Past Forward

Christy Leskovar was born in Butte, Montana, and grew up in Kennewick, Washington. She graduated from Seattle University with degrees in mechanical engineering and French and then joined Bechtel in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she worked on the design of nuclear power plants. After stints in Kansas, Barcelona, and San Francisco, she transferred to an assignment in Las Vegas. It was during a visit...

J.D. Jahn, a native of Iowa, studied British literature in college and graduate school. He published scholarly articles on English Renaissance poetry as an assistant professor of English, before moving on to serve as a writer, editor, and director of communications and marketing for six higher education foundations. Now retired, he lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with his wife, who's also a devot...

Ryan Gattis is the author of Safe , Kung Fu High School , The System , and All Involved , which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Lire Award for Noir of the Year (France). He lives and writes in South Los Angeles, where he is a member of art collective UGLARworks, a founding board member of arts non-profit Heritage Future, and a PEN America Prison Writing Mentor.  Without T...

Aminah Mae Safi is a Muslim-American writer who explores art, fiction, feminism, and film. She's the winner of the We Need Diverse Books short story contest. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her partner and two cats. She is the author of Not the Girls You're Looking For (Feiwel and Friends), Tell Me How You Really Feel (Feiwel and Friends), This Is All Your Fault (Feiwel and Friends, Oct...

Susan Jane Gilman is the author of five books: The novels “Donna Has Left the Building” and “The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street,” plus the memoirs “Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven,” “Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress” and “Kiss My Tiara.” She has been a commentator for NPR and written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Ms. magazine, among others. Though she lives in Geneva, S...

Chad-Michael Simon was born in Toledo, Ohio and has been an illustrator at Root, Inc. for twenty years. He lives in Michigan with his wife, children, and pets. Yellowstone: The Bears of Caldera is his first novel. Yellowstone: The Bears of Caldera HyphenatedPress, 2019 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a...

Jennifer D. Keene , Ph. D. is a professor of history and dean of the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University. She is a specialist in war and society studies, and has written extensively on World War I, especially on race relations and African American soldiers’ experiences. A past-president of the Society for Military History, Dr. Keene is also the lead aut...

Will Johnson is a musician and songwriter who has played in the bands Centro-matic, South San Gabriel, Marie/Lepanto, Overseas, New Multitudes, and Monsters of Folk. He also releases records under his own name, and makes paintings centering on the subject of baseball and its history. His work has appeared in American Short Fiction. He was born in Kennett, Missouri, and currently lives in Austin, T...

Lucy May Lennox is a connoisseur of novels featuring men with physical disabilities. After growing frustrated with all the cliches, ignorance and stereotypes, she decided to write her own positive take on disability. She also loves immersing herself in earlier historical periods and imagining the lives of people who don't usually make it into the history books. She lives in the beautiful Pacific N...

Dr. Monique Charles ’ research combines her interests in music, spirituality, sociology and the African Diaspora. Other research interests include popular culture, music/musicology, sound studies, embodiment, spirituality, cultural studies, class, gender and race. She primarily explores the lives, experiences and cultural productions of the African Diaspora generally and Britain specifically. Moni...

Formerly a violinist at the Metropolitan Opera, Erica Miner is now a full-time award-winning writer, screenwriter, lecturer and journalist. She regularly contributes to major arts websites and presents her opera lectures on both coasts. Her "Opera Mystery" novel series, based on her own experience as a longtime violinist at the Met, allows a candid glimpse at this eccentric art form's inner world...

Joyce Yarrow is a Pushcart Prize Nominee with short stories and essays that have appeared in Inkwell Journal, Whistling Shade, Descant, Arabesques, and Weber: The Contemporary West and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Yarrow is a member of the Sisters in Crime organization and has presented workshops on “The Place of Place in Mystery Writing” at conferences in the US and India. Zahara and the Lost...

Barbara McHugh , PhD, is a Buddhist practitioner with a degree in Religion and Literature from the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley. She is a published poet and writing coach. Her research for this book includes exhaustive study of Pali texts in translation and extensive travel in India. Bride of the Buddha Monkfish, 2021 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with rea...

Damien M. Sojoyner is an Urban Anthropologist with a diasporic framework at the University of California, Irvine. He teaches graduate courses in Black Political Theory, Prisons in the United States, and Black Ethnography in the Anthropological Imagination. He teaches undergraduate courses on Prisons and Public Education and Urban Ethnography in the United States. He has published one book entitled...

Jeffrey Lo is a Filipino-American playwright and director based in the Bay Area. He is the recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, the Emerging Artist Laureate by Arts Council Silicon Valley and Theatre Bay Area Director's TITAN Award. Selected directing credits include The Language Archive and The Santaland Diaries at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Vietgone at Capital Stage, A Doll’s...

Kelechi (Kay Kay) Uchendu is the founder and CEO of Kay Kay’s World, LLC. Kay Kay’s World, LLC includes Kay Kay’s Fashion (a fashion brand that has been featured in British Vogue and other media outlets) and her website Kay Kay’s Way, www.kaykaysway.com. Kay Kay graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in Political Science Pre-Law and a specialization in Environmental Studies in 2013. Sh...

Susan Jane Gilman is the author of five books: The novels “Donna Has Left the Building” and “The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street,” plus the memoirs “Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven,” “Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress” and “Kiss My Tiara.” She has been a commentator for NPR and written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Ms. magazine, among others. Though she lives in Geneva, S...

Natalie Nascenzi is a copywriter, poet, and author from Rhode Island. Now residing in New York City, you can find her every morning on the East River capturing the sun peeping over the horizon. The rest of her day is spent wandering the city, chasing the sun, and writing wherever she can. Writing is both her career and passion. Her love for the art of word play and rhyming has led her to a career...

Jerry Van Leeuwen is a native Californian. He was born in Artesia. His father, an immigrant from Holland, was a dairy farmer and Jerry’s first real employment was milking cows for his dad in Chino, CA at the age of 15. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California in 1972 and a Masters of Administration from the University of California, Riverside in 1975...

Richard L. Rose is a Richmond writer and composer, whose eighth opera, Monte & Pinky, was performed at the Black History Museum of Virginia in April 2018. Rose is also the author of Frameshifts, a book of stories and poems in two volumes (2011). PushBack Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides au...

Nathan Dean Talamantez is a Bay Area transplant from Texas, Air Force veteran, and current student pursuant of his MFA from California Institute of Integral Studies. Dean received his undergraduate in cultural anthropology in 2013 from Texas State University. His writing tends toward the examination of complex social issues from unfamiliar and often surreal angles. Sacred Fool Atmosphere Press, 20...

Martha Ackroyd Curtis is an Australian writer, and artist. She works in the realms of video, installation and multi- mediums. Her work consists of large-scale installation art, which is formulated through cohesive conceptual design. She has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas, and participated in various art festivals. Hello Titty Busy Bird Publishing, 2020 A World Without Books was cr...

Natasha Mynhier is a director, editor, and cinematographer based in Los Angeles. As a director, Natasha's accolades include winning Gold at the 2020 Young Directors Awards for her film In A Beat, and being featured at the 2017 Voice of a Women Festival: Cannes and the 2018 Utah Dance Film Festival for her dance films. She began writing In a Beat two years ago when she was inspired by a close frien...

Daniel Hagedorn lives in Seattle, Washington, where he was born and raised, with his wife and elderly dog. An alum of Pacific Lutheran University, he now splits his time between writing and helping various businesses and entities do what they do. The Lodestar is his first published novel. The Lodestar Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers dur...

Cheryl I. Harris is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at UCLA School of Law where she teaches Constitutional Law , Civil Rights , Employment Discrimination , Critical Race Theory and Race Conscious Remedies . A graduate of Wellesley College and Northwestern School of Law, Professor Harris began her teaching career in 1990 at Chicago- Kent College...