Biographies
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| Liza Kaplan | Estella Soto | Kevin Biggers |
Liza Kaplan is a Los Angeles native. She attended The John Thomas Dye School and Harvard Westlake School, where she began her writing career, having had multiple plays produced in The Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival. Liza graduated from the University of Southern California in 2006 with highest honors after attending as a Trustee Scholar. She received a BA in Playwriting and Creative Writing, wrote and produced four plays, was the president of the Women’s Theatre Organization, a member of the USC Dance Repertory company, and a contributing writer of Saturday Night Magazine. She currently works as Coordinator of Production at FX Network. She recently created a writers’ workshop that meets weekly to discuss and read works of prose and poetry. Liza has wanted to be a writer ever since she was a little girl. She is thrilled to be able to launch this showcase of literary work with such talented and dedicated writers.
Estella Soto is a fiction writer born and raised in San Diego, California. The middle child of seven offspring scattered between various households nationwide, she is ¾ Mexican and startlingly pale skinned. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Southern California in 2006, with a minor in Theatre Arts. Estella is in her second year at the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Wyoming. Recipient of a travel grant from the Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, as well as the Dick and Lynne Cheney Study Abroad grant, she travelled the Ring Road around the island nation of Iceland, studying the interconnection between landscape and modes of storytelling. Although a sensitive, writerly type, Estella once kicked an ailing pigeon and was surprised by how guilty she afterwards felt. Her response was to kick it a second time; she still feels some degree of remorse.
Kevin Biggers was born in 1985 in Seoul, South Korea. He was adopted a few years later. He grew up in New Jersey. He lives in Los Angeles. He has a BA in journalism from University of Southern California. He works in a duel role as a web developer and product manager for an online kids company. He wrote music reviews for Stylus Magazine and San Diego City Beat. He wrote movie reviews and feature profiles for Yahoo! Movies and Collider. He is working on his first novella. It is about money and not being able to commit suicide. It is tentatively titled ‘External Hard Drive’. He blogs here.
Emily Ansara Baines collects fortune cookie fortunes, sings along with the radio, and loves the color yellow. In a past life she was a cat. When not writing, she's reading. When not reading, she's remembering with fond nostalgia her beloved home city of Los Angeles. Currently, Emily interns at The Onion and resides in Brooklyn where she fights daily battles with hipsters, bums, and an assorted collection of mythical creatures. Emily aspires to finish her novel by the end of 2009, two years after her graduation from The University of Southern California. One day she will live in Paris and speak French while wearing a beret. Emily would like to thank her mother, her friends, and Trader Joes' chocolate cat cookies for their constant nourishment. Her favorite word is murmur.
Ernest Duque writes stories, poems, songs, and plays. At an early pre-literate age, he immersed himself in the brightly-colored panels of comic books, inserting his own words into the inscrutable bubbles hovering next to the heads of super heroes. He considers this the genesis of his writing life. He grew up in Northern California, and then went to college at the University of Southern California. He teaches English to elementary students.
Kevin Sheridan was born and raised in Los Angeles. He began acting professionally at the age of 15. In 2008, Kevin wrote, produced, and starred in his first feature film entitled LEAVING BARSTOW. He also cowrote a pilot that was recently bought by Fox Broadcasting Company. He only enjoys writing when no one is looking. He hopes to one day build a cabin in the woods and live off the fat of the land.
