Noir at the Bar

Fabienne Josaphat is the author of Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow (Unnamed Press). She was born and raised in Haiti, and graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. She writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as screenplays. Her work has been featured in The Master’s Review, Grist Journal, Damselfly, Hinchas de Poesia, Off the Coast Journal and The Caribbean Writer. In her debut novel, Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow (Unnamed Press), set in 60s Haiti under the brutal rule of Francois Duvalier, a taxi driver whose activist brother has been imprisoned in the infamous Fort Dimanche, plunges himself into a dangerous scheme that might save his brother—or get them both killed.

Joe Clifford is the acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and managing editor of The Flash Fiction Offensive. He is also the producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, California, and the author of Choice Cuts, Wake the Undertaker, Junkie Love, and Lamentation. In his second Jay Porter novel, December Boys (Oceanview Publishing), Porter finds himself thrust back into a past he had hoped to leave behind, putting everything—and everyone he loves—at risk in pursuit of the truth.

Mike Creeden’s writing has appeared in Tigertail, Miami Living, The Florida Book Review, Everything is Broken, and Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen. In his debut novel, All Your Lies Came True (Gutter Books), failed rocker Declan "Deck" St. James lives in L.A., eking out an existence writing click-bait for scandal sheets. When his old friend Art Schulman—sobriety coach to the stars—shows up and invites Deck to Joshua Tree to check out a hot new band, the drunk and drug-addled Deck passes on what he thinks is a thinly-veiled intervention. Two days later, Art is found dead of a mysterious overdose. With the help of his ex-bandmate and former best friend Stevie, Deck launches an investigation and quickly learns nothing is what it seems.

John Dufresne is the author of six novels, including Requiem, Mass., Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little, and No Regrets, Coyote, as well as two guides to writing fiction: The Lie That Tells a Truth and Is Life Like This? Among other honors, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a professor in the MFA program at Florida International University. I Don’t Like Where This Is Going (W.W. Norton) continues the misadventures of therapist-on-the-run Wylie “Coyote” Melville. The witness to a death outside the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, and troubled by the ensuing cover-up, Wylie becomes a man on a mission, enlisting the help of his old friend, an ace card player and master magician, to help find answers.

Miami native, Alex Segura is a novelist, comic book writer, and musician. He is the author of Silent City, and the Archie Meets Kiss series and graphic novel from Archie Comics. Alex also performs regularly in New York as part of the indie rock group Faulkner Detectives.  Segura’s latest novel, Down the Darkest Street (Polis Books), is the hard-boiled sequel to Silent City, a tale of redemption, survival and the sordid backstreets of Miami. Pete Fernandez should be dead. His life — professional and personal — is in ruins. His best friend is dead. His newspaper career is past tense. His ex is staying with him as her own marriage crumbles. On top of that, the former journalist finds himself in the eye of a dangerous storm; investigating a missing girl with an unexpected partner and inching closer and closer to a vicious, calculating killer cutting a swath of blood across Miami — while at the same time battling his own personal demons.

Les Standiford is the bestselling author of more than twenty books and novels, including the John Deal mystery series, and the works of narrative history The Man Who Invented Christmas (a New York Times Editor's Choice) and Last Train to Paradise. He is the director of the creative writing program at Florida International University. In Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles (Ecco), Les Standiford tells the story of the largest public water project ever created—William Mulholland’s Los Angeles aqueduct. One of the greatest civil engineering feats in history, the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles—allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-than-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before, Water to the Angels sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future.

Lynne Barrett is the award-winning author of the story collections The Secret Names of Women, The Land of Go, and, most recently, Magpies, which received the Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for General Fiction. What Editors Want: A Must Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines is forthcoming from Rain Chain Press. Her work has appeared in Fifteen Views of Miami, Trouble in the Heartland, The Southern Women's Review, Fort Lauderdale Magazine, Blue Christmas, and many other anthologies and journals. She has received the Edgar Award for best mystery story, and fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches in the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at Florida International University and edits The Florida Book Review.

M.J.Fièvre is a poet, essayist, short story writer, translator and the author of numerous French-language novels. Her most recent works are the English-language memoir, A Sky the Color of Chaos, chronicling her upbringing in the turbulent Haitian ’80s and ’90s, and I Am Riding, A children’s book written in English, French and Haitian Creole. She is an avid blogger and has taught at Miami-Dade College and Broward College.

Neliza Drew used to write ad copy before turning to crime (fiction). Her debut novel, All the Bridges Burning about a former prostitute who’s been called “hauntingly real,” “kicks a boatload of ass.”  Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Protectors 2: Heroes and Feeding Kate.

Vicki Hendricks is the author of noir novels Miami Purity, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, Sky Blues, and Cruel Poetry, the latter a finalist for an Edgar Award in 2008. She has published two short story collections, Florida Gothic Stories and Dangerous Sex: Three Stories and an additional novel, Fur People.