Richmond Noir

About the contributors

X. C. Atkins was born in Zeist, Netherlands. He holds a BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. He recently moved from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the City of Brotherly Love.

Mina Beverly is a Richmond, Virginia native. She holds a BA in English from Spelman College and an MFA in Fiction from Virginia Commonwealth University. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia and works as an English teacher.

Andrew Blossom is the founding editor of the literary journal Makeout Creek. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Laura Browder’s most recent book is Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America. She is currently collaborating with photographer Sascha Pflaeging on a book based on their gallery exhibition When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans. She teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Brian Castleberry has worked as a cook, a dishwasher, a teacher, a carnie, a shoe salesman, a receptionist, and a writer. He lives in Virginia with his wife and their two dogs.

Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session The Pumpkin Pie Show. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel, both published by Hyperion Books. He teaches writing at the Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University.

Dennis Danvers has published seven novels, including New York Times Notables Circuit of Heaven and The Watch, and the near-future mystery The Bright Spot (writing as Robert Sydney). Recent short fiction of his appears in Strange Horizons, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Realms of Fantasy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Space and Time.

Tom de Haven is the author of seventeen books, including Freaks’ Amour, Sunburn Lake, It’s Superman!, and the Derby Dugan trilogy of novels (Funny Papers, Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies, and Dugan Under Ground). Our Hero, a book-length essay about the history and cultural impact of Superman, is forthcoming from Yale University Press’s Icons of America series. Since 1990 he has taught in the graduate creative writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Dean King is the author of nine books, including the national best seller Skeletons on the Zahara and, most recently, Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival about the women of Mao’s Long March. A former contributing editor to Men’s Journal, King has written for Esquire, Outside, and the New York Times. He is a cofounder of Richmond’s award-winning James River Writers organization and serves on the Library of Virginia Foundation board.

Clint McCown’s six books include the novels The Member-Guest, War Memorials, and The Weatherman. He teaches in the MFA programs at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Howard Owen is the author of eight novels. He and his wife Karen live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where both are editors at the Free Lance-Star. Owen’s first novel, Littlejohn, was nominated for the Abbey Award (American Booksellers Association) and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. His novels Turn Signal and Rock of Ages were Book Sense selections. Owen, who lived in Richmond for twenty-nine years, has just finished his ninth novel.

Conrad Ashley Persons was born in Savannah, Georgia. He attended the University of Virginia before living in New York, London, and Tokyo. He currently resides with his wife in Brooklyn, where he is finishing his first novel, A Honeymoon.

Hermine Pinson has published three poetry collections: Ashe, Mama Yetta and Other Poems, and Dolores Is Blue/Dolorez Is Blues. She also released a CD, Changing the Changes in Poetry & Song, in special collaboration with Yusef Komunyakaa and Estella Conwill Majozo. She teaches creative writing, as well as American and African American literature, at the College of William & Mary.

David L. Robbins was born in Richmond and received his undergraduate and Juris Doctorate degrees from the College of William & Mary, where he recently taught as writer-in-residence. He has published nine novels, the most recent of which, Broken Jewel, is set in the Philippines during World War II. Robbins is the founder of the James River Writers nonprofit literary group. This is his first published short story.

Tom Robbins is the best-selling author of ten books of fiction and numerous articles for national magazines. His novels have been published in twenty-two languages and several have been optioned by Hollywood. An honors graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and a former copy editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Robbins has resided for many years in the Seattle area. His latest work, B Is for Beer, is a children’s book.

Pir Rothenberg wrote and taught in Richmond, Virginia from 2003 to 2008. He currently resides in Buffalo, New York. His work has appeared in Harpur Palate.

Meagan J. Saunders grew up in a family of five. She spent the first years of her life on Richmond’s Southside before moving to Beaverdam, Virginia, a rural community on the outskirts of Hanover County. She received her B.A. in English and History from the College of William & Mary.

Anne Thomas Soffee is the author of Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love and Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City. She currently writes for Richmond Magazine and lives in Southside Richmond with her family, just up the pike from Rudd’s Trailer Park.