Preston Allen: Las Vegas Noir

Christine McKellaris a resident of Las Vegas and a freelance writer. She is the author of three novels: A Port of No Return, The Shadows of the Sea , and The Devil’s Valet.

Pablo Medinawas born in Havana, Cuba. He is the award-winning author of ten books of poetry and prose, most recently The Cigar Roller: A Novel and Points of Balance/Puntos de Apoyo , a bilingual poetry collection. He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from numerous organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace — Reader’s Digest Fund, and the Cintas Foundation. He teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

John O’Brienwas born in Oxford, Ohio in 1960 and graduated from Lakewood High School in 1978. He had several jobs, including busboy, file clerk, and coffee roaster, but writing was his true career. He began in 1987 and wrote up until his death on April 10, 1994. O’Brien committed suicide by gunshot two weeks after learning that his novel, Leaving Las Vegas , was to be made into a movie. Two more of his novels were published posthumously: The Assault on Tony’s and Stripper Lessons .

Scott Phillipsis the author of three of the most highly acclaimed crime novels of recent years. His debut novel, The Ice Harvest , was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won a California Book Award. Its follow-up, The Walk-away , continued his success, with the New York Times calling it “wicked fun.” His third novel, Cottonwood , was published by Ballantine. Phillips has spent enough time at the poker tables in Las Vegas to know what works and what doesn’t.

Nora Pierceis the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Insufficiency of Maps , a selection of the Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” program. She is currently in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and at work on a new novel. She teaches writing at Stanford University, where she was formerly a Wallace Stegner fellow. She has a love/hate relationship with the Nevada desert, and was once millimeters (millimeters!) away from a million-dollar jackpot.

Todd James Pierceis the author of three books, including the novel A Woman of Stone and the short story collection Newsworld , which won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an assistant professor of English at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

José Skinner’sFlight and Other Stories was a finalist for the Western States Book Award for Fiction. He worked as an English/Spanish translator and interpreter in the criminal courts of New Mexico before earning his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Boulevard, Colorado Review, Witness, Bilingual Review , and the anthology In the Shadow of the Strip: Las Vegas Stories. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas — Pan American.

Celeste Starris a male-to-female transgendered escort based in Pahrump, Nevada. “Dirty Blood” is her first published story.

Vu Tranwas born in Saigon and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a Glenn Schaeffer Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he currently teaches creative writing and literature. His stories have appeared in The O. Henry Prize Stories , the Southern Review, Glimmer Train, Harvard Review , and many other publications.