Brooklyn Noir

Pearl Abraham is the author of the novels The Romance Readerand Giving Up America. Recent essays have appeared in the Michigan Quarterly, the Forward, and Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines. Abraham teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College. The Seventh Beggar, her third novel, will be published in September 2004.

Nicole Blackman (www.nicoleblackman.com) lives in an undisclosed Brooklyn neighborhood where she prefers eavesdropping on unsuspecting people. She is the creator of the innovative “The Courtesan Tales” performance, and author of the poetry collection Blood Sugar (Akashic, 2002). She is currently wanted for questioning in the disappearance of three men in Brooklyn.

Ken Bruen, author of The Guards and The Killing of the Tinkers, is published around the world. He has been an English teacher in Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South America. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

NELSON GEORGE is an author, filmmaker, and lifelong resident of Brooklyn. His books include the first four novels in his D Hunter mystery series: The Accidental Hunter, The Plot Against Hip Hop, The Lost Treasures of R&B, and To Funk and Die in LA, all available from Akashic Books. Among his many nonfiction works are The Death of Rhythm & Blues, Hip Hop America, and The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style. As a filmmaker he has directed the documentaries Brooklyn Boheme, Finding the Funk, and A Ballerina's Tale. He was also a writer/producer on the Netflix series The Get Down.

Luciano Guerriero, a contributor to Akashic’s Brooklyn Noir, recently completed his first noir novel, The Spin. His fourth play, Fireman’s Dance, will be produced in New York City in the fall of 2005. Luciano has acted in or directed seventy-five plays, and has appeared in twenty Hollywood and independent films, and in many television shows.

Kenji Jasper wrote the best-selling novel Dark in Atlanta just after finishing his degree at Morehouse College. His articles for Creative Loafing, Upscale, and Rappages helped to take the careers of groups like Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Arrested Development national. His novel Cake, written under the pseudonym D, takes place on his college stomping grounds. Jasper’s next novel, Nostrand Avenue, will be published by Kensington Books in 2018. He lives in Los Angeles.

Norman Kelley is the author of the “noir soul” Nina Halligan mystery series, which includes Black Heat, The Big Mango, and A Phat Death. He is also the author of Head Negro in Charge Syndrome, forthcoming from Nation Books, and he edited and contributed to R&B (Rhythm and Business): The Political Economy of Black Music (Akashic, 2002). He currently resides in Brooklyn.

Robert Knightly is a trial lawyer in the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society. In another life, he was a lieutenant in the New York City Police Department. This is his first published fiction, which is a piece of a first novel, Bodies in Winter. He was born and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the locale of the story.

Lou Manfredo was born and raised in Brooklyn. He is a former New York City public school teacher and legal investigator. The father of one daughter, Nicole, he currently lives in New Jersey with his wife, Joanne, and their long-haired dachshund. Mr. Manfredo recently completed his first novel.

Ellen Miller is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Like Being Killed. Her fiction and essays have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, most recently Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge. She has taught creative writing at New York University, the New School, and the women’s unit of a federal prison. She lives in New York City and is at work on her second novel.

Thomas Morrissey is an Army brat who grew up in exotic locations like Okinawa, Heidelberg, and Staten Island. He began writing when, as a child, he found great pleasure playing with his mother’s Sears portable typewriter. His first novel, Faustus Resurrectus, is on the way.

ARTHUR NERSESIAN is the author of fourteen books, including the cult-classic national best seller The Fuck-Up (more than 100,000 copies sold), Suicide Casanova, Manhattan Loverboy, East Village Tetralogy, and Mesopotamia. He is a native New Yorker who runs a writing workshop in the East Village and can be reached on Facebook.

Sidney Offit is a novelist, author of books for young readers, teacher, member of the board of the PEN American Center, president of the Authors Guild Foundation, and curator of the George Polk Journalism Awards that originate from Long Island University’s Brooklyn center. During the mid-fifties he covered the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and that other team from New York for Baseball Magazine. His most recent book is Memoir of the Bookie’s Son.

Neal Pollack, “The Greatest Living American Writer,” is the author of 10 previously published books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling memoirs Alternadad and Stretch, the cult classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, the novels Never Mind The Pollacks, Jewball, Repeat, and Keep Mars Weird, and Downward-Facing Death and Open Your Heart, a pair of “yoga mysteries.” Pollack is currently the editor-in-chief of Book and Film Globe. His 25-year freelance writing credits include a column in Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Journal, Slate, Salon, Nerve, The Federalist, The Drive, Yahoo!, Esquire, The Jewish Daily Forward, Decider, and many other publications large and small. A three-time Jeopardy! Champion, a former correspondent for The Cannabist, and a certified yoga instructor, Pollack lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife (the painter Regina Allen), their son Elijah, and a Boston Terrier named Briar.

C.J. Sullivan’s idol growing up was Chicago Cub legend Billy Williams. He works by day as a Court Clerk in Brooklyn Supreme and by night as a reporter for the New York Post. The two loves in his life are his twin girls: Luisa Marie and Olivia Kathleen Sullivan. He lives in New York City.