Chris Campion is a British journalist, author, ghost writer, and filmmaker living in Joshua Tree. His work, exploring the extremes of popular culture, has appeared in The Guardian, Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Vice, and other publications. He is the editor of The War is Here: Newark 1967 (ZE Books), the co-writer (with guitarist Kid Congo Powers) of Some New Kind of Kick (Hachette), and the director of Markland Mountain, a forthcoming documentary about the western movie actor who helped establish the pop culture mythos and mystique of Joshua Tree.

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Trinie Dalton is an author, artist, and professor. Her multidisciplinary approach to writing and bookmaking leads her into various fields, always with an eye toward expanded narrativity and books as objects. Trinie Dalton has published six books, most recently Baby Geisha (Two Dollar Radio). Other fiction titles include Wide Eyed (Akashic), a story collection, and Sweet Tomb (Madras Press), a fairytale novella. Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is (McSweeney’s) is a transformation of her archive of confiscated high school notes into a collaboration between fifty artists. Mythtym (Picturebox) is an art/fiction anthology based on mythological monsters and horror. She also makes sundry artists’ books and printed matter.

Greg Gilbert is a retired English Professor and the current Board President at Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree, CA. His book, Butchy’s Rainbow, is the story of a three-generation household in post-war Los Angeles and the horrific events that necessitated their move into the political and social maelstrom that was San Bernardino in the mid-1950’s. Butchy’s Rainbow is available at Amazon Books.

R. Gurley, MA, MFA, is a writer and English teacher with over 20 years of experience with words, whose works have appeared in Coping Magazine, Lehigh Valley Woman’ s Journal, and Budget Press..

Gabriel Hart is an author and journalist from Morongo Valley, CA. His debut novel On High at Red Tide is forthcoming in September 2024 from Pig Roast Publishing. Other works include the neo-pulp collection Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell (Close to the Bone, 2021), the dispo-pocalyptic twin-novellas Virgins In Reverse / The Intrusion (Traveling Shoes Press, 2019), and two poetry collections Unsongs and Hymns from The Whipping Post (Close to the Bone). His short stories can be found at Expat Press, Hobart Pulp, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, and Rock and A Hard Place magazine, from where his story "Crossing Alvarado" was nominated for Best American Mystery and Suspense in 2022. Hart was a contributor at Lit Reactor, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and has recently launched the print literature/arts magazine Beyond the Last Estate. Hart is also the co-producer of Mil-Tree's Mojave Noir reading series and reports daily at Z1077fm.com

Ximena José is a first generation Venezuelan-American poet and writer exploring themes of potentiality, divinity and the Self. Her writing and artist studio is based in Twentynine Palms.

Sant Khalsa is an artist, curator, educator, and activist whose work develops from a mindful inquiry into complex environmental and societal issues. She was recently honored with the prestigious California Art Council Individual Artist Fellowship Legacy Artist Award (2023-24). Sant Khalsa’s artworks are widely exhibited, published, and collected by museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, National Galleries of Scotland and UCR California Museum of Photography. Her artworks are published in numerous books including two monographs, Crystal Clear || Western Waters (Minor Matters, 2022) with a foreword by Ed Ruscha and Prana: Life with Trees (Griffith Moon/MOAH Lancaster, 2019). Khalsa is a Professor of Art, Emerita at California State University, San Bernardino and lives in Joshua Tree, California.

Steve Lech is a native Riversider who has been interested in the local history of Riverside County for more than 40 years. He has written or co-written 15 books on various topics related to Riverside County history, including Along the Old Roads – A History of the Portion of Southern California That Became Riverside County, 1772-1893, considered to be the definitive history of Riverside County. He co-authors the weekly “Back in the Day” column for the Press-Enterprise newspaper in which he explores many aspects of local history throughout western Riverside County. He has been a docent at the historic Mission Inn hotel for 35 years, is currently the Director of Docent Training for the Mission Inn Foundation and is the chair of the Riverside County Historical Commission and past chair of the City of Riverside’s Cultural Heritage Board.

Like the stories in her first published fiction “Road to Soul”, Carmen’s background is eclectic; from working as an Interpretative Ranger with the National Park Service to currently being an Executive Professional Life Coach in private practice and with a vendor for the Department of Interior. Carmen has traveled many roads in her lifetime with her favorites being the backroads of Colorado and the Mojave Desert of her youth.

Ruth Nolan is editor of “No Place for a Puritan: the Literature of California's Deserts”. A former wildland firefighter in the Mojave Desert and beyond, her desert-centric writing has most recently been published in “Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California” (Angel City Press) Boom, California; McSweeney's; East Bay Times; KCET Los Angeles; Joshua Tree: Where Two Deserts Meet (Wildsam Guide); Los Angeles Fiction: Southland Writing by Southland Writers (Red Hen Press;) Campfire Stories Volume II: Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails. She is the author of the poetry books “After the Dome Fire” and “Ruby Mountain”, and is Professor of English and creative writing at College of the Desert. She lives in 29 Palms.

J.D. O’Brien was educated by nuns and holds a degree from the Jack Dempsey Bartending School in New York City. He edited the comedy zine Flop Sweat and his writing has appeared in Arthur Magazine, Dazed and Confused, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. His essay on Chevy Chase was anthologized in The Lowbrow Reader Reader, published by Drag City Books. He has worked as a bartender, cold caller, dishwasher, and Strand Bookstore employee. After stints in New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, he returned to his home of western Massachusetts. He has a dog named Lefty.

Cindy Rinne creates poetry, zines, and fiber art in San Bernardino, CA. Her poems have appeared in anthologies, art exhibits, and dance performances. Cindy is the author of several books: Dancing Through the Fire Door (Nauset Press), Today on Two Planets (Written by Veterans), The Feather Ladder (Picture Show Press) and more.

Kelli Shapiro, PhD, is a public historian, historic preservationist, and local history author from Southern California. She holds degrees from Pomona College, Texas State University, and Brown University. She has written two books for Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series: 2024's "Inland Empire and San Gabriel Valley Movie Theatres" and 2018's "Historic Movie Theatres of West Virginia" (the latter done as the Preservation Alliance of WV's Program Associate). She has also authored successful state landmark nominations in California and Texas; academic journal articles; and entries for several encyclopedias.

Kurt Schauppner has been editor of The Desert Trail for nearly a quarter of a century. He is active in local community theaters and recently appeared in the Theatre 29 production of "Man of La Mancha." He has written several plays, including "Somewhere Near Damascus," which was performed in readers theater in March. His books include "Ghosts of Ide County," and the short story collection "Songs Without Words." His latest project is a novella, "Signs Of Life."

John Sierpinski lives in Yucca Valley, California. His two poetry collections: "Sucker Hole" and "Vacancy/No Vacancy" were published by Cholla Needles Arts and Literary Library.

Leslie and Stephen Shaw both have a lifelong love affair with the subject of ufology, they are very well read in the genre and both consider themselves to be armchair ufologists. They’ve both been UFO witnesses. Stephen and his extended family all have had missing time incidents and are likely to be UFO abductees.

Leslie Shaw has been a journalist for the last 18 years. She is now semi-retired, working only part time for a newspaper, and she decided to write “Who They Are: And What They're Up To” with her new-found extra time.

Stephen is her fellow researcher, theorist and sound board for the project. He worked with his father as a cabinetmaker and builder while putting himself through medical school. He was a state-licensed practitioner of Chinese medicine and acupuncture for 20 years and a teacher of the Yang and Chen styles of Tai Chi Chuan for 23 years.

Mike Stillman first traveled on Route 66 as an infant in his parents' Rambler during the summer of 1960. He may be the only person who remembers the layout of the gold mine that his father invested in (and received little in return). In his early 20's, Stillman wrote fiction and poetry that appeared in Mendocino Review, Permafrost, Metrosphere, and Wordeater. For decades, he worked in Chicago as a Software Engineer and I.T. Specialist, but was always thinking of the desert and visiting on vacations. In 2016, he retired and moved to the Joshua Tree area, where he wrote the historical novel "In The Joshua Sea" over seven years.ription goes here

Michael G. Vail is a novelist, short-story author and poet. His most recent book, High Desert Elegy: Stories & Poems, and his novel, The Salvation of San Juan Cajon, are available at several locations in the Morongo Basin and on Amazon. A California native, Michael divides his time between San Clemente and a former homestead cabin in Twentynine Palms.

Susan Zakin is the author of Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement, which established her as a trenchant, irreverent commentator on U.S. environmental politics. After covering the anti-environmental backlash in Washington, D.C. as a magazine columnist and syndicated newspaper columnist, in 2001, she lived in Madagascar as the Sen. John Heinz Fellow in Environmental Reporting. That experience led her to writing about international issues, from coup d'etats and Boko Haram to reggae in refugee camps. In 2020, she founded Journal of the Plague Year, an online magazine of journalism and literary writing that is a response to the Balkanization that's impoverished both journalism and creative nonfiction. The magazine's writers include Blanche McCrary Boyd, Steve Erickson, Mikal Gilmore and other writers whose work is marked by urgency and beauty. The Journal has been compared to The Village Voice in its heyday. www.journaloftheplagueyear.ink.