DIANA ABU-JABER
is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor, and Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her new book, The Language of Baklava, is a memoir told through food. It explores the larger lessons that food can bring about cultural identity, faith and love. Diana recently returned from Amman where she was on a Fulbright research grant award, conducting interviews with Jordanian and Palestinian women in order to develop background for her next novel.

MARIA AMPARO ESCANDÓN
is a best-selling bilingual storyteller. She published her first novel, Esperanza’s Box of Saints and its Spanish version, Santitos, in 1999. This novel was the #1 best seller on the LA Times Best Sellers List, has been translated into sixteen languages and is currently read in over 80 countries. Her screenplay, Santitos, has received awards in fourteen film festivals around the world. Maria was named the “Writer to Watch” by both Newsweek Magazine in 1999 and the Los Angeles Times in 2000. Her newest novel, González & Daughter Trucking Co., published in 2005, has been hailed as an ingenious work of art.

FRANCES HALPERN
hosts the lively and often funny radio program "Beyond Words" on KCLU (Ventura/Santa Barbara NPR station) each Saturday. She has published two books, Writer’s Guide to West Coast Publishing and Writer’s Guide to Publishing in the West. Her credentials also include columns in the Daily News of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times.

BONNIE HEARN HILL
is an author of thrillers, a national conference speaker and contest judge. She also serves on the board of the Yosemite Writers' Conference. Bonnie wrote a political thriller, Intern, called a "page turner" by Publishers Weekly, and Killer Body, which is out in paperback this year and was a Cosmopolitan magazine March "pick" for 2004. Her most recent book, Double Exposure was published in February 2004. She states, “I write about contemporary subjects, but my theme is empowerment."

RUTH OZEKI
is an award-winning filmmaker and novelist. Her first novel, My Year of Meats, has received glowing reviews, awards and a still-growing readership. My Year of Meats was an international success, translated into ten languages and published in fourteen countries. It won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award and the Imus/Barnes and Noble American Book Award. Ozeki's second novel, All Over Creation, also received rave reviews and has been described as, "a feast for mind and heart."

AMADA PEREZ
immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a child and wrote My Very Own Room based on her experience growing up in poverty with five brothers. The book is written in both Spanish and English. My Very Own Room: Mi Propio Cuartito, was awarded the Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award. In her newest book, My Diary from Here to There, Mi Diario De Aqui Hasta, Amada records her family’s travels and eventual journey to Los Angeles. This book won the Pura Belpre Honor Book Narrative Award.