Authors

Aaron Leventhal

The co-author of Footsteps in the Fog was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His passion for photography and suspense films led to his collaboration with co-author Jeff Kraft. Leventhal lives in the East Bay area.

Alain Silver

The co-author of L.A. Noir is also the author of The Samurai Film and has co-written fifteen other books, including Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, and two screenplays. He has written numerous articles for the Los Angeles Times, DGA Magazine, Film Comment, and Photon. He has also produced nine independent features and over fifty soundtrack albums. Silver is a member of the Directors Guild of America and Writers Guild of America.

Alan Ridenour

The author of Offbeat Food is a veteran freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Weekly, New Times, and numerous other publications. He is the head of the Los Angeles chapter of the Cacophony Society. A transplanted midwesterner, he makes his home in the Los Angeles area.

Amy Chan Zhou

Amy Chan Zhou was born in 1964 in Guangzhou, China and immigrated to the United States in 1979. She is currently working at the Montgomery County Public School system in Maryland as a substitute teacher and interpreter.

Amy Jordan Smith

The author of Life Is Short. Eat Biscuits! is a marketing and advertising professional who writes and directs television commercials and videos. She is also the creator of the dog Zen/humor web site www.eatbiscuits.com. Amy lives in Key Biscayne, Florida, with a new puppy, Elvis.

Andrea Lankford

a former National Park Service ranger, has performed firefighting, law enforcement, and life-saving wilderness medicine in Cape Hatteras, Zion, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon. As a ranger, she won several awards for her work as a criminal investigator, and she implemented the “Heat Kills. Hike Smart” public education program that generated media attention and is credited with preventing heat-related deaths at the Grand Canyon-a program that continues to save lives today. Her masochistic adventures include thru-hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, kayaking from Miami to Key West, cycling from Fairbanks to the Arctic Ocean, and being the first to mountain bike the 800-mile Arizona Trail. Haunted Hikes is her third book. Andrea currently lives in Southern California with her skeptic husband, a Special Agent for the United States Secret Service.

Andrew Feinstein

The co-author of Opening Lines, Pinky Probes, and L-Bombs currently resides in Los Angeles where he previously worked in the animation department for Warner Bros. Feinstein has also worked for Turner Sports, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. When he’s not sitting at his drawing table penciling the next “Girls & Sports” comic strip, Feinstein spends his time lining up a date for Friday night, watching lots of sporting events and tirelessly practicing his jump shot, which, like his dating skills, still needs much improvement.

Andrew Komarnyckyj

Andrew Komarnyckyj has been a lawyer, odd-job man, PR Consultant, hospital porter, and dishwasher among other occupations. As an author, he has published under the pen names Jack D McLean and A K Reynolds. When not writing or reading he loves conversation, listening to anecdotes, craft beers, and hiking in mountains. Komarnyckyj lives in the town of Huddersfield in the U.K.

Andy Furillo

Andy Furillo has been in the newspaper business since 1972 when he began as a copy boy at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He went on to work as a sportswriter in 1974 for the Downey Southeast News and spent the following six years with the Goleta Valley Today and the Santa Barbara News-Press. In 1980, he shifted to news reporting and for the next 35 years focused on criminal justice issues with the Santa Maria Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner and, since 1991, the Sacramento Bee. Furillo won the 2002 Broun Award for his reporting on a Sacramento neighborhood’s descent into one of the most crime-ridden areas of town. He won other national journalism awards for his coverage of L.A. street gangs, California’s prison crisis, and the implementation of the state’s “three-strikes” sentencing law. In 2015, the Sacramento Bee made him a sports columnist. He lives in Davis, CA.

Anthony Haden-Guest

Anthony Haden-Guest is a cartoonist, journalist, and author. His drawings have appeared in the New York Observer, and his stories have appeared in such magazines as Talk, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Details, the London Observer, Sunday Times and Telegraph, and Paris Review. His books include The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco & the Culture of the Night (William Morrow & Co.) and True Colors: The Real Life of the Art World (Grove/Atlantic). He lives in New York City and London.

Anthony T. DeBenedet, MD

Anthony T. DeBenedet, M.D. is a practicing physician and behavioral-science enthusiast. His interviews and writings have run in various media outlets, including the New York Times, the Today show, the Washington Post, and TIME Ideas. He also co-authored The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It (Quirk Books, 2011), a parenting book about the importance of parent–child physical play. DeBenedet has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering, a Master of Science Degree in Health and Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School, and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Michigan Health System. DeBenedet lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he enjoys spending time with his family, connecting with friends, and playing a little basketball.

Ben Fong-Torres

is a rock journalist, author, and broadcaster. From almost the magazine’s inception, Fong-Torres was a writer for and senior editor of Rolling Stone. His book with The Doors (The Doors by The Doors) was published by Hyperion in November 2006.

Betsy J. Green

The author of Discovering the History of Your House . . . and Your Neighborhood is a former staff editor of World Book Encyclopedia and associate editor of Reader’s Digest. Green is a noted house historian who has been researching and writing about house histories for over ten years. She has taught house history research at adult educational programs throughout the Chicago area, and has written nominations to list buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Green also regularly presents programs to libraries, historical societies, and community groups.

Bill Nichols

The author of Exotic Travel Destinations for Families has been the travel partner and writing collaborator of Jennifer M. Nichols for the past 31 years. As a child he traveled domestically with his family, but after marrying Jennifer, he began his global explorations. He has now visited 58 countries. When he’s not globetrotting, Bill works as a marketing strategy consultant. He lives in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.

Bill Walton

Billy Al Bengston

is an American artist and sculptor who lives and works in Venice, California. His work is found in many public and private collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), LACMA, MOCA (Los Angeles), MOMA (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). Less famously, he is/was the original “Moondoggie.”

Bob Gazzale

Bob Gazzale has served as president and CEO of the AFI since November 2007. He first joined the Institute in 1992, holding various positions including director of AFI programs in New York and director of AFI productions in L.A. Since 2003, he has been the writer and executive producer of the AFI Life Achievement Award telecasts. He also created the format for the AFI AWARDS, an annual almanac of excellence, as well as AFI Night at the Movies. Gazzale was a principal in the team that created, produced, and wrote the AFI’s 100 Years… series, which has driven millions of people back to the classics of American film.

Bob Loeffelbein

The author of Offbeat Golf is a professional duffer himself, who once taught physical education and journalism at Stanford and USC, and holds a Masters Degree in Recreation Management. He now enjoys a full-time career as a writer, with some 3,500 articles and 12 books to his credit. He makes his home in the state of Washington.

Bob McCoy

The author of Quack! Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices is the founder and curator of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in St. Anthony Main in Minneapolis. This is the nation’s largest public display of “quack” medical devices and was founded in 1987. Mr. McCoy’s past occupations include soap salesman, mill steel salesman, and family planning clinic administrator. He is a hobby printer, licensed humanist minister, and a member of the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. It is as a skeptic that McCoy has worked to expose health fraud, and the museum is an entertaining and informative means of doing just that. He has been awarded the Special Citizenship award from the FDA for his work in exposing health fraud. McCoy is married with three grown children and five grandchildren.

Bob Pletka

is the creator of My So-Called Digital Life and an associate superintendent of Vista Unified School District in Southern California. He has been a teacher in the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, an associate professor in education at National University, and a director of instruction and technology for Covina Unified School District. He also served as a city commissioner for the city of Murrieta. Bob lives with his wife, 10-year-old son, and 13-year-old daughter in Southern California.

Brandt Maxwell

The author of The Largest U.S. Cities Named After a Food . . . and Other Mind-Boggling Geography Lists is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Kansas. Maxwell has traveled extensively throughout the world, having visited more than 50 countries and 49 of the 50 U.S. states. This book is the result of his life-long passion for a variety of geographical topics. He lives in San Diego, California.

Brian Chidester

is a staff editor for Yahoo. com and the co-editor of Dumb Angel #4: All Summer Long. He has been a segment producer for documentaries by the BBC, PBS, Showtime, and the Carl Wilson Foundation.

Cal Pritner, Ph.D

The co-author of How to Speak Shakespeare has chaired theatre departments at Illinois State University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and served as the founding artistic director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Dr. Pritner has been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. He lives in New York City.

Carol Daus

The author of Past Imperfect is a veteran freelance writer who specializes in health care and lifestyle issues. For the past 20 years, she has had articles published in a variety of consumer and trade magazines, includingHealth, Parenting, and Coping. She makes his home in Orange County, California.

Carole A. Travis-Henikoff

is the author of Passings and Dinner with a Cannibal, which was honored by Choicemagazine as one of its “Outstanding Academic Titles” of 2008. As an independent scholar specializing in paleoanthropology, she has worked with the Getty Conservation team on the preservation of artifacts at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt, and participated in an archeological dig alongside J. Desmond Clark, Tim White, Nicholas Toth, and Kathy Schick under the auspices of the Institute of Human Origins. She sits on the board of directors for the Stone Age Institute, and has given lectures on paleoanthropology at Loyola University (Chicago) and Rush University Medical Center (Chicago). She divides her time between Chicago, Illinois, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Carroll V. Glines

Retired Air Force Colonel, author of 36 books and more than 700 magazine articles on aviation and military subjects. Three of his books are about the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan. He was also the co-author of General Jimmy Doolittle’s autobiography entitled I Could Never Be So Lucky Again. He was formerly the editor of Air Cargo, Air Line Pilot, and Professional Pilot magazines, and is now the curator of the Doolittle Library at the University of Texas, Dallas, and historian for the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders.

Charles Fleming

is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles, Secret Stairs East Bay: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Berkeley and Oakland, Secret Walks: A Walking Guide to the Hidden Trails of Los Angeles, the national bestseller High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess, and co-author of the New York Times bestsellers My Lobotomy, Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper, and A Goomba’s Guide to Life. A former staff writer for Newsweek, Variety, and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Los Angeles, and LA Weekly, he is currently a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. Fleming lives in Los Angeles.

Charles Perry

Charles Perry is a culinary historian, food columnist, and journalist. He spent 18 years as a staff writer for the food section of the Los Angeles Times and is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on medieval Arabic cuisine. A native Angeleno, he has co-authored and translated many cookbooks, including Joachim Splichal’s Patina Cookbook and Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook. He is the co-founder and president of the Culinary Historians of Southern California.

Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts is the legendary drummer for the Rolling Stones.

Chris Epting

Chris Epting is the author of 45 books, including It Happened Right Here (Santa Monica Press), Roadside Baseball (Santa Monica Press), and Bingo! (Ralph Lawler’s memoir) (Santa Monica Press). He is also an award-winning travel writer and has contributed articles for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Westways, and Travel + Leisure magazine. In addition, Epting is a veteran music journalist and co-wrote the Doobie Brothers’ memoir Long Train Runnin’ and Change of Seasons (John Oates’ memoir) (St. Martin’s Press). He served on the Orange County Historical Commission and co-created and co-hosts the PBS TV series The OC History Hunters.

Chris Paul

Chris Strodder

Chris Strodder is a lifelong student of Woody Allen’s movies, writings, and music, and has seen Allen perform live several times. Strodder is also the author of The Disneyland Encyclopedia, The Disneyland Book of Lists, the children’s book A Sky for Henry, an adventure story for young adults named Lockerboy, the comic novel The Wish Book, the Stories Light and Dark collection of short fiction, a pop culture compendium entitled The Encyclopedia of Sixties Cool, and Swingin’ Chicks of the ’60s, a popular nonfiction volume of profiles that garnered international attention, coverage in dozens of magazines ranging from the National Enquirer to Playboy, and exposure on national TV and radio shows. Strodder’s writing has also appeared in Los Angeles magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post, USA Today, California magazine, Movieline magazine, and others. Strodder lives by the beautiful Pacific Ocean in Pismo Beach, California.

Cindy Higgins

The author of How to Find Your Family Roots and Write Your Family History is a professor of journalism at Rockhurst University and the author of Kansas Breweries and Beer. She makes her home in the state of Kansas.

Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson

In thirty years of continuous service, Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson flew two combat tours during World War II, flight tested aircraft at Wright Field and Edwards Air Force Base, did two tours at the Pentagon, commanded three fighter units, and flew ground-sup- port combat missions in Southeast Asia. He was decorated twenty-five times. A triple ace of World War II, he is the highest scoring living American fighter ace. A member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, he lives in Auburn, California, where he celebrated his 100th birthday on January 13, 2022.

Coy Watson, Jr.

The author of The Keystone Kid made his motion picture debut in 1913 when he was nine months old. Before he could walk or talk, Watson had appeared in several of Mack Sennett’s popular “Keystone Cop” comedies, earning him the nickname, “The Keystone Kid,” and establishing him as Hollywood’s first child star.

Cynthia Martone

The author of Loving Through Bars has been a public school administrator in a remote Eskimo village in Alaska, and in Rochester, New York where she was awarded the Outstanding Educator Award for the State of New York. She has spoken at both national and state conferences as well as written about children who have parents in prison. Her work has appeared in Education Week, Journal of School Administrators Association of New York State, andThe Teacher Magazine. She now resides in Erie, Pennsylvania where she is principal of Villa Maria Academy High School.

Damon DiMarco

is the author of The Brown Agenda (with Richard Fuller), Heart of War: Soldiers’ Voices from the Front Lines in Iraq, and My Two Chinas: The Memoir of a Chinese Counter-Revolutionary (with Baiqiao Tang), as well as The Actor’s Art & Craft and The Actor’s Guide to Creating a Character (both with William Esper).

DiMarco has been a guest on national television and radio, including FOX, CNN, The National Geographic Channel, and the Premiere Radio Network. He has been a guest speaker at colleges, universities, and community groups across the country.

A professional actor as well as a writer, Damon has appeared in primetime and daytime television programs on CBS, ABC, and NBC; commercials; independent films; regional theatres; and trade shows. He has written for the stage, television, and screen, and taught acting on the faculties of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey and the New York Film Academy in Manhattan. He teaches writing to PhD students in the History and Culture program at Drew University’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies.

Dan Martin

The co-author of Atomic Wedgies, Wet Willies, & Other Acts of Roguery is vice president of Homegain, an online realty portal. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family, where he aspires to be a “Wedgie King.”

Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia was appointed Poet Laureate of the State of California in 2015 by Governor Jerry Brown. An award-winning poet who has pub­lished five collections of poetry, Gioia served as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2009.

Danny Paradise

He has been practicing Ashtanga yoga since 1976 and teaching worldwide since 1979. He initially studied with the first advanced Western teachers of Ashtanga yoga, David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff. Danny began teaching with David Williams in 1979 in Maui, Hawaii. Danny has introduced the form of Ashtanga yoga throughout the world: Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa. He has also introduced the Ashtanga yoga practice to numerous world-renowned musicians, artists, actors, fashion designers, film directors and sports champions.

David Frizzell

began his career in music as a teenager, accompanying and performing alongside his older brother, music legend William “Lefty” Frizzell. In 1981 he recorded his first number-one country hit, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma,” a duet with Shelly West. In 1982, David hit number one on the country charts with his solo single, “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home,” which was nominated for Song of the Year at the 1982 Grammy Awards. He continues to record and perform at venues around the world to this day.

David L. Robb

is an award-winning freelance journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. He is the author of Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies. His work has been featured inDaily Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, the New York Times, and theWashington Post. He lives in Los Angeles.

David Lynch

David Lynch, born in 1946 in Missoula, Mon­tana. Eagle Scout.

Davis & Davis

The authors of Childish Things have collaborated on a variety of photography, video, sculpture, and installation projects over the last ten years. In addition to a recent solo show at the Heather Marx Gallery in San Francisco, Davis & Davis have exhibited at the Ulrich Museum of Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the Downey Museum of Art, and the Huntington Beach Art Center, and at scores of universities, galleries, and art centers across the country. Their work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Ulrich Museum of Art, California State University Los Angeles, California State Polytechnic University Pomona, and the Kinsey Research Institute. Davis & Davis are married and live in Los Angeles.

Dirk Mathison

The author of The Book of Good Habits is a veteran journalist and former West Coast Editor of Peoplemagazine. He makes his home in the Los Angeles area.

Doc Rivers

Domenic Priore

is the author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood, Beatsville (with Martin McIntosh), and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece. He has written documentaries for Paramount Pictures Inc. and American Movie Classics (AMC).

Dominic Carrillo

is the author of The Improbable Rise of Paco Jones (winner of the SDBA for best YA, 2017), The Unusual Suspects (IAN Book Award finalist & SDBA winner, 2018), and its sequel, Nia & the Dealer (2019). His short story “Ghetto is Not an Adjective” is featured in the YA collection Living Beyond Borders (2021, Penguin). Originally from San Diego, California, he now lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Donna de Varona

Donna de Varona is an American Olympic swimmer who set eighteen world records and won multiple gold medals during her career. In 1964, the Associated Press and United Press International voted de Varona the “Most Outstanding Woman Athlete in the World.” After retiring from swimming, de Varona became a sports broadcaster. At the age of seventeen, she appeared on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, becoming the youngest and one of the first women sportscasters for a national network. Her groundbreaking career has earned her an Emmy, two Gracies, and the opportunity to cover seventeen winter and summer Olympic games. She was inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honor Swimmer” in 1969.

Drew Knowles

is a writer, photographer, and veteran of dozens and dozens of road trips throughout the United States. In addition to Route 66 Adventure Handbook, he is the author of Route 66 Quick Reference Encyclopedia, and his writings have also appeared in Route 66 Federation News, Amarillo Globe-News, USA Today, GoNomad.com, and RoadTripAmerica.com. His travel photography has been exhibited in museums and galleries both on and off the Mother Road, including the Texas Route 66 Museum, the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, the Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History, Old Bedford School museum, Whittington Gallery, Mena Art Gallery, and Ouachita Artists’ Gallery. Knowles is a longtime member of the Society for Commercial Archaeology, and currently serves on the board of directors of Friends of Hot Springs National Park, where he has been a full-time resident for several years.

Ed Boon

Ed Boon is the co-creator Mortal Kombat and the creative director of NetherRealm Studios.

Eliezer Sobel

has led intensive creativity workshops and retreats at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, the Open Center in New York City, the Lama Foundation in New Mexico, and similar venues around the United States. He was also the editor in chief of The New Sun magazine in the late 1970s, the publisher of Wild Heart Journal, and his articles, short stories, and poetry have appeared in the Village Voice, Yoga Journal, Tikkun, Quest, New Age Journal, and many others. Sobel was awarded the prestigious Peter Taylor Award for his novel, Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World That Is Heartbroken. He is also the author of Wild Heart Dancing. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Emily Laskin

Emily Laskin has held leadership positions in nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles for over thirty years. She has led talented teams at the American Film Institute, the L.A. Philharmonic, Art Center College of Design, Sundance Institute, and USC Marshall School of Business. She is currently senior vice president at Art Center College of Design. At AFI, Laskin supervised broad-based offerings of public programs held across the country and a wide range of national publications via the AFI Press, and was instrumental in securing the gift from Apple that created one of the first computer labs designed to explore applications appropriate to filmmaking.

Erika Dillman

plans on living to 100, but started planning her own farewell fiesta at age 40 to make sure she gets the funeral she wants and deserves. She is the author of 10 books, including Outdoors Online: The Internet Guide to Everything Wild & Green and The Little Yoga Book, The Little Pilates Book, and The Little Strength Training Book from the popular “Little Book” series. She wishes she lived in London and wintered in New Zealand.

Francis E. Kazemek

The author of Exploring Our Lives holds an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in Literacy Education. He is presently a Professor of Education at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Kazemek has taught elementary through university level students and has been involved in adult literacy education for the past twenty-five years. Kazemek began conducting writing workshops for Senior Adults in 1980 and has continued to do so in cities across the country, and in a variety of contexts—local colleges, nursing homes, churches, community centers, etc. In recent years he has developed oral history and other projects which foster intergenerational storytelling and writing between school children and Senior Adults. He presently resides in Buffalo, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis.

Frank R. Hayde

Frank R. Hayde is the author of The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob, and Zion National Park: The Story Behind the Scenery. He lives in Grand Junction, CO.

Garry Berman

The author of We’re Going to See the Beatles is a lifelong Beatles fan. He has been a regular contributor to Beatlefan magazine, and is the author of Best of the Britcoms: From Fawlty Towers to Absolutely Fabulous. He lives in Westampton, New Jersey.

Gary Adams

was the head coach of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) baseball team for thirty years. He is the school’s all-time winningest baseball coach and was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame and the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. At the time of his retirement, Adams was second in collegiate baseball history for sending the most players to the major leagues. He lives in Bear Valley Springs, California.

George Geary

George Geary is an award-winning chef, best-selling author, and renowned educator. A former pastry chef for the Walt Disney Company, Geary is a Certified Culinary Professional, and was recently chosen as the Culinary Educator of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He is perhaps best known for creating all of the cheesecakes for The Golden Girls and other top-rated television programs. Geary has worked as a critic and/or judge for ABC’s The Taste with Anthony Bourdain, The American Baking Competition with Jeff Foxworthy, Hell’s Kitchen, Supermarket Superstar, and many other popular television shows. He also taught cooking classes aboard Holland America Lines. From 1982 to 2010, Geary was the culinary coordinator of the Los Angeles County Fair. Geary is the author of L.A.’s Legendary Restaurants and Made in California, as well as nine cookbooks including Fair Foods, The Cheesecake Bible, and The Complete Baking Cookbook. He lives in Los Angeles.

Greg Tananbaum

The co-author of Atomic Wedgies, Wet Willies, & Other Acts of Roguery is president of The Berkeley Electronic Press, a publisher of online scholarly journals. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family, where he aspires to be a “Wedgie King.”

Harvey Kubernik

has been a noted popular music journalist and record producer for over 30 years. A former West Coast director of A&R for MCA Records, Kubernik is the author of four books, including Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon (Sterling). Kubernik’s writings on popular music have been published nationally and internationally in the Los Angeles Times, MOJO, Goldmine, Musician, Melody Maker, Crawdaddy!, the Los Angeles Free Press, and many others. His work has also been included in several book anthologies, including The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats (Hyperion) and Drinking with Bukowski (Thunder’s Mouth). Kubernik has penned liner notes on dozens of albums by a diverse group of artists including Elvis Presley, Allen Ginsberg, Carole King, and the Ramones. He lives in Los Angeles.

J. P. Wearing

is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Arizona. He is the author of more than 12 books, including Bernard Shaw and Nancy Astor, G. B. Shaw: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him, and The London Stage, as well as over 50 articles in such publications as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). He has held a Killam Post-doctoral Fellowship in Canada, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a four-year research award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Lynn Haven, Florida.

J.G. Bryan

J.G. Bryan is the author of Ventura and Zelzah, and is a native Southern Californian.

Jack Stevenson

The author of Dogme Uncut has contributed articles about American cult, underground, and exploitation cinema to American film magazines as disparate as Film Quarterly and The Big Reel. He also contributed to many of the leading European film journals, and his texts have been translated into nine languages. He is the author ofLars Von Trier (British Film Institute), and has also written about Dogme for Danish, German, and Czech film journals. Born and raised in upstate New York, today Stevenson resides in Allerød, just north of Copenhagen.

Jaime Andrews

The co-author of Things You Can Do While You’re Naked has dedicated her life to shedding light on important world matters through her creative writing endeavors. She has focused her passion on such topics as: World peace, global warming, and international disease epidemics. Despite the magnitude of these issues, Andrews has now decided to tackle the biggest issue of all: NAKEDNESS. Much like global warming, people’s fear of nakedness is plaguing modern day society. Through Things You Can Do While You’re Naked, this distinguished author hopes to trigger a new revolution—Naked Freedom!

Jamaal Wilkes

Jamaal Wilkes was a two-time consensus first-team All-American at UCLA, where he won two NCAA Championships under coach John Wooden. After being drafted by the Golden State Warriors, Wilkes won Rookie of the Year and his first NBA championship. He would go on to win three more NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, and have his number retired by both UCLA and the Lakers. He is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

James Hindman

James Hindman, PhD, has spent his career in cinema and performing arts, creating and lead­ing professional and public education programs at major institutions. During his twenty-four years at the American Film Institute, where he served as co-director and chief operating officer, he was provost of the AFI Conservatory, which he nurtured through WASC accreditation.

James Teitelbaum

has been a leading figure in the Tiki revival since the early 1990s. He launched the venerable Tiki Bar Review Pages web site early in 1995, wrote the book Tiki Road Trip (Santa Monica Press, 2003), and has been the been involved in the production (to varying degrees) of Tiki events such as Exotica 2000, Exotica 2003, Tabu Tiki Nights (monthly in 2004 and 2005), and Hukilau 2005 and 2006. He lives in Chicago, where he works in the music industry, writes, and teaches.

James Ursini

The co-author of L.A. Noir has contributed to various publications including Cinema, Femme Fatales, Mediascene, and Photon. Together, they are the co-authors of eleven books, among them the Film Noir Reader series,Film Noir: An Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style, and The Noir Style. They both live in Santa Monica.

Jean Picker Firstenberg

Jean Picker Firstenberg served as president and CEO of the American Film Institute from 1980 to 2007, overseeing the development of AFI as one of America’s greatest national, cul­tural, and educational resources. She received an AFI Life Achievement Award for Service to the Institute and was named president emerita and a lifetime trustee.

Jeff Kraft

The co-author of Footsteps in the Fog is an avid Alfred Hitchcock fan who has seen every available Hitchcock film. A long-time Bay Area resident, Kraft graduated from UC Berkeley with a Masters Degree in Public Policy. He lives in Oakland.

Jeffrey Schwartz

earned his master’s degree in education, became an award-winning social studies teacher, and created a popular rock-and-roll history course for middle school and high school students in Los Angeles. In 2008, Lance Armstrong awarded Schwartz the LIVESTRONG Award for the programs that he developed in support of students and families battling cancer in Southern California. Schwartz currently lives in Santa Monica, where he works as a music historian and the archive director for the Chuck Boyd Photo Collection.

Jennifer M. Nichols

The author of Exotic Travel Destinations for Families published travel articles on global family adventures in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post, Kansas City Star, and Diversion Magazine. She traveled to 55 countries and lived in Europe and Central America, and her two teenagers traveled to 27 countries on 5 continents.

Jerry Roberts

is an acquisitions editor for Arcadia Publishing. He was a film critic and columnist for Copley Los Angeles Newspapers and Copley News Service and has contributed to Daily Variety, DGA Magazine, and The Hollywood Reporter. He is a past coordinator of film programs for the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and is the author of the Encyclopedia of Television Film Directors, The Great American Playwrights on the Screen, Mitchum: In His Own Words, and Movie Talk from the Front Lines. He lives in Carson, California.

Jessica Doherty

The co-author of Things You Can Do While You’re Naked has dedicated her life to shedding light on important world matters through her creative writing endeavors. She has focused her passion on such topics as: World peace, global warming, and international disease epidemics. Despite the magnitude of these issues, Doherty has now decided to tackle the biggest issue of all: NAKEDNESS. Much like global warming, people’s fear of nakedness is plaguing modern day society. Through Things You Can Do While You’re Naked, this distinguished author hopes to trigger a new revolution—Naked Freedom!

Jim Pauley

is a recognized expert on the Three Stooges filming locations, having written articles on the subject since 2001 for the Three Stooges Journal, a publication by the Three Stooges Fan Club. Pauley has also presented on this topic at the Hollywood Heritage Museum and the Stoogeum, a Three Stooges museum in Pennsylvania. Pauley lives in Philadelphia.

Joe Buck

An Emmy Award–winning sportscaster living in St. Louis, Missouri.

John Bengtson

is a business lawyer and film historian who discovered the magic of silent comedy at an early age. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin,Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton, and Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd. Bengtson has presented his work on Buster Keaton as keynote speaker at events hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. He is a featured columnist of the Keaton Chroniclenewsletter, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his two daughters.

John Newcomer

John Newcomer is the designer and lead developer of Joust.

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes is the granddaughter of Jimmy Doolittle and the author of Just Doing My Job: Stories of Service from World War II (Santa Monica Press). She has taught classes at the United States Air Force base in Los Angeles and has written for such magazines as Smithsonian Air and Space, Air Force Magazine, and Air Power History. Hoppes is president of the Air Force Historical Foundation (founded by General Spaatz in 1953), and an advisor for the Flying Tiger Foundation. She has spoken at the Madingley American Cemetery in England, the ROC Air Force Academy in Taiwan, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Pritzker Military Library, the Pacific aviation Museum at Ford Island in Hawaii, the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, as well as at the Air Force Academy in both the United States and England. She has appeared in the television program Man, Moment, Machine, and in the documentary From Vengeance to Forgiveness: Jake DeShazer’s Extraordinary Journey. Hoppes lives in Huntington Beach, California.

Judy Artunian

The co-author of Movie Star Homes is an accomplished writer who has published hundreds of articles on subjects ranging from haircuts to Internet technology. Judy is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune’s personal finance, small business, and career sections. Her work has also appeared in Glamour, The Miami Herald, Readers Digest’s New Choices and scores of trade magazines. Before becoming an independent writer, Judy was a public relations and marketing communications professional. She has been a member of the Los Angeles Conservancy, an architectural preservation society, for 15 years and has served as a volunteer for the organization. She also belongs to Hollywood Heritage and frequently attends preservation and film history presentations and tours. She lives in Southern California.

Judy Gail Krasnow

he author of Rudolph, Frosty, and Captain Kangaroo is a professional storyteller, historical portrayal artist, Chautauqua scholar, singer-songwriter, speaker, and author. The younger daughter of Hecky Krasnow, Judy was often at her father’s side as he produced quality records for children. She sang backup and acted on many of Hecky’s projects with stars of the era, such as Captain Kangaroo and Art Carney, and even once performed on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show. She lives in Jackson, Michigan and Miami, Florida.

Justin Borus

The co-author of Opening Lines, Pinky Probes, and L-Bombs has conducted extensive “research” for the “Girls & Sports” comic strip while on location in such fertile environments for new material as dingy bars, exotic nightclubs, blind dates and serious relationships. Borus currently lives in Denver and will continue to spend his time investigating the intricacies of dating, relationships and sports until these great cosmic mysteries are solved.

Kathy Smith

is the author of Rabbit Health in the 21st Century, which she wrote after losing her beloved rabbit, Smokey, to cancer. The medical challenges of another very special bunny, Murray, led Kathy to begin using alternative treatments in conjunction with traditional veterinary care.

Kathy Zuckerman

is the real life inspiration for the fictional character of Franzie “Gidget” Lawrence from the 1957 novel,Gidget, written by her father Frederick Kohner. She was named No. 7 in Surfer Magazine’s 25 Most Influential People in Surfing. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California.

Kenneth Kubernik

is a contributor to Variety and is a former editor of Music Connection magazine. He has contributed to the Los Angeles Times and MIX magazine, where he also served as a contributing editor. Kubernik served as an editorial consultant on Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon (Sterling). As a keyboardist and record producer, he has worked on several internationally acclaimed jazz recordings. He lives in Los Angeles.

Kenneth Wong

The author of A Prayer for Burma was born and raised in Rangoon, Burma, where he cultivated an addiction to aromatic Indian tea and an aversion to totalitarianism. He came to America at the age of twenty-one, not long after the 1988 massacre. After an unfulfilling decade in the financial industry, he decided to jump off his career path and begin making a living as a writer. He currently works as an editor for Cadence, a trade magazine dedicated to computer-aided design. Kenneth lives in San Francisco, California, surrounded by eccentric friends and boxes of books.

Kevin Dolgin

is a professor of marketing at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He writes the column “Kevin Dolgin Tells You About Places You Should Go” for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and regularly contributes to Opium Magazine. His stories have been published in numerous literary journals, including Absinthe Literary Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, CrossConnect, and Night Train. He lives in Paris.

Kristi Meisenbach Boylan

The author of both The Seven Sacred Rites of Menopause and The Seven Sacred Rites of Menarche is the former publisher of The Parent Track Magazine. She began writing about women’s issues and the relationship between spiritual growth and fluctuating hormones after her own menopausal transformation, resulting in the widely praised The Seven Sacred Rites of Menopause. For The Seven Sacred Rites of Menarche, Meisenbach Boylan drew upon her experiences as the mother of a twelve year old girl. She lives in Richardson, Texas.

Larry Arnstein

The co-author of The Ultimate Counterterrorist Home Companion, The Bad Driver’s Handbook, and The Dog Ate My Resume squandered a perfectly good college education by becoming a writer for such TV shows as Saturday Night Live and Not Necessarily the News, for which he has won two Writers Guild of America awards. He is currently avoiding useful activity as one of the three writer/editors of Ironictimes.com, an online satirical weekly. He encourages young writers to pursue their dreams, but also to learn a more dependable trade, like armed robbery.

Larry Farmer

Larry Farmer served as the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1981 to 1984, Weber State University from 1985 to 1988, and Loyola University Chicago from 1998 to 2004. He played college basketball at UCLA, where he was a member of three national championships-winning teams for the UCLA Bruins under head coach John Wooden in the early 1970s. In 2018, Farmer was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.

Larry Kirkman

Larry Kirkman is a professor of Film and Media Arts and dean emeritus of the School of Communication at American University. His pioneering work in public-purpose media has encompassed documentaries, social advertising campaigns, strategic communications for nonprofits, digital journalism, and communication policy. He is an executive producer in the Investigative Reporting Workshop and senior research fellow in the Center for Media and Social Impact.

Leon Marcelo

has been a horror fiend since first reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” at the tender age of thirteen. His writing has been featured in Deep Red, Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Chiller Theatre, Ultra Violent, Horror Biz, Carpe Noctem, Morbid Curiosity, and Virus (Germany). He is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where his work concentrates on composition and rhetoric and, of corpse, Horror in literature and film.

Linda Boroff

Her writing appears in McSweeney’s, All the Sins, The Write Launch, Parhelion, Close to the Bone, Crack the Spine, Writing Disorder, The Piltdown Review, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Eclectica, 5:21 Magazine, Thoughtful Dog, The Satirist, Fleas on the Dog, Hollywood Dementia, Sundress, In Posse Review, Adelaide Magazine, Word Riot, Ducts, Blunderbuss, Storyglossia, The Furious Gazelle, The Pedestal Magazine, Eyeshot, JONAH Magazine, The Boiler, Bound Off, Black Denim Lit, Stirring, Drunk Monkeys, and Fictive Dream.

Linda’s suspense novella, The Remnant, was published in June 2020. A collection of linked short stories, All I Can Take of You, was published in August 2020 by Adelaide Press. Her latest novel, Twisted Fate, is coming in 2022 from Champagne Book Group. She was nominated in 2021 and 2016 for a Pushcart Prize in fiction. A short story is currently under option to director Brad Furman and Sony. Linda Boroff also wrote the feature film, Murder in Fashion. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English and currently lives and works in Silicon Valley.

Linda Bowman

The author of the Free Stuff series of books is a professional bargain hunter. She has appeared on television talk shows, syndicated radio shows, and has been a featured expert columnist in such publications as Bottom Line and Money Worth. She makes her home in the Los Angeles area.

Lou Adler

is the legendary producer of the Monterey International Pop Festival. He has also produced for Sam Cooke, the Mamas and the Papas, Johnny Rivers, Barry McGuire, Scott McKenzie, Merry Clayton, Spirit, and Carole King, whose landmark album Tapestry earned Adler Grammy Awards for Album and Song of the Year. In 1975, Adler produced the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and in 1978, he produced and directed the movie Up in Smoke, starring Cheech and Chong. Adler owns the world-famous Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. He lives in Malibu.

Louis Colaianni

The co-author of How to Speak Shakespeare is an authority in Voice, Speech and Shakespeare Performance. His innovative approach to phonetics and stage accents is used by dozens of theatre schools throughout the United States. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and has served on the faculties of the American Conservatory Theatre, Ohio University, and Hunter College among others. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Lucile C. Moore, PhD

is the author of A House Rabbit Primer and numerous articles on the history, folklore, and care of rabbits. In the course of her combined professional and personal lives she has cared for over 750 domestic rabbits of various breeds, and currently shares her home with fourteen house rabbits. She lives on ten acres outside Kanab, Utah, among a host of jackrabbits and cottontails.

Lynn Ng Quezon

Lynn Ng Quezon has published several short stories and book reviews in publications such as Cricket magazine and The Fandom Post. She is also a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Quezon is a licensed engineer in the state of California.

Lynn Phillips

is a media tramp who writes and edits for film, television, print, and interactive media. She was a staff writer for the groundbreaking satirical nighttime soap opera, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and has written for a wide array of publications, including Glamour, The Harvard Lampoon, The Realist, The Nation, Nerve, and Newsweek International.

Mark Cromer

is a journalist living in his native Southern California. He has written for an array of newspapers and magazines including Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, The Tribune, London Daily Sport, Details, New Mobility, Rehab Management and others. He also works as a media consultant for Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation, one of the top medical rehabilitation facilities in the nation.
Mr. Cromer was inspired to write Health Care Handbook—A Consumer’s Guide to the American Health Care Systemafter witnessing hundreds of patients endure lengthy and costly hospital stays which could have been avoided had the patients been more knowledgeable and proactive in their own health care. As Mr. Cromer states in his introduction to the book, “My tenure at Casa Colina has raised my consciousness about health care several levels, completely reinforcing the idea that as consumers we not only have rights but, perhaps more importantly, we have responsibilities. And that the more we fulfill our responsibilities as patients, the more likely we will be able to understand and enjoy our rights as health care consumers.
“Indeed, there are few places where the old adage of ‘Knowledge is Power’ is more true than in the world of health care. It is my hope that Health Care Handbook will give you the knowledge and the power to obtain the best health care the American system has to offer.”

Mark S. Halfon

The author of Can a Dead Man Strike Out? has published two books on moral philosophy- Integrity: A Philosophical Inquiry and Norms and Values-as well as articles and book reviews in professional journals. He is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Nassau Community College in New York.

Martin Gray

The author of Jackson Pollock: Memories Arrested in Space and Blues for Bird is also one of the world’s foremost scholars of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poetry and the editor of the Penguin Classic annotated edition of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. In addition to his works on Jackson Pollock and Charlie Parker, Gray has published poems on Gilles Villeneuve and Amedeo Modigliani, and has taught at several major universities across Canada. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Mary K. Witte

The author of Redneck Haiku is a true Okie, born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and raised on a farm in Porter—Oklahoma’s peach capitol. She has a degree in business administration from Oklahoma State University, the agricultural college of Oklahoma and country singing star Garth Brooks’ alma mater. She lives with her husband, their sons, and their dog Susie in Fresno, California, where their mayor’s nickname is Bubba.

Michael Bohdan

The author of What’s Buggin You? is a licensed, professional pest control operator with over two decades of experience. A former Regional Director of the Texas Pest Control Association, Bohdan holds a degree in zoology and operates a pest control service in Plano, Texas. His Cockroach Hall of Fame has received national media coverage, and is featured in the book Offbeat Museums. He makes his home in Dallas area.

Michael Mondavi

cofounded the Robert Mondavi Winery with his father in 1966 and founded the Folio Wine Company in 2004. He received the World of Food and Wine Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 and the Who’s Who in Food and Wine Award from the James Beard Foundation in 1997. He lives in Napa, California.

Michael Troyan

is the author of A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson and has contributed to Disney A–Z,The Disney Villains, and The Disney Poster Book.

Michelle Mazzulo

has been a District Manager for the nationally renowned KinderCare Learning Centers for 22 years. She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education. Michelle also comes from a family obsessed with the English language, solving crosswords and word jumbles on a daily basis and having weekly Scrabble marathons. She lives near Charlotte, North Carolina.

Michelle Phillips

is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a member of the Mamas and the Papas, co-wrote their hit “California Dreamin’,” and is the last surviving original member of the group. Phillips has also had a successful career as an actress, appearing in dozens of television shows and feature films, including Dillinger, The California Kid, Valentino, Fantasy Island, Star Trek, Spin City, and Knots Landing. She is the author of California Dreamin’: The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas. She lives in Los Angeles.

Mike McCoy

is a humorist and artist.

Mike Nevitt

Mike Nevitt has been a practitioner and full-time teacher of yoga and meditation for over 25 years and has led workshops and seminars worldwide. He was formerly a graphic designer and commercial artist working in advertising agencies and design studios in the UK.

Mike Oldham

The co-author of Movie Star Homes is the managing member of a wholesale distributor which he founded in 1991. Mike studied business and was awarded an M.B.A. and a B.A. (finance and marketing concentrations respectively) from California State University Fullerton. He is a member of Hollywood Heritage, and lives in Southern California.

Mike Watt

Mike Watt is the son of a sailor. He was born in 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia, but has lived in San Pedro, California, for the last fifty years. He’s known mainly for starting the Minutemen with his buddy, D. Boon, but went on to later found Dos, Firehose, and, more recently, the Secondmen, the Missingmen, Cuz, and Il Sogno del Marinaio. He does bass, spiel, and writes songs. Watt also helped Porno for Pyros, Banyan, and J Mascis and the Fog, and had the huge honor of working for the Stooges during their reunion from 2003 to 2013.

Mona Shafer Edwards

The author of Captured! Inside the World of Celebrity Trials is a courtroom artist whose illustrations have been featured on programs and networks such as 20/20, A&E Biography, ABC, CNN, andEntertainment Tonight, and in numerous publications, including Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, andNewsweek. She has illustrated several fashion books including Inside Fashion Design (Prentice Hall), The Complete Book of Fashion Illustration (Prentice Hall), The Fashion Coloring Book (HarperCollins), and The Fashion Handbook(Watson-Guptill). Edwards has also created feature film storyboards and sketch art for such films as Moulin Rouge and has taught fashion sketching classes at UCLA and other academic institutions.

Nancy Shavick

The author of Nancy Shavick’s Tarot Universe is also the best-selling author of four books on reading the Tarot cards: The Tarot, The Tarot Reader, Traveling the Royal Road: Mastering the Tarot, and The Tarot Guide to Love and Relationships. Nancy’s first astrology book, Reach for the Stars: Write Your Own Horoscope, was published by Avon Books in 1994. A native of New Jersey, she makes her home in the San Francisco Bay area.

Nick DeMartino

Nick DeMartino is a Los Angeles-based media and technology consultant who advises companies on strategy, content distribution, strategic partnerships, and marketing. He is chairman of the advisory board and senior advisor for the Toronto-based digital media accelerator IDEABOOST, and advisor to POV Partners, a private investment and operating company in the entertainment and media sector. Previously, DeMartino was the senior vice president for media and technology at the American Film Institute, where he created innovative programs like the AFI Digital Content Lab, which incubated more than ninety multiplatform applications with the biggest names in media. He was named No. 3 on the PGA/The Hollywood Reporter’s list of Digital 50 and was twice named among the most influential in broadband by the L.A. Business Journal.

Patricia King Hanson

Patricia King Hanson served as executive editor and project director of the AFI Catalog of Feature Films from 1983 to 2009. Prior to coming to AFI, she was the associate editor of Magill’s Survey of Cinema, Magill’s Bibliography of Literary Criticism, and Magill’s Cinema Annual. She has contributed dozens of articles on film to magazines, including British publications Flics, Stills, The Listener, and Moving Pictures International, and was a reviewer for the British trade publication Screen International.

Patrick Ecclesine

is a commercial photographer whose images for DreamWorks, Fox, Warner Brothers, TNT, TBS, CNN, CBS, and CW have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and on billboards and bus benches around the world. He currently lives in his hometown, Hollywood, just around the corner from the street on which he was born—Sunset Boulevard.

Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison is a journalist, author, and radio-television personality based in Los Angeles and Southern California. Morrison has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes as a longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards.

Patty Jenkins

Patty Jenkins made history in 2017 when she directed her second film, Wonder Woman, be­coming the first woman to direct a studio su­perhero movie and earning the biggest domestic opening of all time for a woman director.

Paul Haddad

Paul Haddad’s books include the critically acclaimed Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times bestseller 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 57 Walking Adventures, and High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan’s History of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Glory Years, 1977–1981 (named one of the Best Baseball Books of 2012 by the Daily News). As a Hollywood-born native, he has written about Los Angeles for the L.A. Times, LAist, and HuffPo. He has authored three novels, including the L.A. Noir Paradise Palms: Red Menace Mob. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Haddad has been nominated for multiple Emmys as a documentary producer.

PaulHaddadBooks.com @la_dorkout

Peter Rainer

is the film critic for the Christian Science Monitor, a columnist for Bloomberg News, the president of the National Society of Film Critics, and a regular reviewer for FilmWeek on NPR. Previously, he was the film critic at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles magazine, New York magazine, and New Times Los Angeles, where he was a finalist in 1998 for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In 2010 he won the National Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Online Entertainment Critic.

Ralph Lawler

Richard Fuller

is the founder and president of the global nonprofit Blacksmith Institute. Considered the world’s leading expert on toxic issues, the nonprofit works closely with the World Health Organization, World Bank, United Nations, and others to combat the proliferation of toxic pollution in 45 countries. In 2013, Charity Navigator, the nation’s leading independent charity evaluator, awarded Blacksmith Institute its coveted Four Star rating. Before founding Blacksmith Institute, Fuller left a highly lucrative job with IBM Australia to pursue his dream of saving the Amazon rainforests. After working for over a year and spending more than $100,000 of his own money, he succeeded in legally preserving an area three times the size of Yosemite National Park. Fuller has also built a highly successful environmental consulting company, Great Forest, Inc.

Richard J. Foster

is the current president of United States Aquatic Sports, the umbrella organization that represents all U.S. aquatic sports (swimming, water polo, synchronized swimming, and diving) in the international governing body. He has also served as a board member of the United States Olympic Committee and as president of USA Water Polo for twelve years. A practicing attorney, Foster specializes in sports law and has represented numerous Olympic and professional athletes. He also teaches a graduate-level sports law course at Long Beach State University. He lives in Long Beach, California.

Richard P. Hallion

holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has completed specialized governmental and national security programs at the Federal Executive Institute, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has been a Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum; a Historian with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force; the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the Army War College; the Charles Lindbergh Professor at the National Air and Space Museum; a Senior Issues and Policy Analyst for the Secretary of the Air Force; The Air Force Historian; a Senior Advisor for Air and Space Issues for the Air Force’s Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence, and Special Programs; a Special Advisor for Aerospace Technology for the Air Force Chief Scientist; a Senior Advisor to the Science and Technology Policy Institute of the Institute for Defense Analyses; a Research Associate in Aeronautics for the National Air and Space Museum; and a Trustee of Florida Polytechnic University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Royal Historical Society, and an Honorary Member of the Order of Daedalians who has flown as a mission observer in a wide range of military aircraft. He lives in Shalimar, Florida.

Robert Altman

Altman’s photographs have appeared on the covers and in issues of such publications as Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, People Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. He studied photography under Ansel Adams and was soon after hired as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone, later becoming their staff photographer. Cameron Crowe used many of Altman’s photographs in his film Almost Famous. Besides the U.S., Altman has exhibited globally in cities such as London and Paris. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the San Francisco Public Library, and the Library of Congress.

Robert McKimson Jr.

is the son of legendary animator Bob McKimson. A licensee of Warner Bros. Consumer Products and the possessor of an extensive collection of his father’s and uncles’ work, McKimson has given lectures all over the world about his famous family of animators.

Sally DeLellis

The author of 5,000 Reasons to Smile . . . for Chicks received her Master of Arts in English Education from the Teachers College at Columbia University, and has taught writing and language arts to high school students in New Jersey. She currently lives in northern New Jersey where she enjoys her friends, shopping, good food, and smooth Cosmopolitans.

Sandra Mizumoto Posey

The author of Cafe Nation holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from CSULB and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Folklore & Mythology from UCLA. Her previous book, Rubber Soul: Rubber Stamps and Correspondence Art was published by University Press of Mississippi as part of their Folk Art & Artists series. Those interested in her varied work may wish to visit one of her many websites: www.spiritualitea.com, www.americanfolk.com,www.yardsalesearch.com, and of course, www.cafenation.net. She makes her home in the Los Angeles area.

Sanoma Blakeley

is the youngest woman to have ever won the Tevis Cup, the most famous 100-mile endurance horse race in the world. Blakeley began competing in endurance horse races when she was seven years old, and has since competed in 99 competitions with 31 different horses. She has won 25 races, placed second 11 times, and finished third 14 times. When she won the Tevis Cup in 2019, she was 18 years old, and was featured on CNN and dozens of other media outlets. Blakeley’s writing has appeared in Endurance News, Tevis Forum, and Arabian Horse Life Magazine. She regularly blogs for Riding Warehouse. Blakeley lives near Bend, Oregon, where she works at her family’s renowned horse training facility, Blakeley Endurance Stables.

Saul Rubin

The author of both Offbeat Museums and Offbeat Marijuana is a veteran journalist, having written for several top newspapers in the Los Angeles area. He currently teaches journalism at Santa Monica College. A native of Brookline, Massachusetts, he makes his home in the Los Angeles area.

Sean Crane

The author of American Hydrant is a native of Connecticut, and has worked as an advertising copywriter at agencies in Boston, Denver, New York and Detroit. In 2002, he took a break from the ad world, moved into the back of his Subaru, and embarked on a 10-month journey across all 50 states. Along the way he shot the photos for American Hydrant, his first book. A graduate of the University of Richmond in Virginia, Crane is presently living in Detroit and working on his next project.

Shirley Babashoff

Shirley Babashoff is an American Olympic champion swimmer. In her extraordinary career, she set six world records and thirty-seven national records and earned a total of eight individual Olympic medals. She won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, and four silver medals in the 4 x 100 meter medley relay and the 200-meter, 400-meter and 800-meter freestyle. She also won the 1975 world championship in both the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle. Prior to the 1990s, she was the most successful U.S. female Olympian and, in her prime, was widely considered to be the greatest female swimmer on the planet. Babashoff is perhaps best remembered for swimming the anchor leg on the gold-medal winning 4×100-meter freestyle relay team in its victory over the steroid-plagued 1976 East German women, in what is widely acknowledged to be the single greatest race in the history of women’s swimming. She was inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honor Swimmer” in 1982. Babashoff lives in Fountain Valley, California, where she has been a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service for nearly thirty years.

Simon Lewis

is a film and television producer and writer. His Hollywood experience includes managing writers, directors, and stars for Blake Edwards Entertainment, as well as producing Look Who’s Talking, variety specials starring Howie Mandel, Age Old Friends (an Emmy Award-winning international co-production for HBO), and critically acclaimed films such as The Chocolate War. He lives in Los Angeles.

Stacy Russo

Stacy Russo is a librarian and associate professor at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California. She has English degrees from UC Berkeley and Chapman University and a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. She is a poet and writer. Stacy’s writing has appeared in Feminist Teacher, Feminist Collections, Library Journal, American Libraries, The Chaffey Review, Serials Review, Counterpoise, and the anthology Open Doors: An Invitation to Poetry (Chaparral Canyon Press, 2016). Her other books are The Library as Place in California (McFarland, 2007) and Life as Activism: June Jordan’s Writings from The Progressive (Litwin Books, 2014). She grew up in the 1980s Southern California punk rock scene, which has been a big influence on her life.

Stephen X. Sylvester

is a filmmaker and historian who was lucky enough to have explored MGM’s legendary backlots in 1968 and 1975.

Steve Adelman

Steve Ledoux

The author of How to Win Lotteries, Sweepstakes, and Contests in the 21st Century has won more than 500 sweepstakes and contests and has collected tens of thousands of dollars in winnings. He was been a winning contestant on Wheel of Fortune, has won all-expenses paid trips for two to the Caribbean, Hawaii, Jamaica, and Las Vegas, and has won a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. His knack for winning has led him to be featured on over 100 television and radio shows, including interviews on the Howard Stern Show and The View. He lives in Studio City, California.

Steven Bingen

is the author of Warner Bros.: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of and has contributed to numerous books, documentaries, and magazines. He holds a staff position at Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, aiding in the preservation and management of the studio’s legend and legacy.

Steven Sobel

The author of Collecting Sins is a native of Southern California, where he has spent the better part of a lifetime collecting sins. This is his first novel. He makes his home in the Southern California area.

Stuart H. Brody

Stuart H. Brody is the author of The Law of Small Things: Creating a Habit of Integrity in a Culture of Mistrust (Berrett-Koehler 2019), teaches ethics at the University of Arizona, and is Senior Scholar at the Institute for Ethics in Public Life at the State University of New York. He speaks nationally on issues of public integrity.

Tanya Scholes

is the author of The Art and Design of Contemporary Wine Labels. She is a floral designer who worked in the advertising and design industry for more than 10 years, during which time she gained a fine appreciation for graphic design, typography, photography, branding and packaging. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Ted Meyer

The author of The Butt Hello and Cats Around the World has been a professional designer and illustrator for over 20 years and is the owner of the graphic design company Art Your World. A successful painter, Ted’s work has been shown in galleries around the world. Ted is also the author of Shrink Yourself, published by St. Martin’s Press. He currently resides with his two cats Steven and Steven in a large loft in downtown Los Angeles.

Terry László-Gopadze

The editor of The Spirit of a Woman is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She worked for several years with youths in East Los Angeles, many of whom were involved in gangs. László-Gopadze also ran personal development workshops and groups in West Los Angeles for women, singles, and adolescents. She later expanded her work to include such diverse groups as cancer patients, Alcoholics Anonymous, university students, women’s groups, and health centers. Offering workshops on storytelling, shamanism, forgiveness, courage, intuition, healing, and creating destiny has been her passion and joy. She lives in Del Mar, California.

Tiffani Chin, Ph.D.

is the coauthor of Tutoring Matters: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About How to Tutor. She is the recipient of the Spencer Foundation Fellowship for Research in Education. Her research focuses on children’s experiences in schools and has led her to spend 3,000 hours observing in elementary school classrooms, interviewing parents and students, and observing parent-teacher conferences.Tiffani is also the founder of EdBoost, a nonprofit corporation that provides educational services to families. She lives in Los Angeles.

Tommy Lasorda

Tommy Lasorda was the legendary manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1976 to 1996. A two-time World Series champion (1981, 1988) and a two-time NL Manager of the Year (1983, 1988), Lasorda was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. He lives in Los Angeles.

Tracy Dodds

Tracy Dodds was the beat reporter covering UCLA basketball for the Los Angeles Times during Larry Farmer’s tenure as UCLA’s basketball coach. Tracy was a pioneer among women in sports journalism during a 30-year career that began days after she graduated from Indiana University’s School of Journalism in December of 1973. Tracy has covered both college and professional basketball, college football, the NHL, Olympic swimming and diving, boxing, and auto racing. She is the only woman in the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame.

Vezna Andrews

When not writing, Vezna Andrews is either surfing with the dolphins, at the skate park with her son, or painting in her studio. An artist as well as an author, Vezna is especially proud to be a “soul surfer” mom sponsored by her local surf shop. She is excited to share her debut novel, One with the Waves, with readers. Vezna lives with her family in the South Bay of Los Angeles. You can visit her at VeznaAndrews.com.

Warren Davis

His career in the videogame industry spans three decades. He began in 1982 working for Gottlieb where his first game was the hugely successful arcade classic, Q*bert. He followed that with a laserdisc game, Us Vs. Them. In the mid-80s, while working at Williams, he co-programmed Joust 2 and helped develop the system that became NARC. Davis was also part of the team that created Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Revolution X featuring Aerosmith. He also developed the digitizing system that Williams/Bally/Midway would use for many of their hit games of the 1990s including Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and the aforementioned Terminator 2 and Revolution X. In 2018, Davis was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame.

Yvette Reche

The author of French for Le Snob was born and raised in France and began her career teaching elementary school. After moving to Canada, Reche received her postgraduate degree in French/English translation from the University of British Columbia and taught French at the high school and college level for 12 years. She lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Yvonne Castañeda

Born in Los Angeles to Mexican and Cuban parents, Castañeda was raised in Miami, where she eventually earned a BA in International Relations from Florida International University. She has worked in the restaurant, cruise line, education and hotel industry, and was contracted as a linguist with the Department of Justice. Having suffered from Bulimia Nervosa for over 15 years, Castañeda developed a passion for fitness and later pursued a career in the fitness industry, in which she worked as a Personal Trainer and General Manager for over ten years.

Currently, Castañeda is a Licensed Psychotherapist in Massachusetts (LICSW) and an Adjunct Professor of Boston College Graduate School of Social Work and Online Facilitator of BC School of Theology and Ministry. Aside from her own lived experiences, Castañeda has worked extensively with the underserved Hispanic/Latino population as a behavioral health clinician.

Castañeda is an iPEC Certified Life Coach, a Registered Yoga Teacher, a Corrective Exercise Specialist, a Kettlebell Coach and a 2nd Dan Black Belt in Shotokan Karate.

Zack Arnstein

The co-author of The Ultimate Counterterrorist Home Companion, The Bad Driver’s Handbook, and The Dog Ate My Resume has recently graduated from college with no idea what he’ll do with his life. This means he has plenty of time to tell you what you should do with yours. Also having not yet made any major life decisions, he has not yet made any major mistakes. He is currently working on his resumé.