Bobby Byrd - Lone Star Noir

J ESSICA P OWERSis the author of The Confessional , a murder mystery set on the U.S.-Mexico border which “morphs silkily into a clever noir adaptation” ( Library Journal). She grew up in El Paso, Texas, and currently lives in California.

I TO R OMOwas born on the border in Laredo, Texas, in 1961. His recent work, dubbed “Chicano Gothic,” shows the dark and gritty life along Interstate 35 through South Texas, where the road finally ends at the international bridge. Romo, a writer, painter, sculptor, and teacher, holds a PhD from Texas Tech University and is an associate professor of English at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of a novel, El Puente/The Bridge .

L ISA S ANDLINwas born in Beaumont, Texas, and grew up in that bayou refinery town near the Louisiana border. The Famous Thing About Death and Message to the Nurse of Dreams , both published by Cinco Puntos Press, reflect her background. Her book In the River Province (Southern Methodist University Press) is set in New Mexico, where she went to live after college. She teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

C LAUDIA S MITHgrew up in Houston and spent many childhood summers in Galveston. Her collection The Sky Is a Well and Other Shorts won Rose Metal Press’s short-short competition . Her second collection, Put Your Head in My Lap , is available from Future Tense Books. Her short-shorts and stories have been published in numerous places, including New Sudden Fiction: Short-Short Stories from America and Beyond . She now lives and writes in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

J ESSE S UBLETT, a native Texan, is a novelist and musician living in Austin. His Martin Fender detective novels are set in that city, and his band the Skunks is credited with helping put Austin on the international rock and roll map. Sublett has also written for film and television. James Ellroy described his memoir Never the Same Again: A Rock ’n’ Roll Gothic as “a harrowing, wrenching, spellbinding work of great candor and soul.”

T IM T INGLE, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is a storyteller and writer. His collection of short stories Walking the Choctaw Road traces the history of the Choctaw Nation from the “Trail of Tears” until now. His illustrated book Crossing the Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom won numerous national awards, among them the 2008 American Indian Library Association Award for Best Picture Book. Tingle grew up in Pasadena, Texas.

L UIS A LBERTO U RREAhas written many books, including the national best-sellers The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The Devil’s Highway (a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist). He has also won the Kiriyama Prize for fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, an American Book Award, a Christopher Award, and a Western States Book Award. Urrea lives with his family in the Chicago area, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

G EORGE W IERworks and lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Sallie. He is a writer, researcher, historian, and speaker in the narrow yet rich field of Texas crime history, as well as an up-and-coming author of crime and adventure novels.