George Pelecanos is the author of nineteen novels set in and around Washington, DC. He served as a writer and producer on HBO’s The Wire, The Pacific, and, most recently, Treme. He edited both DC Noir and DC Noir 2: The Classics for Akashic Books.
Robert Andrews, former Green Beret and CIA officer, has lived in Washington, D.C. for over thirty years. His last three novels, and A Murder of Justice, feature Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps, homicide detectives in the Metropolitan Police Department.
Jim Beane was born at Garfield Hospital in Washington, D.C. and spent his early childhood in Michigan Park near the city line. He grew up in the ’burbs. His stories have appeared in the Baltimore Review, the Potomac Review, and the Long Story. He lives in Prince George’s County, Maryland with his wife and daughters.
Ruben Castaneda covered the D.C. crime beat for the Washington Post from 1989 through the mid-1990s. He has also written for the Washington Post Magazine, the California Journal, and Hispanic Magazine. A native of Los Angeles, Castaneda, forty-four, lives in Washington.
Richard Currey grew up in Washington, D.C. and environs and lives there today. His stories have appeared in O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Story collections, aired on National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts series, and performed at Symphony Space in New York. His novel Lost Highway was reissued in 2005 in print and as an audiobook.
Jennifer Howard, a native of Washington, D.C., grew up in the Palisades section of town, around the corner from the old MacArthur Theatre. Her fiction, essays, reviews, and features have appeared in the Washington Post (where she was a contributing editor from 1995–2005), VQR, the Boston Review, Slate, the Blue Moon Review, Salon, New York Magazine, and other publications. She now lives on Capitol Hill with her husband, the writer Mark Trainer, and their two children.
Lester Irby was born and raised in Northeast D.C. He was first arrested at age thirteen and later spent more than thirty years in federal prison for crimes ranging from bank robberies to two prison escapes. Irby wrote “God Don’t Like Ugly” while incarcerated in the Lewisberg Federal Penitentiary. He was released on parole in May 2005 and currently resides in Southeast D.C.
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.
Laura Lippman has published eighteen novels, a novella, and a book of short stories, and she edited Baltimore Noir for Akashic Books. Her work has been nominated for virtually every award open to North American crime writers and has won most of them, including the Edgar, Anthony, Quill, Nero Wolfe, and Agatha awards. Lippman lives in Baltimore and New Orleans.
Jim Patton grew up a D.C. suburb, then moved to the Left Coast. Back in the area after many years, he finds the summers even more stifling, the traffic more maddening. Worst of all, Shirley Povich is gone.
Quintin Peterson is a twenty-four-year veteran police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., where he is currently assigned to its Office of Public Information as a media liaison officer. He is the author of several plays and screenplays and two crime novels, SIN (Special Investigations Network) and The Wages of SIN.
David Slater is originally from the Jersey Meadowlands, and has called D.C. home for more than two decades. During that time, he has worked in several dive restaurants and, for the last fifteen years, in environmental conservation. He currently lives with his wife and two kids in the Clarendon section of Arlington, Virginia.
Robert Wisdom grew up in the Petworth area of Northwest Washington, back when D.C. was still a town. He attended D.C. public schools and graduated from St. Albans. He was called Bobby growing up, which gave way to Bob in the world after D.C., got the nickname Bayobey from his Brazilian capoeira master, and currently plays a character named Bunny on HBO’s The Wire. He’s all about the B’s.
