A fun and fully immersive read from cover to cover, Berkeley Noir is a mystery lover's delight.
--Midwest Book Review
A fine work from a talented pool of writers.
--San Francisco Book Review
Berkeley, California: home of a world-class university with a parking lot for Nobel laureates, politically active and correct, volatile, and, yes, a bit seedy, too, if you know where to look. The stories in Akashic's latest noir anthology expose the underbelly of this lovely city...All get their just rewards eventually, and readers will be entertained as they find out how it happens.
--Booklist
Readers will be glad that many of these tales are fun in a way that traditional noir isn't.
--Publishers Weekly
Sixteen new stories reveal the darker side of friendly, funky Berkeley.
--Kirkus Reviews
[A] quietly compelling short story collection.
--Exclusive Magazine
Shanthi Sekaran is a novelist and television writer. Her most recent adult novel, Lucky Boy, was named an Indie Next Great Read, an Amazon Editor's Pick and a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Barnes & Nobel, Library Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and LA Review of Books. In 2021, her middle grade debut, The Samosa Rebellion, won the Northern California Book Award and was named an Amazon Editor's Pick for readers aged 9-13. Her second middle grade novel, Boomi's Boombox, came out in Spring 2023. She recently wrapped up her work on the acclaimed NBC medical drama, "New Amsterdam". She lives in Berkeley, California with her family and a cat named Frog.
Aya de León teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley. She is the acquiring editor for Fighting Chance Books, the new climate justice fiction imprint at She Writes Press. Fighting Chance will publish novels for adults by writers of all genders that tell stories of people taking collective action in the here and now to solve the climate crisis. Fighting Chance is open to all popular genres: crime, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, women’s fiction, urban fiction, and beyond. Aya has published award-winning climate fiction with Kensington Books, including SIDE CHICK NATION (2019), A SPY IN THE STRUGGLE (2020), QUEEN OF URBAN PROPHECY (2021), and THAT DANGEROUS ENERGY (2022). Aya’s YA/MG books include UNTRACEABLE (2023), UNDERCOVER LATINA (2022) and THE MYSTERY WOMAN IN ROOM 3 (free online on Orion Magazine) Aya’s work has also appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Ebony, Guernica, Bitch Magazine, VICE, The Root, and Ploughshares. In spring 2022, she organized an online conference entitled Black Literature vs. the Climate Emergency (available on YouTube). She is working on another climate novel, another YA book and an intersectional memoir.
Owen Hill is the author of two mystery novels, a book of short fiction, and several books of poetry. He has reviewed crime novels for the Los Angeles Times and the East Bay Express. In 2005 he was awarded the Howard Moss residency for poetry at Yaddo. He is currently coediting the Berkeley Noir anthology, forthcoming in 2020. He works at Moe’s Books in Berkeley.
Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, a student at the American University of Cairo, and a waiter at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his first novel The Oracle of Stamboul was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the Sami Rohr Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, the Prix Interallié for Foreign Fiction, and the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal. A graduate of Brown University and the University of Maryland, he is a recipient of scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, New York State Summer Writers’ Institute, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Elizabeth George Foundation. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University.
Summer Brenner was raised in Georgia and migrated west, first to New Mexico and eventually to northern California where she has been a long-time resident. She has published books of poetry and fiction and given scores of readings in the United States, France, and Japan. Her books include: The Missing Lover, illustrations by Lewis Warsh; Ivy, Tale of a Homeless Girl in San Francisco, illustrations by Marilyn Bogerd; Presque nulle part (Gallimard/la serie noire); One Minute Movies; Dancers & the Dance; The Soft Room; From the Heart to the Center; Everyone Came Dressed as Water. “Because the Spirit Moved,” CD of poems in collaboration with poet GP Skratz and musician Andy Dinsmoor, was released in 2004 by Arundo. She has received grants from the California Arts Council; Friends of Berkeley Public Library grant; “Speaking of Reading”/California State Library; and ED. Fund.
J.M. Curét is an Afro-Latinx poet, writer, and author whose short story "Papi's Stroke" was published in The Acentos Review May 2020 issue. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he teaches high school English and Ethnic Studies and lends his voice to several local salsa bands.
Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and prose influenced by film noir and Beat Generation writers.
