Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Smith is the editor in chief of Kirkus Reviews, the nation's leading prepublication journal of book reviews. A member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, he is also the literary director of the San Antonio Book Festival.

Drager is the author of "The Sorrow Proper" (Dzanc, 2015), winner of the 2016 Binghamton University / John Gardner Fiction Award. Originally from Michigan, she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the College of Charleston, where she teaches in the MFA program in fict... Read More →

Maazel is the author of “Woke Up Lonely” and “Last Last Chance.” She is winner of the Bard Fiction Prize and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. Her work has appeared in the Mississippi Review, the New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Salon and the Yale... Read More →

Oloixarac is a fiction writer and essayist. Her novels, "Savage Theories" and "Dark Constellations,” have been translated into seven languages. Her writing has appeared in n+1, The New York Times, and Granta, which named her to its list of Best Young Spanish Novelists. She wrote... Read More →

Wappler has written for Elle, New York Times, Rolling Stone and several other publications. Her debut novel, "Neon Green" (Unnamed Press) has been praised as "witty and entertaining" by the Los Angeles Times and a depiction of "life in the nineties as it was actually lived?" by Electric... Read More →