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Carolyn Forché

Known as a “poet of witness,” Carolyn Forché is the author of four books of poetry. Her first poetry collection, Gathering The Tribes (Yale University Press, 1976), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award from the Yale University Press. In 1977, she traveled to Spain to translate the work of Salvadoran—exiled poet Claribel Alegría, and upon her return, received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, which enabled her to travel to El Salvador, where she worked as a human rights advocate.

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Li-Young Lee

“What characterizes Lee’s poetry is a certain humility…a willingness to let the sublime enter his field of concentration and take over, a devotion to language, a belief in its holiness.” — Gerald Stern

Li-Young Lee is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, his most recent being Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001). His earlier collections are Rose (BOA, 1986), winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University, The City in Which I Love You (BOA, 1991), the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and a memoir entitled The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (Simon and Schuster, 1995), which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.  A new volume, Behind My Eyes, is forthcoming by W.W. Norton in January 2008. Lee's honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lannan Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 1988 he received the Writer's Award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation.

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Juan Williams

Juan Williams, one of America's leading journalists, is a news analyst, appearing regularly on the newsmagazines Morning Edition and Day to Day. Knowledgeable and charismatic, Williams brings insight and depth — hallmarks of NPR programs — to a wide spectrum of issues and ideas.

From 2000-2001, Williams hosted NPR's national call-in show Talk of the Nation. In that role, he brought the program to cities and towns across America for monthly radio "town hall" meetings before live audiences. The town hall meetings were a part of "The Changing Face of America," a year-long NPR series focused on how Americans are dealing with rapid changes in society and culture as the United States enters the 21st century. The series, supported by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, involves monthly pieces airing on Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as Talk of the Nation.

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Jimmy Santiago Baca

Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry. During a fateful conflict with another inmate, Jimmy was shaken by the voices of Neruda and Lorca, and made a choice that would alter his destiny. Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca sent three of his poems to Denise Levertov, the poetry editor of Mother Jones. The poems were published and became part of Immigrants in Our Own Land, published in 1979, the year he was released from prison. He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir A Place to Stand the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award. The national award recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare.

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Helena Viramontes

Helena Viramontes is the author of The Moths and Other Stories (1985) and Under the Feet of Jesus (1995), a novel.  Her most recent novel, Their Dogs Came with Them, just published by Atria Books, focuses on the dispossessed, the working poor, the homeless, and the undocumented of East Los Angeles, where Viramontes was born and raised.  Her work strives to recreate the visceral sense of a world virtually unknown to mainstream letters and to transform readers through relentlessly compassionate storytelling.

In the 1980s, Viramontes became co-coordinator of the Los Angeles Latino Writers Association and literary editor of XhistmeArte Magazine.  Later in the decade, Viramontes helped found Southern California Latino Writers and Filmmakers. In collaboration with feminist scholar Maria Herrera Sobek, Viramontes organized three major conferences at UC-Irvine, resulting in two anthologies: Chicana Creativity and Criticism-Charting New Frontiers in American Literature (1988) and Chicana Writes: On Word and Film (1993).

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Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler and is author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, One Market Under God, and The Conquest of Cool. He writes frequently for Harper’s, The Nation, and Le Monde diplomatique. His new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, will be available in August.

With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Frank turns his eye on what he calls in What’s the Matter with Kansas?, “the Great Backlash”—the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. Marshalling public outrage over everything from improper flag display to un-Christian art, the backlash has achieved the most unnatural of alliances, bringing together blue-collar midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. Frank’s insights should make for a timely discussion during this election season.

Paul Rieckhoff

Paul Rieckhoff, 33, is the Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).  A nonpartisan, non-profit founded in 2004 with tens of thousands of members in all 50 US states, IAVA is America’s first and largest Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans group.  Rieckhoff was a First Lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in the Iraq war from 2003-2004.  He is now a nationally recognized authority on the war in Iraq and issues affecting troops, military families and veterans. 

Honored by Esquire magazine as one of “America’s Best and Brightest” in 2004, Rieckhoff has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. Recent appearances include: ABC’s documentary “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports,” The Charlie Rose Show, 60 Minutes, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Paula Zahn Now, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, The CBS Evening News, Hannity and Colmes, The Big Story with John Gibson, BBC World, NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and The Colbert Report.

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Marisela Norte

Considered one of the most important literary voices to come out of East Los Angeles, Marisela Norte’s writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Interview, Elle, Option, Venice, Rattler, El Tecolote, Electrum, Rara Avis, Los Angeles Weekly, Buzz , La Opinion, West, Bomb and Tu Ciudad.  Norte has performed her work throughout California and the US and most recently at the Tate Modern in London.  Her work can also be found in  Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture, Bordered Sexualities: Bodies on the Verge of a Nation, The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place,  American Studies in a Moment of Danger, the American Quarterly, Rolling Stone’s Women of Rock and Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics From California.

Robert V. Hine

Robert V. Hine taught history at the University of California at Riverside for thirty-six years.  At that time he followed his interest in community through such books as California’s Utopian Colonies and Community on the American Frontier.  When he retired he assumed a recalled position at the University of California, Irvine, and wrote two memoirs, Second Sight and Broken Glass: A Family’s Journey through Mental Illness.  He has now turned to fiction with I Have Seen the Fire and Dynamite and Dreams (to be published this fall on San Diego City Works Press).

Reyna Grande  

 Reyna Grande is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Across A Hundred Mountains (Atria 2006) , for which she has received an American Book Award and El Premio Aztlan Literary Award . She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing and Film and Video from the University of California, Santa Cruz . She was born in Mexico and was raised by her grandparents after her parents left her behind while they worked in the U.S. She came to the U.S. at the age of ten as an undocumented immigrant. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. She is a sought-after speaker and lecturer at middle/high schools, colleges and universities across the nation. She is currently finishing her second novel, which will be published in 2009.

Melinda Palacio  

Melinda Palacio grew up in South-Central Los Angeles and now lives in Santa Barbara where she is a freelance writer, a web developer and co-editor for Ink Byte Magazine. She is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow. Her diverse articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies including Tu Ciudad Los Angeles, BorderSenses, the Valley Voice, Sage Trail, and Maple Leaf Rag III: An Anthology of Poems. Her short story from Latinos in Lotusland, "The Last Time," won an award for excellence in Writing at the Santa Barbara Writers conference in 2005. She recently completed her first novel, Ocotillo Dreams, and is working on her second novel, two books of poetry, a collection of short fiction, and articles for Ink Byte. Samples of her many projects are available on her website, www.MelindaPalacio.com.

Jennifer Silva Redmond  

 Jennifer Silva Redmond is Editor-in-Chief of Sunbelt Publications, an award-winning small press that celebrates the natural and cultural history of the Californias. She has written for publications as diverse as Science of Mind, Cruising World, and Dog Fancy; one of her stories is featured in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Review Press, March 2008). Co-founding editor of Sea of Cortez Review (1998-2001), Ms. Silva Redmond joined Sunbelt in 2000; she enjoys speaking to writers’ groups and guiding both well-known and first-time authors through the acquisition, editing, and production of their books.

Danalee Buhler  

Danalee Buhler’s first book, The Very Best Child Care and How To Find It: Birth to Three Years Old (Prima Publications 1989) was the first book to focus on non-parental care of infants and toddlers. It was chosen as a Literary Guild Selection. Following the book’s release the author spent several years volunteering on behalf of children and families in Portland, Oregon.

The author co-chaired a Governor’s committee responsible for the distribution of grants to organizations working with children and families. She also authored the start-up grant proposal for Portland’s first Child Care Resource and Referral organization.

Born in Texas in 1951 and raised on the Navajo Indian Reservation the author’s latest book, Running From Coyote: A White Family among the Navajo, chronicles her childhood years on the Navajo Reservation in Northern New Mexico. While living on the reservation the author’s family was allowed to adopt two young Navajo boys. The author, her four sisters, two Navajo brothers, parents and her maternal grandfather returned to the white world in the summer of 1962. The racially mixed family struggled to deal with the emotions of the civil rights movement sweeping the country.

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Sam Quinones

Sam Quinones grew up in Claremont, California and attended UC Berkeley. He has been a journalist for 21 years. He spent 10 years (1994-2004) living in Mexico as a freelance writer, and is the author of two books of non-fiction about Mexico.

In Mexico, he traveled far and wide, visiting all the major immigrant-sending states, and writing prolifically about Mexican immigration. He spent time with gang members and governors, taco vendors and Los Tigres del Norte. He wrote about soap operas and lived briefly in a drug-rehabilitation clinic in Zamora, while hanging out with a street gang. He did the same with a colony of transvestites in Mazatlan, with the merchants in the Mexico City of Tepito, and with the colony of relegated PRI congressmen known as the Bronx.

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Patricia Santana

Patricia Santana was born and raised in south San Diego, the eighth of nine children of Mexican immigrants.  She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, San Diego, in English and Spanish Literature, and a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Santana’s award-winning stories have been published throughout the United States in literary journals such as Puerto Del Sol, RiverSedge, Chiricú, and San Diego Writers’ Monthly. Her stories have also been included in Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Fiction and as required reading in college classes.  Her novel Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquillity was selected as a Best Books for Young Adults 2003 by the American Library Association and was San Diego Magazine’s Book Award winner in fiction for 2003.  Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility was also the 1999 winner of the Chicano/Latino Literary Contest. Patricia Santana has been a guest speaker at many book clubs and colleges including Sacramento and San Diego State University, University of California San Diego and Grossmont College.  Santana is the chair of the foreign languages department and professor of Spanish at Cuyamaca College, in El Cajon, California. She lives in San Diego.

Maurice Jourdane

Maurice Jourdane grew up in southeast Los Angeles, witnessed the hard life of farm workers in Delano during law school, helped ban the crippling short-handled hoe, stopped California from labeling mentally retarded Spanish-speaking students who scored low on an English-administered intelligence tests, was a superior court judge in Monterey County, and recovered from a nearly fatal auto-oil truck collision.  In the words of the publisher Floricanto Press, “Mo's life reads like a Greek mythic tale in which the hero suffers and endures moral and physical endurance in his quest, his now legendary legal fights and successes against the powerful California growers and agricultural interests. This biography is a testament to human strength on behalf of justice for Latinos. The success of César Chávez's civil rights movement and union organizing efforts cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the life and sacrifices of Maurice Jourdane, El Cortito. His legal successes, at great personal costs, solidified Chávez's leadership and prepared the way for the consolidation of the Farm Workers' Union, and ultimately for the farm workers to prevail against the powerful political and economic interests of the California growers.  Never Say Die means exactly that.

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Perry Vasquez  

www.perryvasquez.com

Perry Vasquez is an artist living in San Diego since 1987. He has been a designer and art director for the Stanford Chaparral, Wet Magazine and Nihl Magazine. His paintings, motor oil drawings and popjects have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States. His latest project is a documentary film entitled Fotoaktion! about the Austrian photographer Doris Boris Berman. He lives with his wife Rondi and son Trey.

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Jeffrey Lamont Brown

www.jeffreybrown.com

Jeffrey Lamont Brown brings a fresh, reality-based approach to advertising projects for clients around the world. 2007 awards include: PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, IPA - Lucie “Best of show” and Communication Arts Photo Annual. His unique style, known as “beautiful realism” has evolved naturally over nearly two decades behind the lens. It finds its roots in authentic experiences but goes beyond the real in different, and often subtle, ways. Sometimes it has a bit of a mystical twist; other times we give it an edgier look or a bit of humor. But always we produce imagery with amazing light and highly stylized visuals in keeping with our visual integrity Jeffrey believes that every shot, however comprehensively produced and tightly choreographed, contains “real moments” that serve his clients’ desire to present products and ideas in the most compelling way. “A lot of people are trying to work at the point where documentary meets art photography,” Jeffrey said. “What sets me apart is that I am drawing on almost twenty years of experience as a documentary photographer.”

Jennifer de Poyen

Jennifer de Poyen is a writer and visual artist. A longtime journalist and critic, she is currently at work on a novel and a series of drawings and paintings informed by the war in Iraq and wide-ranging political, economic, and religious conflicts in the Middle East. For seven years, she was a staff critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune, writing primarily about dance and theater. A graduate of McGill University, where she studied philosophy, and Stanford University, where she earned a graduate degree in journalism, she also attended Columbia University as a mid-career fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program. She lives with her husband, the photographer Jeffrey Lamont Brown, and her son, Sacha, in San Diego.