one word titles including: Moist, Salty, and most recently, Memoir; as well as three non-fiction books, including Rude Talk in Athens and Naked at Lunch.  His eighth novel, Pura Vida, is forthcoming in 2026 from Editions Gallmeister in France. He has written extensively for film and television and his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Independent, Vulture and others.  He has really enjoyed being a member of the UCR Palm Desert Core Faculty.

David L. Ulin is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times, he has written for Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review; his essay “Bed” was selected for The Best American Essays 2020. He is a professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the literary journal Air/Light. Most recently, he has edited Didion: The 1960s and 70s and Didion: The 1980s and 90s for Library of America. His most recent book, Thirteen Question Method, was released last fall.

Keri Ka’iulani Picolla Stanbra is a writer, talent manager at Pop Art Management, and photographer. Her work explores themes of cultural memory, family legacy, and belonging, shaped by her Native Hawaiian heritage and upbringing in diaspora. Her poetry is forthcoming in Kelp Journal’s 2025 Ocean Poetry Anthology.

As a photographer with over a decade of experience, Keri specializes in portraiture, editorial, and event photography that centers authenticity, connection, and story. Her images have appeared in Teen Vogue, Glamour, and campaigns for clients ranging from Manduka Yoga and Susan G. Komen to cultural organizations and grassroots storytellers. She has photographed artists and storytellers including Zendaya, Keke Palmer, and Anna Kendrick, as well as families, creatives, cultural practitioners, and community leaders.

She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside’s Low Residency program, a BA in Cinema and Television Arts from California State University in Northridge, and is a graduate of Santa Monica College’s Commercial Photography program. She is also a 2023 NAPALI Fellow, a program dedicated to cultivating emerging Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander leaders.

Sean Parado is a Filipino-American writer and poet from San Jose, California. He graduated from the University of California, Riverside in Palm Desert with a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. A former managing editor for the Coachella Review, Sean has worked with various after-school programs in the past decade with hopes to inspire the youth, specifically those who grew up in rough neighborhoods as he did. Never wanting to be put in a box, Sean lets his stories dictate their genres. With messages like challenging social norms and racial prejudices hidden between the lines, Sean writes stories that reflect the rigorous lessons he learned during his own imperfect upbringing. When not coaching youth sports, Sean spends most of his free time working on his novel, an epic genre blending action-adventure, inspired by his favorite comic books and manga, or shooting some hoops at a local basketball court.

At the lowest estimate, Lucio Rodriguez has killed over a quarter-million insects in the name of science. The bug-gods did not like this (incidentally, they also don’t like being called “bug-gods,” because it’s taxonomically incorrect). Conflict raged for a decade, then half a decade more, the whole of Lucio’s youth spent in insect science-murder. Ultimately a cease-fire was negotiated, and a deal struck.

Whisps of grey in his beard, Lucio now spends his free time with his wife and daughters, plays board games, and turns large pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood. Lucio has a BS in Biology from UCR, and an MFA from the world’s greatest MFA program—sometimes he gets the honor of TAing there. He is part of the Geekin’ Out podcast on YouTube, and has stories in Forbidden Futures, 18 Wheels of Science Fiction, and being whispered to you at night by that earwig you lost sight of in the bathroom.