Reyna Grande was a featured author in the 2010 Pasadena Festival of Women Authors. She has been selected as the 2013 Pasadena City College Writer-in-Residence, a program that was funded from the proceeds of the 2012 Pasadena Festival of Women Authors. Reyna Grande is an author, speaker and educator. Her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, received a 2010 Latino Books into Movies Award, a 2007 American Book Award and the 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award.  Her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies, was critically acclaimed and was the recipient of a 2010 International Latino Book Award. Her most recent work is the memoir The Distance Between Us.  In 1985 at almost 10 years old, Reyna entered the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant.  She went on to become the first person in her family to graduate from college.  Reyna holds a B.A. in creative writing and film & video from the University of California at Santa Cruz.  She received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University.  She is an active promoter of Latino literature and has worked as a program coordinator for festivals including the 2009 and 2010 Latino Book & Family Festival.

Author Website
Los Angeles Times Review
The Daily Beast Interview

Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender is the author of four books:  The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, which was a New York Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sign of My Own, which was a Los Angeles Times pick of the year, Willful Creatures, which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, which recently won the SCIBA Award for best fiction and an Alex Award.  Aimee’s short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review and many more.  It has also been heard on PRI’s This American Life and Selected Shorts.  She has received two Pushcart prizes and was nominated for the TipTree Award in 2005 and the Shirley Jackson Short Story Award in 2010, and her fiction has been translated into 16 languages.  Aimee lives in Los Angeles and teaches creative writing at USC.

Author Website
NPR Reading "Are You a Man or a Mouse?"
The Rumpus Interview

Bo Caldwell

Bo Caldwell’s first novel, The Distant Land of My Father, was a national bestseller, one of the Los Angeles Times’ Best Books of 2001, and was the City of Pasadena’s 2007 One City, One Story book.  Her second novel, City of Tranquil Light, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and an October 2010 Indie Next Notable.  Her personal essays have appeared in O and the Washington Post Magazine among others, and her short stories have been included in Story, Ploughshares, and Epoch.  She graduated from Stanford University where she later held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and a Jones Lectureship in Creative Writing.  She has received a fellowship in literature from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Artist Fellowship from the Arts Council of Santa Clara County, the Georgia Shreve Prize in Fiction at Stanford University, and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation.  She lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.

YouTube Interview
Book Addiction Interview
Image Bio

Gabrielle Pina

Gabrielle Pina is an award-winning fiction writer and novelist.  She won the 2002 Pacificus Foundation Literary Prize for achievement in short fiction.  She published the short story, Uncommon Revelations, for the ESI Anthology which was recently re-released by Amazon Shorts.  Her first novel, Bliss, grew out of her thesis project.  Her second novel, Chasing Sophea, was released in 2006 and has become a book club favorite.  Pina is a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s Master of Professional Writing Program, where she also received a Master of Arts degree, and she is an adjunct English professor at Pasadena City College where her innovative curriculum addresses the graduation rate of African American students on college campuses.  She has written Letters from Zora:  In Her Own Words, a play that showcases the artistic and literary triumphs of Zora Neale Hurston.  Gabrielle lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Author Website
Daily Trojan Review
YouTube Reading

Kathleen Sharp

Kathleen Sharp is an acclaimed author and award-winning investigative journalist.  She is the author of the true-life thriller, Blood Medicine: Blowing the Whistle On One of the Deadliest Prescription Drugs Ever, in addition to four acclaimed non-fiction books.  She has written for the New York Times Magazine, Parade, Elle, Playboy and Fortune, among many others.  She has produced segments for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, and appeared and consulted on film documentaries for Turner Classic Movies, the Biography Channel and Bravo.  Sharp has also contributed to several anthologies including one that was nominated for an Edgar Award.  Her many awards include a first place prize for investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, a fellowship to study at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Washington, and a health-care fellowship from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.  She is an avid runner and lives in Santa Barbara with her family.

Author Website
YouTube Literary Gumbo
WhistleBlowersBlog.org