Detroit Noir

About the contributors

Megan Abbott is the author of The Song Is You, Queenpin, and the Edgar Award finalist Die a Little. Born in Warren, Michigan, she grew up in Grosse Pointe Woods, a suburb of Detroit. She lives in New York City.

Craig Bernier became enthralled with Detroit — its culture and nuance, its dread and hope — after returning from a stint in the Navy to attend Wayne State University. Most of his published works have focused on the city’s denizens. He teaches composition and writing on the adjunct faculty of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

Joe Boland was born in Detroit, and has lived and worked in the area his entire life. He is currently writing a crime novel.

Desiree Cooper is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and cohost of American Public Media’s Weekend America. She did anticrime and affordable housing advocacy work for New Detroit, an urban coalition that addresses the city’s social problems. She lives in the city with her husband and two children.

Loren D. Estleman, a Michigan native, has received four Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America for his Amos Walker, Detroit P.I. series, which he’s been writing for twenty-seven years. In addition, he is the author of a historical Detroit series that includes Whiskey River, Motown, King of the Corner, Edsel, Stress, Jitterbug, and Thunder City.

Lolita Hernandez, born and raised in Detroit, is the author of Autopsy of an Engine and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant, winner of a 2005 PEN Beyond Margins Award. She is also the author of two chapbook collections of poems: Quiet Battles and Snakecrossing. Her family hails from Trinidad &Tobago and St. Vincent.

John C. Hocking obsessively reads, writes, edits, and collects pulp and noir fiction. He lives outside of Detroit with his inspiring son and superhumanly tolerant wife. He thinks more people should read Dan J. Marlowe’s The Name of the Game Is Death.

Craig Holden grew up in the shadow of Detroit and went to sleep most nights with a transistor radio under his pillow — listening to the Tigers and Red Wings or experiencing the late ’60s via the old CKLW. His most recent novel is Matala.

Roger K. Johnson is a native Detroiter who still lives in the city with his beautiful wife and their three lovely daughters. A graduate of Wayne State University and a middle school science teacher, he is committed to making sure that all the children he encounters realize their full potential.

Peter Markus is originally from the southwest side of Detroit. He now works with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, which sends writers into Detroit public schools. He is the author of three books of short fiction, Good, Brother, The Moon Is a Lighthouse, and The Singing Fish. His novel, Bob, or Man on Boat, is forthcoming in 2008.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. Author of the national best sellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blond, and The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina, Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In Detroit, she lived on Sherbourne Road north of Seven Mile, 1962–1968.

Dorene O’Brien was born and raised in Detroit and currently teaches writing at the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University. She won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium’s Fiction Award, the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, the Bridport Prize, and she is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

E.J. Olsen comes from a long line of sturdy Michigan folk, and has lived in the Detroit area for most of his life. He works as a freelance writer and editor and is currently writing his first novel.

P.J. Parrish, the New York Times best-selling author of the Louis Kincaid series, is actually two sisters, Kris Montee and Kelly Nichols. Their books have been nominated for multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards, and they have won an International Thriller Writers Award. They were born and raised in Detroit, and return home as often as possible — both in person and in their fiction.

Melissa Preddy traces her Detroit ancestry to the late 1800s and grew up absorbing family lore about mid — twentieth century life in the city’s working-class neighborhoods. She is currently a business editor for the Detroit News.

Nisi Shawl is a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her short horror story “Cruel Sistah,” which first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine, was reprinted in the nineteenth volume of Th e Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Michael Zadoorian is the author of the novel Second Hand, and his stories have appeared in Literary Review, American Short Fiction, Beloit Fiction Journal, North American Review, and ARARAT. A graduate of Wayne State University, he grew up on the northwest side of Detroit.