creative writing

Aaron Philip Clark (’08 MFA Writing) will read and discuss his work. Clark is a native of Los Angeles.

Please join the LAS department in welcoming Michael McCarty to faculty Heather Joseph-Witham's Ways of Knowing course for a lecture and discussion about persoal narratives and how to craft your own.

Shonda Buchanan will read and discuss her work. Literary editor of Harriet Tubman Press, Buchanan is an award-winning poet and educator. She is the author of the memoir Black Indian. Her collections of poetry include Who’s Afraid of Black Indians? and Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country. She edited the anthologies Voices from Leimert Park and Voices from Leimert Park Redux. Buchanan is a Writing Arts Sundance Institute Fellow, a Jentel Artist Fellow, and PEN USA Emerging Voices Alum.

Halley Sutton will read and discuss her work. She received her MFA in Writing from Otis College of Art and Design. Her debut novel, The Lady Upstairs, is a feminist noir forthcoming from Putnam. She is a Pitch Wars mentor and her work has appeared in CrimeReads, LitHub, Monday Night, and elsewhere.

Victoria Chang will read and discuss her work. She is the author of the poetry collections OBIT, winner of the 2018 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, Barbie Chang, The Boss, winner of a PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award, Salvinia Molesta, and Circle, winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. Chang is also the author of the middle grade novel in verse Love, Love and the picture book Is Mommy?, illustrated by Marla Frazee.

Aimee Liu will read and discuss her work. She is the author of the novel Glorious Boy, as well as the bestsellers Flash House, Cloud Mountain, and Face, and the memoirs Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders and Solitaire. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, published as a Literary Guild Super Release, and serialized in Good Housekeeping. She’s received a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, a Bosque Fiction Prize, and special mention by the Pushcart Prize.

Blas Falconer will read and discuss his work. His poetry collections include Forgive the Body This Failure, The Foundling Wheel, A Question of Gravity and Light, and The Perfect Hour. He is also a co-editor for The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity, and Mentor & Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets.

Cassidy Lucas is the pen name of writing duo Julia Fierro and Caeli Wolfson Widger. Lucas has authored the novels Santa Monica, forthcoming in October 2020 and The Canyon, to be published in fall 2021.