Jo Vraca
Jo Vraca is a fiction writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Born in a small Sicily village to a seamstress and a farmer, she grew up in Australia after her family immigrated in 1971.
Jo wrote her first book when she was 12, before computers. She burned it without reading a word of the manuscript. After a decade as a music and entertainment journalist, Jo returned to her fiction roots and had a short story published in the anthology "Behind the Front Fence" through The Five Mile Press. In 2014 she published her first collection of short stories, Girls, and in 2015, her first novel, Floating Upstream, a coming-of-age tale set in 1970s rural Australia.
Jo likes to think of herself as a born liar, with writing the most likely outlet for her sto
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Peter De Vries
Peter De Vries is responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "Deep down, he's shallow." He was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic." “Quick with quips so droll and witty, so penetrating and precise that you almost don’t feel them piercing your pretensions, Peter De Vries was perhaps America’s best comic novelist not named Mark Twain. . .” (Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee).
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His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuo -
Nicholas A. Marziani Jr
Nicholas A. Marziani, Jr. is a married Roman Catholic priest and pastor, and holds the Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity School of Ministry, Ambridge, PA, and undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering technology and marine studies, respectively. Besides ministerial activity with the Episcopal and Catholic churches he has held positions in higher education administration and as a secondary and college level instructor in science and comparative religion, respectively. He and his wife Joanne have three adult children and six grandchildren, and enjoy travel and study both domestic and abroad.
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Chuck Crabbe
Chuck Crabbe grew up in Guelph, Puslinch, and Belle River Ontario, Canada. His mother Ann, a midwife, and his father Patrick, a truck terminal manager, encouraged his sense of adventure, independence, and curiosity.
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Following five years as a student and varsity athlete at the University of Windsor he signed a contract with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes, the fulfillment of a dream he had cherished since childhood. Shortly after, a serious illness and personal upheaval changed the course of his life.
In the year 2000 Chuck accepted a teaching contract and moved to Syros, Greece, an island in the fabled Aegean Sea. Here he travelled extensively and studied the works of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jame -
Lisa Nowak
In addition to being a YA author, Lisa Nowak is a retired amateur stock car racer, an accomplished cat whisperer, and a professional smartass. She writes coming-of-age books about kids in hard luck situations who learn to appreciate their own value after finding mentors who love them for who they are.
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Lisa has no spare time, but if she did she’d use it to tend to her expansive perennial garden, watch medical dramas, take long walks after dark, and teach her cats to play poker. For those of you who might be wondering, she is not, and has never been, a diaper-wearing astronaut. She lives in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her husband, four feline companions, and two giant sequoias. -
Malcolm Hansen
Malcolm Hansen was born at the Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers in Chattanooga, TN. Adopted by two Civil Rights activists, his family lived in Morocco, Spain, Germany, and various parts of the United States. Malcolm left home as a teenager and after two years of high school education, went to Stanford, earning a BA in philosophy. He worked for a few years in the software industry in California before setting off for what turned out to be a decade of living, working, and traveling throughout Central America, South America, and Europe. Malcolm returned to the US to complete an MFA in Fiction from Columbia. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.
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Sandra Birdsell
Sandra Louise Birdsell (née Bartlette) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer of Métis and Mennonite heritage.
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Sandra is the fifth of eleven children. She lived most of her life in Morris, Manitoba and now in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Sandra left home at age fifteen. At the age of thirty-five, she enrolled in Creative Writing at the University Of Winnipeg. Five years later, Turnstone Press published her first book, the “Night Travellers” and two years after, “Ladies Of The House”. Both are published in one volume as Agassiz stories.
Two events shaped her worldview and influenced her writing, the first when Sandra was six years-old. Her sister died from leukemia. That left a four year gap before her next older sister. She felt alone even sur -
Dorothy Potter Benedict
Dorothy Potter Benedict wrote three horse books, set in Montana, which together make up the Pagan series. The first book is about Pagan, and the next two about his sons. The third book, Susan Bourgeau told me, “reads more like a recruiting poster for the Army than a horse book…..the US was involved in Vietnam at the time, but children’s books that depicted teenage boys turning towards a military career were pretty unusual.”
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Dorothy Potter Benedict was born in 1889 and rode her first pony in Chicago, Illinois, which is where she was born. Her father had a ranch in Montana, and there she raised horses and rode out on long trips, sometimes with her children. The stallion Pagan was based on one of her own horses, and his story was made up out o -
Justin Ho
Justin Ho is a writer who grew up in Hawaii but spent most of his time in online worlds. Now a bit more grounded, he’s currently pursuing traditional publishing, keeping up with YA releases, and learning Korean (code for watching too much TOMORROW X TOGETHER and BTS content).
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Jean Cerfontaine
Jean Cerfontaine is an award winning South African author with research interests. During his PhD and MBA studies, he became involved in non-fiction writing and published two academic works through Lambert Academic Publishing. Since then, he has published various non-fiction pieces on Healthcare Policy under his real name in the South African press, including the Business Day newspaper. "Where do you go to" is his debut fiction work. He is married and lives in Palmerston North, New Zealand
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Frank Scozzari
Frank Scozzari is an American novelist and short story writer. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been widely anthologized and featured in literary theater.
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Chandra Prasad
MERCURY BOYS: A YA NOVEL arrives on August 3, 2021. Want to pre-order the book and win some free prizes, including a beautiful, handwrought, fair trade bookmark? Visit chandraprasad.com for details.
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Or visit mercuryboys.com and learn about the book's plot and characters, as well as see the mysterious old photographs at the heart of the narrative.
My first young adult novel, Damselfly, is a classic island survival tale disrupted by the unexpected assertion of female control and an explosive reckoning over race and class.
Popular in middle and high schools across the country, Damselfly can be read as a stand-alone novel or in tandem with Lord of the Flies as a parallel text. The book grapples with modern issues that are relatable to today’s teen -
Leslie Howard
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. ^^^^^
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Leslie Howard grew up in Penticton, British Columbia, where she developed a passion for the province’s history. A graduate of Ottawa’s Carleton University in economics and political science, she now divides her time between Vancouver and Penticton, where she and her husband grow cider apples. The Brideship Wife is her debut novel. Connect with her on Twitter @AuthorLeslieH or on her website LeslieHoward.ca. -
Justin Ho
Justin Ho is a writer who grew up in Hawaii but spent most of his time in online worlds. Now a bit more grounded, he’s currently pursuing traditional publishing, keeping up with YA releases, and learning Korean (code for watching too much TOMORROW X TOGETHER and BTS content).
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Malcolm Hansen
Malcolm Hansen was born at the Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers in Chattanooga, TN. Adopted by two Civil Rights activists, his family lived in Morocco, Spain, Germany, and various parts of the United States. Malcolm left home as a teenager and after two years of high school education, went to Stanford, earning a BA in philosophy. He worked for a few years in the software industry in California before setting off for what turned out to be a decade of living, working, and traveling throughout Central America, South America, and Europe. Malcolm returned to the US to complete an MFA in Fiction from Columbia. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.
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Sara Nović
Sara Nović is author of the NYT best-seller TRUE BIZ, as well as the novel GIRL AT WAR, (2015, winner American Library Association Alex Award, longlist Women's Prize, finalist for the LA Times Fiction prize) and the illustrated nonfiction collection AMERICA IS IMMIGRANTS (2019). She's an instructor of creative writing and Deaf studies, and lives in Philly with her family.
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Visit her on the web at http://sara-novic.com or
[twitter] @novicsara
[insta] @photonovic -
Frank Scozzari
Frank Scozzari is an American novelist and short story writer. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been widely anthologized and featured in literary theater.
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Bree Wolf
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Excited for my new series? The Flames of Winter Series:
An epic love story that spans across an entire series. Ensure that you have a good cup of tea, something to nibble on and perhaps a box of tissues at hand before you dive into this slow-burn Regency romance full of enchanting moments between Sarah and Keir, the little wisp and the highlander.
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C. Toni Graham
C. Toni Graham is the author of the delightful illustrated children's book "Gabby Giggles". Her YA novel, "Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals" is the first installment of her debut trilogy. The second release in the series, "Crossroads and the Dominion of Four" is now available at all retailers. This fantasy saga is about four teenagers transported to the Otherworld. Here the teens are thrust into a magical world where they must defeat an evil druid and determine if other magical beings are allies or enemies as they face danger and challenges in their quest for answers. This fast paced fantasy is fueled with mystery, surprising plots and memorable characters. Crossroads is an extremely well-written story for readers of all ages.
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www.cross -
Lisa Nowak
In addition to being a YA author, Lisa Nowak is a retired amateur stock car racer, an accomplished cat whisperer, and a professional smartass. She writes coming-of-age books about kids in hard luck situations who learn to appreciate their own value after finding mentors who love them for who they are.
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Lisa has no spare time, but if she did she’d use it to tend to her expansive perennial garden, watch medical dramas, take long walks after dark, and teach her cats to play poker. For those of you who might be wondering, she is not, and has never been, a diaper-wearing astronaut. She lives in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her husband, four feline companions, and two giant sequoias. -
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
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Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaign -
Chandra Prasad
MERCURY BOYS: A YA NOVEL arrives on August 3, 2021. Want to pre-order the book and win some free prizes, including a beautiful, handwrought, fair trade bookmark? Visit chandraprasad.com for details.
Buy books on Amazon
Or visit mercuryboys.com and learn about the book's plot and characters, as well as see the mysterious old photographs at the heart of the narrative.
My first young adult novel, Damselfly, is a classic island survival tale disrupted by the unexpected assertion of female control and an explosive reckoning over race and class.
Popular in middle and high schools across the country, Damselfly can be read as a stand-alone novel or in tandem with Lord of the Flies as a parallel text. The book grapples with modern issues that are relatable to today’s teen -
Chris d'Lacey
He was born in Valetta, Malta, but as a child moved first to Leicester and then to Bolton. After gaining a degree in biology from the University of York, he returned to Leicester and got a job at the University of Leicester in their Pre-Clinical Sciences department.
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Originally his writing was confined to songs and he didn't turn to fiction until he was 32. His first piece of work was a 250,000 word story about polar bears for his wife, Jay, to accompany a stuffed polar bear he had bought her as a Christmas present.
He didn't write another story for seven years, until he heard about a competition to write a story for young children with a prize of £2,000. The resulting book, A Hole at the Pole, also about polar bears, didn't win - but he sent -
Anne Holm
Anne Holm, born Else Anne Lise Jørgensen (September 10, 1922 – December 27, 1998) was a Danish journalist and children's writer. At times she also wrote under the pseudonym Adrien de Chandelle.
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Her books are typically recommended to age groups 8–16 years, but they include elements even for adult readers. Her best known book is I Am David (1963), adapted for a 2003 film; (also published as North to Freedom), which tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who escapes from a concentration camp and travels through Europe. It won the ALA Notable Book award in 1965, the 1963 Best Scandinavian Children's Book award and the Boys Club of America Junior Book Award Gold Medal.
Another well known book by Holm is Peter (1966), which tells the story of a teena -
Peter De Vries
Peter De Vries is responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "Deep down, he's shallow." He was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic." “Quick with quips so droll and witty, so penetrating and precise that you almost don’t feel them piercing your pretensions, Peter De Vries was perhaps America’s best comic novelist not named Mark Twain. . .” (Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee).
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His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuo -
Mona Simpson
Mona Simpson was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, then moved to Los Angeles as a young teenager. Her father was a recent immigrant from Syria and her mother was the daughter of a mink farmer and the first person in her family to attend college. Simpson went to Berkeley, where she studied poetry. She worked as a journalist before moving to New York to attend Columbia’s MFA program. During graduate school, she published her first short stories in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review and Mademoiselle. She stayed in New York and worked as an editor at The Paris Review for five years while finishing her first novel, Anywhere But Here. After that, she wrote The Lost Father, A Regular Guy and Off Keck Road.
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Her work has been awarded several prizes: A Whiting -
Paullina Simons
Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad, USSR, in 1963. At the age of ten her family immigrated to the United States. Growing up in Russia Paullina dreamt of someday becoming a writer. Her dream was put on hold as she learned English and overcame the shock of a new culture.
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After graduating from university and after various jobs including working as a financial journalist and as a translator Paullina wrote her first novel Tully. Through word of mouth that book was welcomed by readers all over the world.
She continued with more novels, including Red Leaves, Eleven Hours, The Bronze Horseman, The Bridge to Holy Cross (also known as Tatiana and Alexander), The Summer Garden and The Girl in Times Square (also known as Lily). Many of Paullina's no -
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill was a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has endured for more than forty years. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1935, the oldest of seven children of immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Catholic schools as a child. He left school at 16 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a sheetmetal worker, and then went on to the United States Navy. While serving in the Navy, he completed his high school education. Then, using the educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he attended Mexico City College in 1956-1957, studying painting and writing, and later went to Pratt Institute. For several years, he worked as a graphic designer. Then in 1960, he went to work as a reporter for the New York Post. A lo
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Gish Jen
Gish Jen grew up in New York, where she spoke more Yiddish than Chinese. She has been featured in a PBS American Masters program on the American novel. Her distinctions also include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute fellowship. She was awarded a Lannan Literary Prize in 1999 and received a Harold and Mildred Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, she has published in the New Yorker and other magazines.
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John Updike selected a story of Jen's for The Best American Short Stories of The Century. Her newest book, Tiger Writing, is based on the Massey Lectures in th -
John Fante
Fante's early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian born father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder and Denver, Colorado, and briefly attended the University of Colorado.
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In 1929, he dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to concentrate on his writing. He lived and worked in Wilmington, Long Beach, and in the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles, California.
He is known to be one of the first writers to portray the tough times faced by many writers in L.A. His work and style has influenced such similar authors as "Poet Laureate of Skid Row" Charles Bukowski and influential beat generation writer Jack Kerouac. He -
Christopher Pike
Christopher Pike is the pseudonym of Kevin McFadden. He is a bestselling author of young adult and children's fiction who specializes in the thriller genre.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
McFadden was born in New York but grew up in California where he stills lives in today. A college drop-out, he did factory work, painted houses and programmed computers before becoming a recognized author. Initially unsuccessful when he set out to write science fiction and adult mystery, it was not until his work caught the attention of an editor who suggested he write a teen thriller that he became a hit. The result was Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and -
Judy Blume
Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. She has spent her adult years in many places doing the same thing, only now she writes her stories down on paper. Adults as well as children will recognize such Blume titles as: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Blubber; Just as Long as We're Together; and the five book series about the irrepressible Fudge. She has also written three novels for adults, Summer Sisters; Smart Women; and Wifey, all of them New York Times bestsellers. More than 80 million copies of her books have been sold, and her work has been translated into thirty-one languages. She receives thousands of letters a year from readers of all ages who share their feelings and concern
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Martin Amis
Martin Amis was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works included the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.
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The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."
Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness." -
James Baldwin
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France -
James Joyce
A profound influence of literary innovations of Irish writer James Augustine Aloysius Joyce on modern fiction includes his works, Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939).
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Sylvia Beach published the first edition of Ulysses of James Augustine Aloysius Joyce in 1922.
John Stanislaus Joyce, an impoverished gentleman and father of James Joyce, nine younger surviving siblings, and two other siblings who died of typhoid, failed in a distillery business and tried all kinds of other professions, including politics and tax collecting. The Roman Catholic Church dominated life of Mary Jane Murray, an accomplished pianist and his mother. In spite of poverty, the family struggled to maintain a solid middle-class façade.
Jesuits at Clongowes Woo -
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.
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Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was published when he was 24. He followed it with Wonder Boys (1995) and two short-story collections. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel that John Leonard would later call Chabon's magnum opus. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.
His novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an alternate hi -
Sarah Jasmon
Sarah Jasmon lives on a canal boat in Lancashire, which is also the setting for her two novels – The Summer of Secrets and You Never Told Me. She has written short stories for a wide selection of publications and in 2018 was shortlisted for the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition. She is an Associate Tutor in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Geography.
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William Horwood
William Horwood is an English novelist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, an allegorical tale about a community of moles, was published in 1980. It was followed by two sequels, forming The Duncton Chronicles, and also a second trilogy, The Book of Silence. William Horwood has also written two stand-alone novels intertwining the lives of humans and of eagles, The Stonor Eagles and Callanish , and The Wolves of Time duology. Skallagrigg, his 1987 novel about disability, love, and trust, was made into a BBC film in 1994. In addition, he has written a number of sequels to The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
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In 2007, he collaborated with historian Helen Rappaport to produce Dark Hearts of Chicago, a historical mystery and thriller set -
Frank Chin
Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California, but was raised to the age of six by a retired Vaudeville couple in Placerville, California. At six his mother brought him back to the San Francisco Bay Area to live in Oakland Chinatown. He attended college at the University of California, Berkeley. He received an American Book Award in 1989 for a collection of short stories, and another in 2000 for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
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Chin is considered to be one of the pioneers in Asian American theatre. He founded the Asian American Theatre Workshop, which became the Asian American Theater Company in 1973. He first gained notoriety as a playwright in the 1970s. His play The Chickencoop Chinaman was the first by