Pride on the Page

Wondrous Words:
New Fiction from LGBTQ+ Voices

Moderator: Alex Espinoza

Panelists: Melissa Chadburn, Rachel M. Harper, Celia Laskey and David Perry

Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico to parents from the state of Michoacán. He graduated from the University of California-Riverside, then went on to earn an MFA from UC-Irvine’s Program in Writing. His first novel, Still Water Saints, was published by Random House in 2007. His second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, was published by Random House in March 2013. His awards include a 2009 Margaret Bridgeman Fellowship in Fiction to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a 2014 Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. His latest is Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime (Unnamed Press 2019). Alex teaches at UC-Riverside where he serves as the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing. 

Melissa Chadburn is the author of the debut novel A Tiny Upward Shove (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Chadburn is a worker lover and through her own labor and literary citizenship strives to upend economic violence. Her mother taught her how to sharpen a pencil with a knife and she’s basically been doing that ever since. She is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of Southern California.

Rachel M. Harper is the author of three novels: THE OTHER MOTHER, a Time Best Book of the Month and Book Riot Best Book of 2022 so far; THIS SIDE OF PROVIDENCE, shortlisted for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and BRASS ANKLE BLUES, a Borders’ Original Voices Award finalist and Target Breakout Book. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been widely published and anthologized. Harper has received fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell, and is on the faculty at Spalding University's Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing. She lives in Los Angeles with her wife and children.

Celia Laskey is the author of So Happy for You and Under the Rainbow, a finalist for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her other work has appeared in Guernica, The Minnesota Review, Day One and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Los Angeles with her wife and their dog Whiskey.

David Eugene Perry is the founder and CEO of the public relations firm David Perry & Associates, Inc. For 10 years, he was the host and creator of 10 Percent TV, the longest running LGBTQ TV show in California history. He and his husband, Alfredo Casuso, live in Palm Springs with frequent trips to San Francisco, and when possible, Orvieto and Spain. His first novel, Upon This Rock, has been critically acclaimed, including praise from Tales of The City author Armistead Maupin who called the book “an elegant, twisty thriller” and from Fenton Johnson who said Upon This Rock is “the gay DaVinci Code but a lot better.” Upon This Rock is the winner of the 2021 Ben Franklin Silver Medal from the Independent Book Publishers Association and “Best Gay Book of 2021” from the San Francisco Book Festival.