PEN Presents: L.A. Noir

PEN America is honored to present Los Angeles author and editor David L. Ulin on the publication of his psychological thriller, Thirteen Question Method. David will be joined by friends and fellow writers who have made a special art of writing Los Angeles—the capital of noir—including Tod Goldberg, Steph Cha, and Rachel Howzell Hall. Join us for a discussion of the past and future of crime fiction and its deep connections with the landscapes of Hollywood, Palm Springs, South L.A., and the many beaches, highways, and foothills of our City of Angels. 

This free program is co-presented by Second Home Hollywood, and will be followed by Q&A and a book signing.

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David L. Ulin is the author or editor of nearly twenty books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay; The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time, and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He’s also the editor of Library of America’s Didion: The 1960s & 1970s and Didion: The 1980s and 90s. Thirteen Question Method is his latest book. The former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times, he has written for The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times, Zyzzyva, and The Paris Review. He is a Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light.

Tod Goldberg is the author of more than a dozen books, including the newly released Gangsters Don’t Die, the conclusion to the acclaimed Gangsterland trilogy, and The Low Desert: Gangster Stories, named a Southwest Book of the Year and a finalist for several literary prizes. He lives in Indio, California, where he directs the low-residency MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts at the University of California, Riverside.

Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of twelve novels, including the bestselling thrillers What Never
Happened, We Lie Here and multiple award-nominated These Toxic Things and And Now She’s
Gone. A Los Angeles native, Rachel is a former member of the board of directors for Mystery
Writers of America and was a featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed “Crime in the City” series and
the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast.

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