June 2020
Special Guests
Anna Badkhen has spent most of her life in the Global South. Her immersive storytelling about people navigating a time of global upheaval has yielded six books of literary nonfiction, most recently Fisherman's Blues (Riverhead Books, 2018), and encourages readers to reassess the boundaries of our imagination and compassion. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility for writing about civilians in war zones. She has written about a dozen wars on three continents, and her essays and short stories appear in periodicals and literary magazines such as the New York Review of Books, Granta, The Common, Scalawag, Guernica, Mānoa Journal, and the New York Times. She considers mentorship to be a facet of her creative and social justice practice, and is excited to encourage a new generation of storytellers to use high art to expose the world's iniquities.
Elise Capron is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, established 40 years ago and known for representing such writers as Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Lisa See, and many more, across a wide range of genres. Elise has been with SDLA for 16 years, and primarily handles character-driven adult literary fiction, as well as narrative-driven nonfiction in the areas of cultural history, science, and medicine. Some of Elise's representative fiction titles include Tiphanie Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning (Riverhead), Howard A. Rodman’s The Great Eastern (Melville House), and Maureen McHugh's After the Apocalypse (Small Beer Press), which was picked as a "Top 10 Best of the Year" by Publishers Weekly. Representative nonfiction titles include Cynthia Barnett’s Rain: A Natural and Cultural History (Crown), which was long-listed for the National Book Award and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; Meera Subramanian's A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka (Public Affairs); Jack Shuler's The Thirteenth Turn: A History of the Noose (Public Affairs); and Jonathon Keats’s You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future (Oxford University Press). You can learn more about Elise and the rest of the SDLA team at www.dijkstraage.
Matt de la Peña is the author of Last Stop on Market Street, which won the Newbery Medal and was chosen for the Caldecott Honor. He is also the author the award-winning picture book A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis and six critically acclaimed young adult novels. Matt teaches creative writing and visits schools and colleges throughout the country. Matt lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Natashia Deón is a 2017 NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed novel, Grace (Counterpoint Press), which was named a best book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Root, Kirkus Review, Book Riot, and Entropy Magazine, and has been featured in People Magazine, TIME Magazine, and Red Book. Grace won the 2017 American Library Association, Black Caucus Award for Best Debut Fiction. A practicing attorney, mother, and law professor, Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship and served as a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia in partnership with the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, for a reconciliation project involving Armenian and Turkish writers.
Rae Dubow is director of Talking Out Loud, where, since 2013, she has worked with architects and writers, teachers and artists, administrators and executives to hone their presentation and public speaking skills. Clients include actor/activist Edward Asner, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Kahn-Cullors, Los Angeles architect Barbara Bestor, and actress Genevieve Angelson. Rae has also worked with the organizations Dress for Success, which trains women from underserved communities to enter the job market, and MOSTe, which offers similar training to high school girls from disadvantaged backgrounds working towards college admission.
Rae has taught at the University of Southern California, where she worked on undergraduate and graduate presentations in the School of Architecture; the University of California, Riverside, where she is regular guest faculty, instructing MFA writing students in lecture and reading preparation; Antioch University Los Angeles, where she has also instructed MFA writing students; and Woodbury University, where she taught presentation skills to undergraduate architecture students.
Rae received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to founding Talking Out Loud, she taught at private schools, including Wildwood School and the Center for Early Education. She has worked extensively in the theater arts as a director, actor and teacher.
Rae has trained clients for lectures, interview preparation, panels and presentations, readings, media training, speeches, and pitches. For further information, please visit her website at www.talkingoutloud.net.
Curt Duffy teaches English at Los Angeles Pierce College and has provided educational design and administration services to a number of clients, including West Coast University and Southern California Edison. Dr. Duffy has conducted creative writing workshops on ground, online, and even on a Star Trek–themed cruise. His short fiction has been published in The Journal of Experimental Fiction and Storyglossia. Dr. Duffy's current political activism is focused on educational quality and faculty rights through his role as Grievance Representative for AFT1521 Faculty Guild and membership in the Miracle Mile Democratic Club.
Aminatta Forna is the award-winning author of the four novels Happiness, The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and the critically acclaimed memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water. Her fiction has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award and the PEN Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, as has been short-listed for the Neustadt Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction, the IMPAC Award, the Warwick Prize and nominated for the European Prize for Fiction. Her memoir was serialized on BBC Radio and in The Sunday Times newspaper. Forna is currently a Lannan Visiting Chair at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Eloise Klein Healy, the author of nine books of poetry and three spoken word recordings, was named the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012. She was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles where she is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita. Healy directed the Women’s Studies Program at California State University Northridge and taught in the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles. She is the founding editor of ARKTOI BOOKS, an imprint of Red Hen Press specializing in the work of lesbian authors. A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings was published in 2013 and her latest work, Another Phase, is newly out.
Casandra López is a California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/Luiseño) and Chicana writer who has received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf, and Tin House. She’s the author of the poetry collection, Brother Bullet and has been selected for residencies with the School of Advanced Research, Storyknife, Hedgebrook and Headlands Center for the Arts. Her memoir-in-progress, A Few Notes on Grief was granted a 2019 James W. Ray Venture Project Award. She’s a founding editor of As/ Us and teaches at Northwest Indian College.
Tommy “Teebs” Pico is author of the books IRL, Nature Poem, Junk, Feed, and myriad keen tweets including “sittin on the cock of the gay.” Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now writes for the screen and splits his time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. He co-curates the reading series Poets with Attitude, co-hosts the podcasts Food 4 Thot and Scream, Queen! and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub. @heyteebs
Lise Quintana is the inventor of Lithomobilus, an ereader platform for nonlinear literature, whose genesis came from her MFA work at Antioch. She was an editorial assistant on the very first issue of Lunch Ticket, and editor in chief for the next four issues (2012-2013). She then went on to found Zoetic Press and its award-winning journal NonBinary Review. In addition to her short story writing, which has appeared in SLAB, The Rambler, and various online journals, she has hosted the podcasts I Liked the Book Better, The Literary Whip, Alphanumeric, and her current show Living Large in America where she and her guests discuss the experience of living as a fat person. She currently sits on the advisory board for Nanowrimo, and is working with former Antioch University president Felice Nudelman on the American Democracy Project, teaching college students how to become smarter voters.
Dan Smetanka is Vice President, Editor-in-Chief of Counterpoint Press, one of the largest independent publishers in the country. His authors have been winners and finalists for a number of literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner, the National Book Critics Association Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The Hammett Prize, The Edgar Award, NAACP Image Award, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and many others. His projects include works by Joan Silber, Dana Johnson, Cristina Garcia, Alan Lightman, Natashia Deon, Karen Bender, Tod Goldberg, Gina Frangello, Abby Geni, Joe Meno, Jared Yates Sexton, Maria Hummel, Elizabeth Rosner, Eve Babitz, and Jamie Harrison.
Russell Thornhill is a progressive theologian, liberated Biblicist, and social justice advocate who has a profound love for his family, and proclaims the love of the Creator for everyone. Russell has worked in the nonprofit arena for 20 years and is on the AULA Teaching Faculty in nonprofit and is the Co-Director of the Bridge Program.
Elder Russell, as he is known in his community and church denomination, has a deep commitment to issues concerning Social Justice and Equality developed when he joined Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, Los Angeles (UFCC) in 1990. His discovery of the “sacredness of all life” has been accredited to the mission of Unity, “God Is Love and Love Is For Everyone.” As a pastor, Russell practices a theology of critical biblical engagement and biblical resistance to counteract the negative use of scripture in the LGBTQ community and towards women and other people living in the margins of life.
Russell is an HIV/AIDS advocate. He has a heart and depth of experience supporting people living with HIV/AIDS and has been a personal “buddy” to men in their final stages of the AIDS pandemic. He has worked on the HIV planning council for the County of Los Angeles as well as speaking on panels in Washington, DC and throughout Los Angeles County.
Russell is an alum of the distinguished youth education touring group, Up With People, traveling to ten countries on three continents, and living with over 250 families during a four year period.
Russell is a mentor to young people in his community who are seeking ways to continue their education and guidance on life concerns. Russell has 25 years in the restaurant business and twenty years in the nonprofit sector.
During his free time, Russell likes to visit and spend time with his four children and ten baby-grands in Las Vegas.
Lorinda Toledo is a writer born and raised in New Mexico, where her family has lived for many generations. For more than a decade, Los Angeles has been her home. Her novel-in-progress, The Nature of Fire, is a story about New Mexican twin sisters Maria and Reyna Romero, who grow up estranged in the contemporary American West, but who must reunite to discover the cause of wildfires threatening their family home. The manuscript was named first-runner up for the 2019 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and a stand-alone excerpt was published in the Winter 2019 issue of the Mississippi Review. Her short fiction is forthcoming in The Normal School and has appeared elsewhere. Lorinda earned a PhD in Literature with Creative Dissertation from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where her fiction was supported by multiple awards. Her MFA is in fiction and creative nonfiction from Antioch University Los Angeles (Scirocco). She has been fiction editor at the award-winning Witness literary magazine, and assistant editor in both fiction and nonfiction genres at Lunch Ticket. She has a background in journalism, and her work has appeared in such places as the Associated Press, New Mexico Business Weekly, and L.A. Weekly. She has taught writing, literature, and composition at UNLV. She strives to empower writers in their skills and goals through the AULA Teaching and Learning Center and the Antioch University Writers’ Exchange. She is also a freelance journalist, editor, and writing coach.