L.A. Breakdown

<h4>Nancy Spiller is the Los Angeles–based author of <em>Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (with recipes) </em>(Counterpoint, 2009) and <em>Compromise Cake: Lessons Learned From My Mother’s Recipe Box</em> (Counterpoint, 2013). She is also an artist, recovering journalist, and instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. For more information please visit <a href="http://www.nancyspiller.org">www.nancyspiller.org</a>. Twitter handle: @nancyspiller.</h4>

Nancy Spiller

High-Octane Hopes: On Lou Mathews’s “L.A. Breakdown”

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

The Bible According to Dr. Mary

Ten Commandments of Writing

Suicidal Thoughts: The Creative Lives and Tragic Deaths of a Prince and a Pauper

"Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors." — Simone Weil

Cultural Studies

Rochelle Low

Lola Willoughby

Julianne Cohen

Joshua John Miller

Mary Rakow

<h4>Samantha Dunn works as a feature writer at the <em>Orange County Register</em>, and is the author of the novel <em>Failing Paris</em> and the memoirs <em>Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life</em> and <em>Faith in Carlos Gomez</em>. Her essays are widely anthologized, including in the collection she co-edited, <em>Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles</em>. She has written for <em>O the Oprah Magazine</em>, <em>Ms.</em>, <em>Glamour</em>, and <em>Salon</em>, among many other national publications. She teaches in the UCLA Writers Program and at Idyllwild Arts Academy.</h4>
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Samantha Dunn

<h4>David Francis’s first novel <i>Agapanthus Tango</i> was published in the US as <i>The Great Inland Sea</i>. His second novel, <i>Stray Dog Winter</i>, was the Australian Literature Review’s Novel of the Year, and won the 2010 American Library Association Stonewall Prize for Literature. For more information, go to <a href="http://www.straydogwinter.com/">www.straydogwinter.com</a>.</h4>

David Francis

<h4>Janet Fitch is a Los Angeles native and the author of&nbsp;<em>White Oleander</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Paint It Black</em>. Her latest novel is a two-part epic, <em>The Revolution of Marina M.</em> and <em>Chimes of a Lost Cathedral</em>.</h4>

Janet Fitch

<h4><b>Rita Williams</b>'s work has appeared in Best Food Writing for 2007,<i> Los Angeles Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, O at Home, Saveur, The Utne Reader </i>and<i> Fins and Feathers</i>. She is currently teaching in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. <i>If the Creek Don't Rise</i> is her first book.</h4>
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Rita Williams

Les Plesko, 1954 – 2013

Nancy Spiller is the Los Angeles–based author of <em>Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (with recipes) </em>(Counterpoint, 2009) and <em>Compromise Cake: Lessons Learned From My Mother’s Recipe Box</em> (Counterpoint, 2013). She is also an artist, recovering journalist, and instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. For more information please visit <a href="http://www.nancyspiller.org">www.nancyspiller.org</a>. Twitter handle: @nancyspiller.