A Day of Authors 2023

ALPHA – the Professional Auxiliary of the Fullerton Assistance League. Fullerton is part of the National Assistance League which has over 22,000 members in 120 chapters nationwide focused on making our communities a better place to live.  The Fullerton Chapter supports the local communities of Fullerton, Brea, Placentia, Yorba Linda, La Habra, and Buena Park. Would like to join? Please email at alpha.fullerton@yahoo.com or visit Facebook pages: A Day of Authors or Alpha of Fullerton. To RSVP to A Day of Authors Event click here

ALPHA has finalized their authors for the event and know you it will be as excited to hear them speak.  They are:

Gregg Hurwitz

Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times, #1 internationally bestselling author of 23 thrillers, including the Orphan X series, and two award-winning thriller novels for teens. His novels have won numerous literary awards, graced top ten lists, and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently serves as the Co-President of International Thriller Writers (ITW).

Gregg has written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to many of the major studios (including SWEET GIRL and THE BOOK OF HENRY), and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. He is also a New York Times best-selling comic book writer, having penned stories for AWA (Knighted and the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), Marvel (Wolverine, Punisher), and DC (Batman, Penguin). He has published poetry, and numerous academic articles on Shakespeare, taught fiction writing in the USC English Department, and guest lectured for UCLA, and Harvard in the United States and internationally. In 2022, he helped write the opening ceremony of the World Cup. In the course of researching his thrillers, he has sneaked onto demolition ranges with Navy SEALs, swum with sharks in the Galápagos, and gone undercover into mind-control cults.

Currently, Gregg is actively working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he’s produced several hundred commercials that got over a hundred million views on digital TV platforms. His editorial pieces have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Bulwark, and others. Read More

Corban Addison

The Story Behind the Stories in the author’s words

In the summer of 2008, while I was practicing law and writing books no one wanted to publish, I had an idea for a novel that would open doors long closed to me and inaugurate my journey as an author.

First published in 2012, A Walk Across the Sun went on to be an international bestseller and inspired a multi-year odyssey of travel and research that gave rise to three more novels like it, all deeply steeped in the truth of the world and addressing issues of global human rights.

​For years, friends encouraged me to try my hand at nonfiction. “Your books already read like it,” they said. I told them, “Find me a true story that I can write with the narrative tension and emotional intimacy of a novel and that will captivate readers from the first page to the last, and I’ll tell it.”

​Wastelands is that story. I hope to write many more like it. Read More

 

Eleanor Brown

Photo by Joe Henson, NYC

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of three novels: Any Other

Family, The Weird Sisters, and The Light of Paris.

Her writing has been hailed by People magazine as “delightful” and “creative and original” by Library Journal.

In addition to her fiction writing, Eleanor edited the anthology A Paris All Your Own. Her book reviews, interviews, and essays have been featured in publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Publishers Weekly.

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor lives with her family in Colorado. Read More

 

Chris Erskine

Erskine, a 25-year columnist for the Los Angeles Times and best-selling author, who has written compellingly about the deaths of his wife and son, is the master of the silver lining. His recent retirement from the Los Angeles Times signaled the start of a new chapter of Erskine’s writing as he takes his talents to his newly-formed blog www.chriserskinela.com. It’s here that his bi-weekly blog posts and monthly newsletters continue to chronicle the foibles, mischief, and antics of his day-to-day life. From what some might call a sorry attempt at partial retirement to the lessons he learns as he single-handedly raises his teenage son, dreams of one-day dating again, to his shameless campaigning to be a grandfather, it’s now covered in the new blog. Read More

Michelle Gable

in the author’s words

I’m the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of A PARIS APARTMENT, I’LL SEE YOU IN PARIS, THE BOOK OF SUMMER, THE SUMMER I MET JACK, and THE BOOKSELLER’S SECRET, which launched in August 2021 and is already a national and Canadian bestseller! I also have numerous books that will forever remain stored on my computer or in my childhood bedroom.

I grew up in sunny San Diego and began writing in fourth grade after my parents gave me a book called Someday You’ll Write. I started with short stories and eventually elevated to terrible high school novels in which people sported “white pumps” and the protagonist said things like “His name was Justin. He was tall, almost 5’2.” According to lifelong friends, I turned every playdate and slumber party into a writing group.

With authorial aspirations in mind, I attended The College of William & Mary and majored in…accounting. As one does. After graduation, I pursued a career in finance, but through it all, I wrote. Nearly every day. I wrote at five o’clock in the morning, or eleven o’clock at night, or while my children assembled their own school lunches (yes, while working full-time). Several of my earlier novels were written almost entirely by hand, sitting behind softball dugouts or in the car while my daughters warmed up pitching. That, my friends, is my #1 tip for becoming a published author. You write. No matter what. Read More

Naomi Hirahara

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. The seventh and final Mas Arai mystery is Hiroshima Boy, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for best paperback original. Her first historical mystery is Clark and Division, which follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. Her second Leilani Santiago Hawai‘i mystery, An Eternal Lei, is scheduled to be released in 2022. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. Read More

Salina Yoon

in the author’s words

I was born Yoon Ah, in Busan, Korea in 1972, and was raised in a small rural town. There was no television. I remember my grandmother flashing beams of sunlight making them dance with two mirrors against a wall. (My kids watch t.v..) I remember eating snow off the low thatched roofs for fun. (My kids get snow cones from the ice cream truck.) I remember playing with rocks and sticks. (My kids prefer marbles and Lincoln Logs). I came to the United States in 1976 at age 4, which was when I was given my current name, “Salina.”

Today, I am an author, illustrator, and format designer of nearly two hundred innovative novelty books for young children, specializing in formats that are unique and interactive. I love to create books that have play-appeal like Rock & Roll COLORS, that make kids laugh and learn like OPPOSNAKES, and that surprise and mesmerize like KALEIDOSCOPE.

Many of my books have flaps, tabs, die-cuts, and wheels. Some are spinny, sparkly, bumpy, and even pop-up! Some are soft and squishy, some are shaped and shiny, and some are simply square.

Recently, I created a character named Penguin for a picture book series who will make his debut with PENGUIN AND PINECONE, with Walker & Company. Read More