Authors

Victoria Chang is the author of six books of poetry, including Obit, listed in The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020, and as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2020. Born in Detroit to Taiwanese immigrants, she was educated at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Stanford Business School, and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson. In The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press), Chang reinvigorates language through concentration, using constraint to illuminate and free the wild interior. Composed mainly in various Japanese syllabic forms called “wakas,” each poem is shaped by pattern and count. It’s a highly original work that innovates inside the lineage of great poets, including W.S. Merwin, whose poem titles are repurposed as frames and mirrors for the text, stitching past and present in complex dialogue. Chang depicts the smooth, melancholic isolation of the mind while reaching outward to name – with reverence, economy, and whimsy – the ache of wanting.

Janet Skeslien Charles is The New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library – based on the true story of the international team of librarians that defied the Nazis in order to hand deliver books to Jewish readers – and Moonlight in Odessa, a novel about the business of mail-order brides. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune and The Sydney Morning Herald, on Literary Hub, and in the anthology Montana Noir; it has been translated into 36 languages. Born and raised in Montana, she taught English in Ukraine for two years and later moved to France. There, she worked as the programs manager at the American Library in Paris. Charles will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 to speak with Jessie Burton, author of The House Fortune: A Novel (Bloomsbury Publishing).

Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post.

Webber J. Charles is the senior site director of Breakthrough Miami – Ransom Everglades School, where he focuses on motivating high-achieving, low-income students and guiding his professional and community work. He has managed several of the school’s community outreach programs and served as a faculty sponsor of the Black Student Association and Ransom Everglades Chess Club. A first-generation Haitian American born and raised in Miami, Charles also served as a faculty committee member of the Diversity Council, the Booker T. Washington Student Exchange Program, and the Haiti Initiative. He will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 as part of the “More Than What Happened: The Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami” panel, moderated by Nadege Green.

Jean-Baptiste Charlot, M.D., is an OB-GYN in Miami. After completing his medical studies at the Université d’État d’Haïti, he became certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Nearing retirement, Charlot continues to study human biology, with a particular interest in cellular biology. In his book Understanding the World through Biology, he draws an enlightening analogy between the behavior of our cells and the functioning of human society, emphasizing the lessons that can be derived from nature. As he points out, our leaders and institutions can contribute to a more harmonious and peaceful society simply by mimicking the behavior of a cell, whose various parts protect and enhance one another’s function for the benefit of the entire organism. In Saving Haiti, Saving the World, Charlot explores the role of Christianity in the progress of modern society.

LeeBetsy Charon is an accountant and entrepreneur and the founder and principal of The Craft Accountant. The accounting firm specializes in craft breweries and small businesses. Charon will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 as part of the panel “More Than What Happened: The Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami,” moderated by Nadege Green.

Rabia Chaudry is a Pakistani American attorney, advocate, podcaster, and the author of the New York Times bestseller Adnan’s Story; the book was the basis of the four-part HBO documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed, for which she served as an executive producer. Chaudry is also co-producer and co-host of three podcasts: Undisclosed (360 million downloads), The 45th (four million downloads), and The Hidden Djinn. “My entire life, I have been less fat and more fat, but never not fat,” notes Chaudry. In Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family (Algonquin Books), she writes about her childhood diet of two full bottles of half-and-half per day, frozen butter sticks to gnaw on, and lots and lots of American processed foods – and that was before her parents discovered Burger King and Dairy Queen. In time she would come to love the Pakistani foods of her heritage, and learn to cook and eat them – in moderation. This memoir with recipes is a love letter to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family. It is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done, but refuses to meet the expectations of others.

Daína Chaviano (La Habana, Cuba, 1957) Narradora, poeta y ensayista. Reside en Miami desde 1991. Licenciada en Lengua inglesa por la Universidad de La Habana. Dedicó la primera parte de su carrera a los géneros de ciencia ficción y fantasía con obras como Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre o El abrevadero de los dinosaurios. Tras salir de la isla cultivó con igual éxito una narrativa de carácter más contemporáneo, cuyos temas abarcan la mitología, la historia antigua, la sociología, la parapsicología, el erotismo, la política y la magia. Sus obras han sido traducidas a una treintena de idiomas y han recibido diversos reconocimientos internacionales como el Premio Anna Seghers (Academia de Artes de Berlín, Alemania, 1990), el Premio Azorín de Novela (España, 1998) y el Premio Nacional Malinalli para la Promoción de las Artes, los Derechos Humanos y la Diversidad Cultural (México, 2014), entre otros. Ha publicado las novelas El hombre, la hembra y el hambre, Casa de juegos, Gata encerrada, La isla de los amores infinitos y Los hijos de la diosa Huracán. En 2017 dio a conocer una colección de cuentos titulada Extraños testimonios. Recientemente fueron reeditadas dos obras clásicas suyas por Norma en Colombia: País de dragones y Amoroso Planeta, con las cuales viene a la feria. Chaviano participa en el 9.º Seminario de Literatura infantil y Lectura en la mesa Mundos imaginarios: metáforas de libertad, en la que conversa con el periodista Alejandro Ríos.

Traci Chee is the New York Times bestselling author of The Reader trilogy and her YA novel in stories We Are Not Free, a National Book Award finalist which also earned the Printz Honor and the Walter Honor. A Thousand Steps Into Night (Clarion Books) is set in the realm of Awara, a place where gods, monsters, and humans coexist side by side. Miuko is an ordinary girl resigned to a safe, if uneventful, existence as an innkeeper’s daughter. Until she is cursed and begins to transform into a demon with a deadly touch, and embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her everyday life. Aided by a thieving magpie spirit and continuously thwarted by a demon prince, Miuko must outfox tricksters, escape demon hunters, and negotiate with feral gods if she wants to make it home again. Yet with her transformation comes power and a freedom she never dreamed of, pushing her to weigh whether saving her soul is worth returning to an ordinary life that no longer fits her – and perhaps never did.

Jean Chen Ho’s writing has been published in The Georgia Review, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Guernica, The Rumpus, Apogee, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and others. She is a doctoral candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California, where she is a Dornsife fellow in fiction. She was born in Taiwan and grew up in Southern California. In Ho’s debut collection Fiona and Jane (Viking), the title characters have been best friends since second grade. They’ve explored the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, survived unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carry the scars of their families’ tumultuous pasts. Then Fiona moves to New York, leaving Jane behind in California. Over time the women float in and out of each other’s lives. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, their friendship is a beacon of hope and a reminder of all they’ve lost. In stories told in alternating voices, Fiona and Jane peels back the layers of female friendship, probing the hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves and each other.

Carrie Cheney is one-half of a husband-and-wife creative team who met in 1992 when they shared an animation cubicle as freshmen at the California Institute of the Arts. The two have been collaborating ever since. After years in the animation industry in Los Angeles, the Cheneys moved to Paris, where her husband, Yarrow, served as production designer on films including Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. He later co-directed The Secret Life of Pets and directed The Grinch. In Superworld: Save Noah (Random House Books for Young Readers), a meteor crashes on Earth on the title character’s seventh birthday and everyone on the planet gets superpowers – except for Noah, that is. Thanks to his tinfoil superhero costume, his powers got deflected onto his little sister. Now Noah is the only normal person in all of Superworld. He can’t fly, he can’t scale tall buildings, and he can’t turn broccoli into candy. But when the biggest, baddest villain in town plots to take over Superworld forever, it’s ordinary Noah and his supercharged best friends who are poised to save the day. Seriously.

Yarrow Cheney is one-half of a husband-and-wife creative team who met in 1992 when they shared an animation cubicle as freshmen at the California Institute of the Arts. The two have been collaborating ever since. After years in the animation industry in Los Angeles, the Cheneys moved to Paris, where Yarrow served as production designer on films including Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. He later co-directed The Secret Life of Pets and directed The Grinch. In Superworld: Save Noah (Random House Books for Young Readers), a meteor crashes on Earth on the title character’s seventh birthday and everyone on the planet gets superpowers – except for Noah, that is. Thanks to his tinfoil superhero costume, his powers got deflected onto his little sister. Now Noah is the only normal person in all of Superworld. He can’t fly, he can’t scale tall buildings, and he can’t turn broccoli into candy. But when the biggest, baddest villain in town plots to take over Superworld forever, it’s ordinary Noah and his supercharged best friends who are poised to save the day. Seriously.

Preeti Chhibber is an author, speaker, and freelance writer. She has written for SYFY, Polygon, and Elle, among others. She made her Marvel Comics debut in 2022, with a brand-new Black Cat story in Women of Marvel #1. She also co-hosts the podcasts Desi Geek Girls and Tar Valon or Bust. Peter Parker has been swinging and thwipping his way through New York City as Spider-Man for just a few months, and balancing his double life is complicated. In Spider-Man’s Social Dilemma (Marvel Press), he goes to school and tries not to embarrass himself in front of his crush, M.J.; takes photos for the Daily Bugle and tries not to embarrass himself in front of his boss; and fights crime in the evenings and always tries not to embarrass himself doing that, either. That’s not easy when you’re a teen with spider powers you’re still getting used to. He’s also got to worry about notorious villain Sandman, who’s acting more strangely than ever; the toll that social media seems to be taking on M.J.; and someone who keeps trying to steal an artifact supposedly powered by alien matter. Something is going on, and Peter is determined to figure out what it is before things go from weird to dangerous.

Kat Cho is the New York Times and international bestselling author of the Gumiho duology, Wicked Fox, and Vicious Spirits who loves to incorporate her Korean heritage in her writing. She is also the co-host of the Write or Die Podcast, where she interviews authors about the struggles of getting published and maintaining a writing career. In Once Upon a K-Prom (Disney-Hyperion), Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed – by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, and her more outgoing best friend. And no, she has no interest in going to prom. She’d rather spend her time working to save the local community center, the one place that’s always made her feel like she belonged. But when Robbie Choi, a childhood best friend, now an international K-pop superstar, shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever. He always accepted her as she is. But that was years ago. With his new K-pop persona, pink hair, and stylish clothes, Robbie is nothing like the sweet, goofy boy she remembers – and he comes with hordes of screaming fans, online haters, and relentless paparazzi.

Su Cho is a poet and essayist born in South Korea and raised in Indiana. She has served as the editor-in-chief of Indiana Review and Cream City Review, and as a guest editor for Poetry. Her work has been featured in Poetry, New England Review, Gulf Coast, and Orion; the 2021 Best American Poetry and Best New Poets anthologies; and elsewhere. Language and lore are at the core of The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Books), Cho’s moving debut about coming of age in the middle of nowhere. With tender insight, it seeks to give voice to those who have been denied their stories and examines the way phrases and narratives are passed down through immigrant families, not diluted by time but distilled into potency. A family’s language is not lost but continuously remade, hitched to new associations, and capable of blooming anew, with the power to cut across space and time to unearth buried memories. The poems in The Symmetry of Fish insist that a language is first and foremost a physical act; even if our minds can’t recall a word or a definition, if we trust our mouths, the expression will find us – though never quite in the forms we expect.

Franny Choi is the author of several books, including Soft Science, Floating, Brilliant, Gone, and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is currently an Arthur Levitt Jr. Artist-in-Residence at Williams College. In her third book, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On (Ecco Books), Choi offers a poetry collection for the ends of worlds – past, present, and future. There are poems about historical and impending apocalypses alongside musings on our responsibilities to each other and visions for our collective survival. These poems remind us that, for marginalized peoples, the apocalypse has already come in myriad ways. They spin backward and forwards in time – from Korean comfort women during World War II and the precipice of the climate crisis to children wandering a museum in the future. As she wrestles with the daily griefs of this apocalyptic world, Choi also imagines what togetherness could look like.

Derrick Chow is an author, illustrator, and comic creator. His short stories have been featured in several comic anthologies, and his illustrations appear in newspapers, magazines, and books across North America. Ravenous Things (Disney-Hyperion) is his first novel. Twelve-year-old Reggie Wong has a quick temper that gets him into trouble. At home, his mom struggles to get out of bed, and Reggie desperately needs his dad back – but his dad is dead. Enter the Conductor, a peculiar man who promises to grant Reggie’s wish to see his father just one more time. All he must do is climb aboard the man’s subway train, which leaves St. Patrick’s Station promptly at midnight. Desperate, Reggie accepts the offer, only to discover the train is full of other children who have lost a loved one. There, he meets Chantal, an annoyingly peppy girl, and Gareth, his arch-nemesis and bully since the fourth grade. As kids step off the train and into the arms of their lost family member, Reggie can’t believe his wish is about to come true. But all is not as it seems. The Conductor has a diabolical plan, and Reggie and his new friends must find a way out.

Joan Chrissos is a writer and award-winning editor at the Miami Herald who was a key part of the paper’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for producing the stories of the 98 people who died in the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida. She was named the 2022 Florida Editor of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists for her work in the Surfside condo collapse, as well as overseeing the Herald’s coverage of COVID-19 and education, both K-12 and higher education. Chrissos started her journalism career as a reporter, covering local governments, business and finance, and writing a weekly column on the media. She will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 for a conversation with writer and visual artist Eric Gansworth, who was born and raised in the Tuscarora Nation, as he presents his latest novel, My Good Man (Levine Querido), in which the main character happens to be the only Indigenous writer in his newsroom’s city desk.

Johnnie Christmas is a #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. Best known for co-creating the Angel Catbird series with celebrated writer Margaret Atwood, he has adapted William Gibson’s lost screenplay for Alien 3 into a critically acclaimed graphic novel of the same name. He also co-created the series Sheltered. In his contemporary middle grade graphic novel Swim Team (HarperAlley), we meet Bree. She couldn’t wait for her first day at her new middle school, Enith Brigitha, home to the Mighty Manatees – but now she’s stuck with the only elective that fits her schedule, the dreaded Swim 101. The thought of swimming makes Bree more than a little queasy, but she’s forced to dive headfirst into one of her greatest fears. Lucky for her, Etta, an elderly occupant of her apartment building and a former swim team captain, is willing to help. With Etta’s training and a lot of hard work, Bree suddenly finds her swim-crazed community counting on her to turn the school’s failing team around. Can Bree defy the odds and guide her team to a state championship, or have the Mighty Manatees swum their last lap?

Hillary Chute is an American literary scholar, an expert on comics and graphic narratives, and the comics and graphic novels columnist for The New York Times Book Review. She is also the Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University and the author or editor of seven titles on comics, including her book Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere. It is hard to overstate the effect of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman on postwar American culture. Maus has shaped the fields of literature, history, and art – and has often been at the center of debate, such as its recent ban from school language arts curricula in McMinn County, Tennessee. Richly illustrated with images from Spiegelman’s work, Maus Now: Selected Writing (Pantheon) collects responses to the work from writers such as Philip Pullman, Robert Storr, and Ruth Franklin, who examine it from various viewpoints and traditions. Organized into three loosely chronological sections – “Contexts,” “Problems of Representation,” and “Legacy” – Maus Now offers translations of important French, Hebrew, and German essays on Maus for the first time.

Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, and artist. She is the author of Bad Boys, My Wicked Wicked Ways, Loose Woman, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, The House on Mango Street, Caramelo, Have You Seen Marie?, and Bravo, Bruno. Her most recent books are A House of My Own: Stories from My Life, illustrated with photographs, and Puro Amor, in a dual-language edition translated by Liliana Valenzuela and featuring illustrations by the author. She is a citizen of both the United States and Mexico. Woman Without Shame: Poems (Knopf) is Cisneros’ first book of poetry in 28 years. With dozens of never-before-seen poems, the collection includes songs, elegies, and declarations that chronicle her pilgrimage toward rebirth and the recognition of her prerogative as a woman artist. These bluntly honest and often humorous meditations on memory, desire, and the essential nature of love blaze a path toward self-awareness. For Cisneros, Woman Without Shame is the culmination of her search for home – in the Mexico of her ancestors and her own heart.

Author and historian James C. Clark is a senior lecturer at the University of Central Florida, where he has taught since 1987. He is one of Florida’s leading historians, the author of 10 books, and the editor of a three-volume anthology of Florida literature. His work has been honored by the Florida Historical Society, the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, and the Florida Magazine Association. He lives in Orlando. In A History Lover’s Guide to Florida (History & Guide) (History Press), Clark offers a lifetime of places to explore and thousands of fascinating facts, tracing the state’s long history from Pensacola to the Florida Keys. Florida is a state of transplants; even people who relocated here decades ago still claim their birthplace as their home. But some of them might change their mind if they knew that the Sunshine State can claim one of the richest histories in the nation. Decades before the Pilgrims, the Spanish celebrated Thanksgiving in Florida. Centuries before the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York, the holiday was celebrated in St. Augustine, where urban renewal was underway when Jamestown settlers arrived.

Lynda Cohen Loigman is the author of The Wartime Sisters and The Two-Family House. She received a B.A. in English and American literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. In The Matchmaker’s Gift: A Novel (St. Martin’s Press), two women, two generations apart, improbably share a gift. Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But in the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men – and they see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place and claim the recognition she deserves. Fast forward to her granddaughter, Abby, a successful Manhattan divorce attorney representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of her matches. But in the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her, and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages?

Samantha Cole is a senior editor for Motherboard, Vice’s science, and technology outlet, where she covers sexuality, online culture, platforms, and the adult industry. Her decade in journalism spans from hyperlocal newspapers to national and international outlets, including Popular Science, Fast Company, and Al Jazeera. From the moment there was an “online,” there was sex online, too. Famously, software engineers developing formats like the jpeg used as a test image “Lenna,” Playboy’s November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly came to serve their members’ sexual musings. Facebook started as a way to rate “hot or not” Harvard co-eds. Virtually every significant development that defines the internet we know and love (and hate) today – privacy issues, online payments, online banking, dating, social media, streaming technology, and mass data collection – came out of the meeting of sexuality and technology. But the internet arguably changed modern human sexuality by giving every imaginable non-heteronormative community a place to explore, fantasize, thrive, and be accepted. How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: A History (Workman Publishing) is a serious and highly entertaining look at the intertwining convergence of sex and the digital space.

Susan Coll is the author of five previous novels, including The Stager and Acceptance. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Washingtonian, and Moment, and on NPR and Atlantic.com. Bookish People (Harper Muse) is a screwball comedy featuring a cast of oblivious authors, overqualified booksellers, and a Russian tortoise named Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Consider independent bookstore owner Sophie Bernstein. She’s burned out on books, mourning the death of her husband, the loss of her favorite manager, the lack of aspiration in her only child, and the grim state of the world. No wonder she’s fantasizing about hiding in her store’s secret back room. Renowned poet Raymond Chaucer has published a new collection, but rumors that he’s to blame for his wife’s suicide have led to national cancellations of his publicity tour. Sophie asks Clemi – bookstore events coordinator, aspiring novelist, and daughter of a famed literary agent – to cancel Raymond’s his appearance, too. But that might not work, because Clemi suspects Raymond might be her biological father, and she wants to know for sure. This is a story narrated by two different women, punctuated by political turmoil, a celestial event, and a perpetually broken vacuum cleaner.

Raúl Colón is the illustrator of many picture books, including Draw!; Jill Biden’s Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops; Imagine!; Susanna Reich’s José! Born to Dance; Angela’s Christmas by Frank McCourt; and Cuban American writer Terry Catasús Jennings’ semi-autobiographical The Little House of Hope. Colón lived in Puerto Rico as a young boy and now resides in New York City.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She’s the author of the novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Zyzzyva, among others. Rojas Contreras was raised amid the political violence of the 1980s and ‘90s in Colombia. The house bustled with her fortune-telling mother’s clients. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets” – the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. Mami, the first woman to inherit the secrets, was just as powerful. But for Rojas Contreras, all this was someone else’s legacy, not hers. Until, while living in the U.S. in her twenties, she suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family told her that this had happened before: Decades ago Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to her power. Interweaving family stories, Colombian history, and Rojas Contreras’ deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir (Doubleday) is a testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary.

Yvonne Conza’s writing has appeared in Longreads, The Believer, Catapult, The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, Blue Mesa Review, and other publications. She has been a finalist in several competitions, including the Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard Awards for creative nonfiction and the Raymond Carver Short Story Award. Featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bomb Magazine, Agni, Electric Lit, and Columbia Journal, Conza has interviewed more than 30 top authors, including Natasha Trethewey, Claudia Rankine, Leslie Jamison, Meghan O’Rourke, and Jo Ann Beard. Conza is the co-author of the user-friendly dog training guide Training for Both Ends of the Leash (Penguin). She will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 to moderate the panel “How We Got Here: Issues Confronting Our Country.”

Desiree Cooper is a journalist, community activist, widely published essayist, and the author of Know the Mother. Between 1910 and 1970, more than 6 million African Americans left the Jim Crow South, but they never forgot the culture, the land, and the family they left behind, and it has long been a summer ritual for many Black families to return to the South to visit their homeplaces. In the picture book Nothing Special (Wayne State University Press) – illustrated entirely of repurposed textiles by Bec Sloane – 6-year-old Jax can’t wait to leave Detroit and spend a week with his grandparents in coastal Virginia. He knows they will spoil him with the special things he loves: toys, movies, and hamburgers. As he dreams of his adventures, his PopPop has other ideas. He fills their days with timeless summer fun – crabbing, shucking corn, and counting fireflies. The book is a celebration of the enduring connection between the generations who stayed in the South and the millions of emigrants for whom it will always be home.

Keith Corbin is the James Beard Award-nominated executive chef and co-owner of Alta Adams in Los Angeles, named one of the best restaurants in the country by Esquire, Thrillist, and the Los Angeles Times, and he has been cooking his entire life. Born on the home turf of the notorious Grape Street Crips in 1980s Watts, Los Angeles, Corbin started cooking crack at age 13. He became so skilled that he was flown across the country to cook for drug operations in other cities. His criminal enterprises eventually caught up with him and he spent years in California’s most notorious maximum security prisons, where he witnessed the resourcefulness of other inmates who made kimchi out of leftover vegetables and tamales from ground-up Fritos. In time, he developed his own culinary palate and ingenuity. After his release from prison, Corbin got a job managing the kitchen at Loco, celebrity chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson’s fast food restaurant concept bringing inexpensive, quality food and good jobs to underserved neighborhoods – and was on his way. In California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival (Random House), Corbin talks about his cooking vision and takes readers inside the world of gangs, drug dealing, prison politics, and culinary achievement.