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Join us Saturday, March 23rd at 8 p.m. for the next Shades & Shadows reading event!

After a long, dark, and very wet winter, slumbering beasts are not the only thing waking up. Shades & Shadows is returning with a new lineup of incredible authors from across the genre spectrum.

We are thrilled to have this lineup, featuring:

 Justin Robinson splits his time between editing comic books, writing prose, and wondering what that disgusting smell is. Degrees in Anthropology and History prepared him for unemployment, but an obsession with horror fiction and a laundry list of phobias provided a more attractive option. He is the author of more than 10 novels in a variety of genres including detective, humor, urban fantasy, and horror.

Justin is the co-host of Tread Perilously a weekly “worst of television” podcast (featured on Fanbase Press).

 

 

 

 

 

 


Joe R. Lansdale has written novels and stories in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. He has also written for comics as well as “Batman: The Animated Series.” As of 2018, he has written 45 novels and published 30 short-story collections along with many chapbooks and comic-book adaptations. His stories have won ten Bram Stoker Awards. a British Fantasy Award, an Edgar Award, a World Horror Convention Grand Master Award, a Sugarprize, a Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, a Spur Award, and a Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and several of his novels have been adapted to film, including the cult hit Bubba Ho-Tep. His new novel, The Elephant of Surprise, hit shelves on March 19th. You can find him online at JoeRLansdale.com.

 

 


Keith McCleary

Keith McCleary is a writer and graphic designer from New York, currently living in Southern California.  He is the author of several graphic novels, as well as assorted prose, poetry, and digital media. Keith holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UC San Diego, and a BFA in Film from NYU. He teaches and writes about comics, composition, and multimedia. His first novel, CIRCUS+THE SKIN, is now available from Kraken Press.

 

 

 

 


 

 

Janet Joyce Holden was born in the North of England, a land of boisterous winds and persistent rain, and currently lives in Southern California where the air is dry, the winds are hot and precipitation is a rare but mostly benevolent gift. She is a writer of dark, supernatural fiction, is the author of Carousel and a number of short stories published in various anthologies. Other activities include photography, mixed media art and dallying with sharp objects: sewing, embroidery, the study of historical European fencing, and the custodianship of twenty or so feisty and decidedly prickly rose shrubs.

 

 

 


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Julia Dixon Evans is author of the novel How to Set Yourself on Fire. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Paper Darts, Pithead Chapel, Fanzine, Flapperhouse, Hobart, San Diego CityBeat, and elsewhere. She is Senior Columns Editor for The Coil (an imprint of Alternating Currents Press), Nonfiction Editor for Noble Gas Qtrly, and hosts the brand new literary reading and workshop series Last Exit. She is the former program director and editor for So Say We All, a literary nonprofit and small press. She lives in San Diego.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hosted by Xach Fromson

Saturday, March 23rd, 8 p.m.
The Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum
3204 W Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91505
Doors open at 8 p.m.

Books will be available for purchase, courtesy of Mysterious Galaxy!

Holy crap, it’s been FIVE YEARS?! It feels like we just started. And in a way, we have. 2018 brought new challenges and new changes to Shades & Shadows, and this event is going to cap off our main Los Angeles events for the year. So we’re going to close out with a BIG BANG. Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning, or this is your very first time coming to one of our events, you’ll be in for a spectacular treat as we give you a phenomenal lineup of authors.

And, if you’ve been to an anniversary show before, you know there is one other thing to expect: CAKE.

 

We’ve got more than just cake, though. This lineup is out of this world. No, really, not a single thing takes place in a world you’d recognize.

 

Bree Barton is a novelist, ghostwriter, and dance teacher in Los Angeles. Heart of Thorns is her debut YA trilogy.


Maura Milan is a short, Filipino girl from Chicago, IL. Now, she resides in Los Angeles, where she can be found in cafes all throughout Koreatown, drinking green tea lattes and writing and writing and writing. In her free time, Maura enjoys watching Korean soap operas and eating rice krispie treats.

Maura received a BA from USC’s School of Cinema-Television and has placed a number of short films in festivals all over the United States. Her most notable and favorite short film, “Crocodile,” is based on her days running around the Australian outback during her summer vacations visiting the Aussie side of her family.

To this day, Gilbert Blythe is her ultimate boy crush.


Steven Barnes is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist and screenwriter who is the creator of the Lifewriting™ writing course, which he has taught nationwide. He recently won an NAACP Image Award as co-author of the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series with actor Blair Underwood and his wife, Tananarive Due.

Nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Cable Ace awards, writer of the Emmy-winning “A Stitch In Time” episode of The Outer Limits, winner of the Endeavor and the NAACP Image Awards, NY Times Bestselling author, Steven has written comic books, animation, newspaper copy, magazine articles, television scripts and three million words of published fiction published in seven languages, making him one of the world’s most honored, diverse and popular writers.

Once a nationally ranked karate competitor, he now makes his home in Southern California with his wife, American Book Award winner Tananarive Due, and his son, Jason.


Maria Alexander is a produced screenwriter, games writer, virtual world designer, award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer, prolific fiction writer and poet. Since 1999, her stories have appeared in acclaimed publications and anthologies.

Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Publisher’s Weekly called it, “(a) splendid, bittersweet ode to the ghosts of childhood,” while Library Journal hailed it in a Starred Review as “a horror novel to anticipate.” Her breakout YA novel, Snowed, was unleashed on November 2, 2016, by Raw Dog Screaming Press. It won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel and was nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children’s/YA Novel. She’s represented by Alex Slater at Trident Media Group.

When she’s not stabbing someone with a foil or cutting targets with a katana, she’s being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog.


Jeff Sweat has made a living from words his entire career, starting out as an award-winning tech journalist for InformationWeek magazine and moving into marketing.

He led the content marketing team for Yahoo and pioneered its use of social media. He directed PR for two of the top advertising agencies in the country, Deutsch LA and 72andSunny. He now runs his own Los Angeles–based PR and marketing agency, Mister Sweat.

He grew up in Idaho as the middle of eight children—seven boys and one girl—and attended Columbia University in New York. Jeff lives in a big blue house in Los Angeles with his wife Sunny and their three kids, two cats, and a racing greyhound.

He loves to travel and writes everywhere he goes, even when there’s not a desk. He likes karaoke, motorcycles and carpentry. He was once shot in the head with a nail gun, which was not a big of a deal as it sounds. But it still hurt like crazy.


Doors open at 8 p.m.

3204 W Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91505
$10 tickets available at the door and online.

We’re celebrating LATFOB (that’s the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books for those of you who aren’t familiar with the acronym) by bringing together some truly exceptional authors to discuss the changing role genre fiction plays in an increasingly polarized world. And we’re doing it at The Last Bookstore. We’ll get things rolling at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 21st!

Stories set in alternative realities, whether it’s the future, a mythical past, an alternate present, or something else, have always offered a commentary on society. When that society becomes more oppressive, those stories take on increased importance and significance.
 
Join Shades & Shadows and a panel of extraordinary authors as we discuss how that role of social critic is changing or has changed in the post-fact, post-truth, fake news landscape of America.

Let us know you’re coming!

 


 

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of Walkaway, a novel for adults, a YA graphic novel called In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, and young adult novels like HomelandPirate Cinema, and Little Brother, and novels for adults like Rapture of the Nerds and Makers. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.

 


 

Gretchen McNeil is the author of several young adult horror/suspense novels for Balzer + Bray including Possess3:59RelicGet EvenGet Dirty, and the award-winning Ten which was a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, a Romantic Times Top Pick, and an ALA Booklist Top Ten Horror Fiction for Youth. In 2016, Gretchen published her first YA comedy I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and her next novel will be the horror-comedy #murdertrending for Disney/Freeform, releasing August 7, 2018 with the sequel #murderfuning to follow in 2019.  Ten: Murder Island, the film adaptation of Ten starring China Anne McClain (Descendants 2, Black Lightning) and Rome Flynn (The Bold and the Beautiful) premiered on Lifetime in 2017.

 


 

Jennifer Brody is the award-winning author of the The 13th Continuum. Her book sold in a 3-book deal and is being packaged into a feature film. The book is a Gold Medal Winner (Young Adult – Sci-Fi/Fantasy) from the Independent Publisher‘s Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. Return of the Continuums and The United Continuums complete this epic trilogy. Translation rights to her books have sold in multiple territories, most notably Russia and China. Her short fiction appears in the From the Stars anthology and Common Deer Press Short Tails. She is a graduate of Harvard University, a creative writing instructor at the Writing Pad, and a volunteer mentor for the Young Storytellers Foundation She’s also a board member for the non-profit writing competitions the Roswell Award and the TomorrowPrize. After studying film at Harvard University, Jennifer began her career in Hollywood. Highlights include working for Platinum Dunes and New Line Cinema, most notably on The Lord of the Rings, The Golden Compass, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She lives and writes in LA with her husband and one-eyed Goldendoodle named Commander Ryker.

 


 

 

Christina Cigala is a story teller based in Los Angeles. She writes and produces for MTV, Fox, 30 Seconds to Mars, Fox, Syfy, Spike, and Jared Leto. As a playwright and theater director, her work is widely produced in regional theaters, New York, and LA. She has an MFA in Playwriting from the Actors Studio Drama School and a BA from Baylor University. Her first novel, XX v XY, was released by Simon & Schuster in Fall 2017.

 

 

Bobby Goldstein is the president of Bobby Goldstein Productions and the creator of Cheaters, one of the longest-running syndicated shows in history, now airing daily in 215 U. S. markets and in over 100 foreign countries. Goldstein has become recognized for his ability to spot cultural trends and capitalize on rebellious ideas.

 

 


 

CB Lee is a bisexual Chinese-Vietnamese American writer whose novels include the Sidekick Squad series, a young adult science fiction adventure that follow queer teens who take on a corrupt government superhero agency, and also the fantasy Seven Tears At High Tide. Lee’s first novel in the Sidekick Squad series, Not Your Sidekick was a 2017 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in YA/Children’s Fiction and a 2017 Bisexual Book Awards Finalist in Speculative Fiction. Seven Tears at High Tide was the recipient of a Rainbow Award for Best Bisexual Fantasy Romance and also a finalist for the 2016 Bisexual Book Awards in the YA and Speculative Fiction categories.

 

 


 

Michael Paul Gonzalez is the author of the novels Angel Falls and Miss Massacre’s Guide to Murder and Vengeance. His newest project is the serial horror audio drama Larkspur Underground, available for free on iTunes and Stitcher. A member of the Horror Writers Association, his short stories have appeared in print and online, including Great Jones Street, Lost Signals, Gothic Fantasy, The Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, HeavyMetal.com, and many more. You can visit him online at MichaelPaulGonzalez.com

 


 

Kate Maruyama’s novel Harrowgate was published in 2013 by 47North. Her short work has appeared in numerous journals in print and online and she has been anthologized in Winter Horror Days, Halloween Carnival and Phantasma: Stories. She teaches at Antioch University Los Angeles in the BA and MFA programs and for Writing Workshops LA as well as online with inspiration2publication.com. She writes, teaches, cooks, and eats in Los Angeles where she lives with her family.

 


 

Samuel Sattin is a novelist and comics creator. He is the writer of the forthcoming Glint trilogy and Bezkamp (2019), LegendThe Silent EndLeague of Somebodies, and Adventure Quest. His work has appeared or been featured in The NibThe AtlanticNerdist, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Paste Magazine, Salonio9, Kotaku, Vulture, Bleeding Cool, The Fiction Advocate, The Rumpus, The Good Men Project, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts and has a creative writing MFA from Mills College. He is the director of a toy company in Oakland, California, and teaches at the California College of the Arts.

 

 


 

The panel will be moderated by host and founder Xach Fromson.

 

Please note that The Last Bookstore has limited capacity (a mere 300!), so get here early.

Those wishing to get books signed will be asked to purchase a copy of the author’s title from The Last Bookstore. Any outside books must be checked with security upon entering the store. This policy applies to all Last Bookstore events unless otherwise noted. Save your receipt; it will be checked when you enter the signing line.