Nicole Brown Simpson was the German-American wife of retired professional football player and actor O. J. Simpson and the mother of their two children, Sydney and Justin. She was found murdered at her home in Los Angeles, California, on June 13, 1994, along with her friend, 25-year-old restaurant waiter Ron Goldman. O.J. Simpson was charged with both murders; after a controversial and highly publicized criminal trial, Simpson was found not guilty of all charges, but found liable for both deaths in a civil suit in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million in punitive damages to the Brown and Goldman families
Meg Tilly is a Canadian-American actress and novelist.
John Francisco Rechy is an American novelist, essayist, memoirist, dramatist and literary critic. In his novels, he has written extensively about gay culture in Los Angeles and wider America, among other subject matters, and is among the pioneers of modern LGBT literature. City of Night, his debut novel published in 1963, was a best seller. Drawing on his own background, he has contributed to Chicano literature, notably with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which has been taught in several Chicano literature courses throughout the United States.
Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).
Lydia Millet is an American novelist. Her third novel, My Happy Life, won the 2003 PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, and she has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Salon wrote of Millet's work, "The writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself."
Susan Straight is an American writer. She was a National Book Award finalist for the novel Highwire Moon in 2001.
Wanda Coleman was an American poet. She was known as "the L.A. Blueswoman" and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles".
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist and essayist. After earning her first degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Gail Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. Godwin has written 14 novels, two short story collections, three non-fiction books, and ten libretti. Her primary literary accomplishments are her novels, which have included five best-sellers and three finalists for the National Book Award. Most of her books are realistic fiction novels that follow a character's psychological and intellectual development, often based on themes taken from Godwin's own life.
The Danish Girl is a novel by American writer David Ebershoff, published in 2000 by the Viking Press in the United States and Allen & Unwin in Australia.
Rachel Kushner is an American writer, known for her novels Telex from Cuba (2008), The Flamethrowers (2013), and The Mars Room (2018). She lives in Los Angeles.
Carolyn See was a professor emerita of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of ten books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You, Golden Days, and The Handyman. See was also a book critic for the Washington Post for 27 years.
Eve Babitz is an American artist and author best known for her fictive memoirs and her relationship to the cultural milieu of Los Angeles.
Amity Gaige is an American novelist, known for her books O My Darling, The Folded World and Schroder. In 2006 the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree.
Caspian Rain is the fourth novel from Gina B. Nahai and takes place in the decade before the Islamic Revolution. The book was published in 2007 by MacAdam/Cage in the United States and has been published in 15 languages.
Sunday's Silence is the third novel from Gina B. Nahai and follows the story of a journalist searching for the truth about his father's death. The book was published in 2003 by Washington Square Press in the United States and became a Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Cry of the Peacock is the first novel from Gina B. Nahai and follows the story of a family of Jews through seven generations, from 1780s Persia to contemporary Iran. The book was published in 1991 by Crown Publishing Group in the United States and won several awards. It was an alternate selection of The Book of the Month Club and The Doubleday Book Club.
An Untamed State is the debut novel of writer Roxane Gay, first published in 2014 by Grove Atlantic.
The Underground Railroad, published in 2016, is the sixth novel by American author Colson Whitehead.
