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Steve Abee is a Los Angeles-based writer and teacher. Abee is known for writing poetry, short stories, and novels. He often draws on Los Angeles culture for his imagery and inspiration. [1]
Abee is known predominantly as a Los Angeles writer. His poetry is known for its sense of place, focusing on the day-to-day of Southern California life. In a review of Abee's volume of poetry King Planet, Salon wrote that "Abee chronicles the pavement and hills of Southern California." [2] His writing style has been characterized as "neo-beat," with accessible, everyday language. [3]
Abee's novel, Johnny Future, received mixed reviews. The book follows the adventures of its Nyquil-guzzling, hallucinating, titular character, Johnny Future. MostlyFiction described the character as a mix between Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Finn, and praised the character's uniqueness. [4] Publishers Weekly , on the other hand, found that the main character lacked depth and was too bizarre to make the book enjoyable. [5]
Abee began writing while working as an 18-year-old orderly at St. John's Hospital. [3] He told the Los Angeles Times that experiences such as "pushing bodies down to the morgue" helped inspire him. [6]
Abee was born at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. His maternal grandmother moved to Southern California in the 1940s, and Abee says his family has lived all around the Los Angeles area. Abee grew up in Southern California, but went to Santa Cruz for college, where he discovered that people disliked Los Angeles, he told KCET. This animosity toward his home deepened his affection for it. [1]
Abee lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters. He is a high school English teacher. [3] In addition to teaching English, he mentors young aspiring poets. [6]
Roberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes, and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes as a "work so rich and dazzling that it will surely draw readers and scholars for ages". The New York Times described him as "the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation".
Evan Shelby Connell Jr. was a U.S. novelist, short-story writer, essayist and author of epic historical works. He also published under the name Evan S. Connell Jr.
Amy Gerstler is an American poet living in Los Angeles, California. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.
David Abram Antin was an American poet, art critic, performance artist, and university professor.
Denis Hale Johnson was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, Jesus' Son (1992). His most successful novel, Tree of Smoke (2007), won the National Book Award for Fiction. Johnson was twice shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Altogether, Johnson was the author of nine novels, one novella, two books of short stories, three collections of poetry, two collections of plays, and one book of reportage. His final work, a book of short stories titled The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, was published posthumously in 2018.
Paul Beatty is an American author and an associate professor of writing at Columbia University. In 2016, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout. It was the first time a writer from the United States was honored with the Man Booker.
Fred D'Aguiar is a British-Guyanese poet, novelist, and playwright of Portuguese descent. He is currently Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Benjamin S. Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among many other honors. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.
Daniel Anthony Olivas is an American author and attorney.
Rigoberto González is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. His most recent project is Latino Poetry, a Library of America anthology, which gathers verse that spans from the 17th century to the present day. His memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He is the 2015 recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, the 2020 recipient of the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, and the 2024 recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Tod Goldberg is an American author and journalist best known for his novels Gangsters Don't Die (Counterpoint), Gangster Nation (Counterpoint), Gangsterland (Counterpoint) and Living Dead Girl, the popular Burn Notice series (Penguin/NAL) and the short story collection The Low Desert: Gangster Stories (Counterpoint).
Juan Felipe Herrera is an American poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. He is a major figure in the literary field of Chicano poetry.
Alan Stuart Cheuse was an American writer, editor, professor of literature, and radio commentator. A longtime NPR book commentator, he was also the author of five novels, five collections of short stories and novellas, a memoir and a collection of travel essays. In addition, Cheuse was a regular contributor to All Things Considered. His short fiction appeared in respected publications like The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, among other places. He taught in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Community of Writers.
Suzanne Lummis is a poet, influential teacher, arts organizer and impresario in Los Angeles. She is associated with the poem noir, as well as the sensibility for which she is a major exponent–a literary incarnation of performance poetry–the Stand-up Poetry of the 80s and 90s. She is also grouped with “The Fresno Poets.”
Jim Krusoe is an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His stories and poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, BOMB, Iowa Review, Field, North American Review, American Poetry Review, and Santa Monica Review, which he founded in 1988. His essays and book reviews have appeared in Manoa, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund. He teaches at Santa Monica College and in the graduate writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His novel Iceland was selected by the Los Angeles Times and the Austin Chronicle as one of the ten best fiction books of 2002, and it was on the Washington Post list of notable fiction for the same year. His novel Girl Factory was published in 2008 by Tin House Books followed by Erased, which was published in 2009 and Toward You published in 2010, also by Tin House Books.
Sesshu Foster is an American poet and novelist.
Red Hen Press is an American non-profit press located in Pasadena, California, and specializing in the publication of poetry, literary fiction, and nonfiction. The press is a member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, and was a finalist for the 2013 AWP Small Press Publisher Award. The press has been featured in Publishers Weekly,Kirkus Reviews, and Independent Publisher.
Tim Z. Hernandez is an American writer, poet, and performer. His first poetry collection, Skin Tax (2004), received the 2006 American Book Award, and his debut novel, Breathing, in Dust (2010), was awarded the 2010 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize, and was a finalist for the California Book Award. In 2011, Hernandez was named one of sixteen New American Poets by the Poetry Society of America. In 2014 he received the Colorado Book Award for his poetry collection, Natural Takeover of Small Things, and the 2014 International Latino Book Award for his historical fiction novel, Mañana Means Heaven. In 2018, he received the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano Letters administered by UC Santa Barbara, and in 2019 he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.
D. J. Waldie is an American essayist, memoirist, translator, and editor who also is the former Deputy City Manager of Lakewood, California.
Askold Melnyczuk is an American writer whose publications include novels, essays, poems, memoir, and translations. Among his works are the novels What Is Told, Ambassador of the Dead, House of Widows and Excerpt from Smedley's Secret Guide to World Literature. His work has been translated into German, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Melnyczuk also founded the journal AGNI and Arrowsmith Press (2006).