ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Jonathan Ames is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including Wake Up, Sir! and What’s Not to Love? He is also the creator of two televisions shows: Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (Starz). His novels The Extra Man and You Were Never Really Here have been adapted into films. His latest novel is A Man Named Doll.

Robert Arellano is the author of five novels from Akashic Books, most recently the Cuban noir Havana Libre. He created the Internet’s first hypertext novel, Sunshine ’69, and wrote the story for a graphic-novel anthology from Soft Skull Press, Dead in Desemboque. He is a professor in the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University.

Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of nineteen books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Black has received multiple nominations for Anthony and Macavity awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, and the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture. Her latest novel is Three Hours in Paris, a World War II thriller.

Eric Bogosian wrote and starred in the 1987 play Talk Radio, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. For the film adaptation in which he starred, Bogosian received the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear prize. His stage work off-Broadway has garnered three Obie Awards and a Drama Desk Award. In 2015, Little, Brown published his nonfiction book Operation Nemesis. In 2019, Bogosian was featured in the Safdie brothers’ film Uncut Gems.

Lee Child was fired and out of work when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a best-selling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to launch the New York Times #1 best-selling Jack Reacher series with over 100 million books sold in forty-nine languages. Forbes calls it “the strongest brand in publishing.” The series has spawned two feature films and an Amazon Prime Video series.

Ariel Gore is the award-winning author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including We Were Witches, Hexing the Patriarchy, and F*ck Happiness. Her short stories have been included in Portland Noir, Santa Cruz Noir, and Santa Fe Noir, which she also edited.

Michael Imperioli’s first novel,The Perfume Burned His Eyes, was published in 2018 by Akashic Books and was translated into both Italian and French. The Rome International Literary Festival of 2018 commissioned his short story “New York City—33 AD,” which he read at the Basilica Maxentius of the ancient Roman Forum. Imperioli was coscreenwriter of Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam and writer/director of the film The Hungry Ghosts. He also wrote five episodes of The Sopranos for HBO, in addition to playing the Emmy Award–winning role of Christopher Moltisanti.

Peter Kimani is a leading African author of his generation. He has published three novels, including Dance of the Jakaranda, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017. He has taught at Amherst College and the University of Houston, where he earned a PhD in creative writing and literature. He is a founding faculty member of the Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi, where he teaches journalism and creative writing.

Bernice L. McFadden is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels, including Sugar, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Notable Book of 2012), Glorious, Praise Song for the Butterflies, and The Book of Harlan (winner of a 2017 American Book Award and an NAACP Image Award). She is a four-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of four awards from the BCALA.

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of a number of works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She is the 2019 recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, and became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2018. She is currently a visiting distinguished writer in the graduate writing program at New York University. She is the editor of the anthologies Prison Noir, New Jersey Noir, and Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers.

Achy Obejas is the author of the short story collection The Tower of the Antilles and the novel Ruins, and the editor of Havana Noir.

Lauren Sanders is the author of the novels Kamikaze Lust, which won a Lambda Literary Award, With or Without You, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and most recently The Book of Love and Hate. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and journals, including Book Forum, the American Book Review, and Time Out New York. She lives in the great nation of Brooklyn.

Christopher Sorrentino is the author of five books including, most recently, The Fugitives.

Jerry Stahl is an award-winning author, journalist, and screenwriterwho has published nine books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight, along with the novels I, Fatty and Happy Mutant Baby Pills. His work has appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, and the Believer, among other places, and he edited The Heroin Chronicles for Akashic Books. Stahl’s screen credits include Hemingway & Gellhorn, Maron, and, most recently, Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

Hannah Tinti is the author of The Good Thief, Animal Crackers, and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and cofounded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the cofounder and executive editor of One Story. You can find her @hannahtinti.

David L. Ulin is the author or editor of ten books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, short-listed for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay; the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award; and the Akashic anthology Cape Cod Noir. The former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times, he has written for the Atlantic, the Nation, the New York Times, and other publications. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Foundation.