Marisela Norte is considered one of the most important literary voices to come out of East Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Interview, Elle, Option, Venice, Buzz, The Los Angeles Weekly and anthologies Border Writing, Microphone Friends, The Geography of Home: California's Poetry of Place, Rolling Stone's Women of Rock and the forthcoming Journal of Latinos + Education and Bordered Sexualities: Bodies on the Verge of a Nation. She co-authored the play Black Butterfly, which was honored at the Kennedy Center and later nominated for an Ovation award. Norte lives in East Los Angeles and is currently writing her fourth play, Scenes From the Dining Room.

Josh Kun teaches in the English Department at UC Riverside. His arts column, "Frequencies," appears in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Boston Phoenix, and LA Alternative Press and he has published in The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, LA Weekly, and other publications. His book, Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, will be published next year by UC Press.