Maria Gabriela Cardenas is a director, producer, and writer from Caracas, Venezuela. Her directorial debut A Dark Foe, a psychological thriller, garnered twenty awards and sixteen nominations and was distributed by Vertical Entertainment. Cardenas has done a variety of music videos, short films, including the award-winning short "The Grand Guignol" (2015). At the age of 14, she already knew she wanted to become a film director and committed to several intensive film courses in Los Angeles,...

A man of duality, Tom Pinchuk has charted the adventures of world-famous kid heroes like Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 and Mattel’s Max Steel while also crafting mature audience comics for Heavy Metal Magazine, among other outlets. His recent graphic novel, Remember Andy Xenon, may reconcile these contradictions, at last. Tom has written for television, comics and everything in-between and, before moving to Los Angeles, dwelled everywhere from Singapore to Syracuse. He delights in obstacle races,...

Nadiya Chettiar started out as a stage actor and had the rare opportunity of touring as far away as Iran before discovering her true passion lay off the stage and behind the camera. She began her writing career in her native Canada, working for hit comedies such as Netflix's Kim’s Convenience and Workin’ Moms. After relocating to LA, Nadiya landed her first US gig as Executive Story Editor on Life in Pieces. She then moved on to the star-studded animated series, Housebroken, before returning...

Pete Hsu is a Taiwanese American writer based in Pasadena, CA. He is the author of the experimental chapbook, There Is a Man (Tolsun Books). His work has also been featured in several journals and anthologies, including The Asian American Writer’s Workshop’s The Margins, F(r)iction, The Los Angeles Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He was a 2017 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, as well as the 2017 PEN in the Community Writer in Residence. Full of warmth, terror, and...

Tembi Locke is the New York Times bestselling author of her memoir From Scratch, an actor, producer, and screenwriter. From Scratch is a Reese’s Book Club pick, an Audie Awards Best Audiobook Finalist, and a Goodreads Best Books Finalist. Along with Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine, Tembi serves as an executive producer and co-writer for the Netflix limited series inspired by her book. Her hope is for her work to inspire people to love more deeply, embrace resilience, and honor the...

Jean Chen Ho is a writer and doctoral candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California, where she is a Dornsife Fellow in fiction. She has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and her writing has been published in Guernica, The Rumpus, The Offing, Apogee, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, VIDA, NPR, Buzzfeed, Bitch Magazine, and others. She was born in Taiwan, grew up in Southern California, and lives in Los Angeles. Fiona and Jane follows best...

Alexandra Alessandri is the author of Feliz New Year, Ava Gabriela! (Albert Whitman), which won a silver medal in the 2020 Florida Book Awards, and the forthcoming Isabel and Her Colores Go to School (Sleeping Bear Press). The daughter of Colombian immigrants, she is also an Associate Professor of English at Broward College and a poet, with some of her work appearing in The Acentos Review, Rio Grande Review, Atlanta Review, and Young Adult Review Network. She received her BA and MA degrees in...

Jennifer J. Chow is the Lefty Award-nominated author of the Sassy Cat Mysteries and the forthcoming L.A. Night Market Mysteries (Berkley/Penguin Random House). The first in the Sassy Cat series, Mimi Lee Gets A Clue, was selected as an Overdrive Recommended Read, a PopSugar Best Summer Beach Read, staff picks for both Richland Library and Changing Hands Bookstore, and as one of BuzzFeed’s Top 5 Books by AAPI authors. Jennifer has also published other Asian-American novels involving secrets...

Darrin L. Dortch is a comedic writer, hailing from St. Louis, Missouri. His pilot, "Short Changed," won the inaugural Turner/American Black Film Festival TV Writing Contest in 2017. Darrin was a writer for two seasons on TNT’s outrageously delicious dramedy "Claws." Darrin’s first episode of "Claws" was also the directorial debut of star Niecy Nash. Currently, Darrin is an Executive Story Editor on Warner Bros./OWN's, "The Kings of Napa." He has written multiple pitches and spec scripts and...

Aminah Mae Safi is a Muslim-American writer who explores art, fiction, feminism, and film. She's the winner of the We Need Diverse Books short story contest. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her partner and two cats. She is the author of NOT THE GIRLS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR (Feiwel and Friends), TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL (Feiwel and Friends), THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT (Feiwel and Friends) and the forthcoming Reclaimed Classics ROBIN HOOD (March 1, 2022). In This is All Your Fault, Rinn,...

Kenji C. Liu is author of Monsters I Have Been (Alice James Books, 2019), finalist for the California and Maine book awards, and Map of an Onion, national winner of the 2015 Hillary Gravendyk Poetry Prize (Inlandia Institute). His poetry is in numerous journals, anthologies, magazines, and two chapbooks, Craters: A Field Guide (2017) and You Left Without Your Shoes (2009). An alumnus of Kundiman, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and the Community of Writers, he lives in Los...

Paria Hassouri is a pediatrician, mother of three, and transgender rights activist. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1999 and completed her residency training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 2002. Her personal essays have been published in multiple sites, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Huffington Post, and she has presented stories on stage through Expressing Motherhood. A proud Iranian-American, she...

Born on and raised outside an Army base in Seoul, South Korea, Christina Strain moved to the US at 18 to attended Louisiana State University, where she received a BFA in Graphic Design. After, she went on to color comics for Marvel comics for 10 years, and during her last few years at Marvel, she started writing her own webcomics. Shortly after attending several UCLA extension classes (for screenwriting) Christina retired from coloring comics to pursue her masters degree in screenwriting at...

Julie Wong spent more than a decade writing speeches and developing press conferences while serving as Deputy Mayor to Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn and leading communications for Senator Barbara Boxer and then-L.A. City Councilmember Eric Garcetti, among others. She also served in multiple executive roles for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts where she was involved with major initiatives including the opening of Shanghai Disneyland and the announcement of Star Wars lands coming to Disneyland and...

Elle Johnson is a TV writer. Her credits include Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Ghost Whisperer, and The Fosters. One of Elle’s career highlights came on The Glades where she wrote and produced an episode set in the world of NASCAR that featured nine actual racecars, four champion drivers, and one monkey. She was co-showrunner on Netflix’s Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker which won an NAACP Image award for best limited series. Most recently she was an Executive Producer on the...

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including The Low Desert, Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize, Gangster Nation, The House of Secrets, which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer, and Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is also the co-host of the wildly popular podcast Literary Disco, named a top literary podcast by the Washington Post. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California,...

Multiple Emmy nominee Melissa Rosenberg is Series Creator and Showrunner of Marvel’s Jessica Jones. The show garnered tremendous response and critical acclaim, including winning the prestigious Peabody Award for its genre-bending approach. As one of Hollywood’s most versatile, sought-after storytellers, Rosenberg is currently in an overall deal with Warner Bros. TV to develop new projects. Her company, Tall Girls Productions, focuses on developing and producing film and TV series with an...

Brian Shin has been a professional poker player, a journalist covering high school football and writing for Koream, and a participant of the ABC-Disney Writing Program, Sundance Episodic Lab, and CBS Diversity Showcase. Brian is a story editor on the ABC drama The Good Doctor.

Michael Werwie is the screenwriter of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship-winning Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. He is currently developing an original series for television and has written projects for Warner Bros., Legendary, Fox, and Amazon. Michael is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a graduate of USC.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Cindy Lin is a former journalist with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She’s written and produced many multimedia news features for children, one of which received a Peabody Award. She is the author of The Twelve and its sequel, Treasures of the Twelve.

Aatif Rashid is the author of the literary comedy Portrait of Sebastian Khan, which explores the complicated romantic life of a Muslim American art history student. His writing has appeared in Barrelhouse, Massachusetts Review, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Kenyon Review blog.

Wally Rudolph is a multidisciplinary artist and the author of the novels Four Corners and Mighty, Mighty. Born in Canada to Chinese-Jamaican immigrant parents and raised in Texas, he’s traveled and lived throughout North America, but now is more than happy to be living and creating in The City of Angels.

Kira Snyder is an Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and WGA Award-winning writer and Executive Producer on the TV show The Handmaid’s Tale. Her credits include Pacific Rim: Uprising, The 100, Incursion, Eureka, and Moonlight. Formerly a computer game designer, Kira created games for Microsoft, the MIT Press textbook Rules Of Play, and Electronic Arts, including the seminal alternate reality game Majestic.

Zimran Jacob has worked as a life coach, financial manager, and in film and television production. He served as the showrunner's assistant on the Netflix series The Punisher.

Colette Sartor won the 2018 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her collection Once Removed and Other Stories. Her writing has appeared in Carve Magazine, Slice Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Kenyon Review Online, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program as well as privately and is an executive director of the CineStory Foundation, a mentoring organization for emerging TV writers and screenwriters.