Los Angeles has always been an epicenter of crime fiction. It has also often been boxed in by stereotypes of what others think of it. This special LA Crime Writers panel feature authors who know the city & county as their home and write what they know.

Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of the acclaimed Lou Norton series, the standalone thriller They All Fall Down,and co-author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, which appeared in the New York Timesbestselling anthology The Family Lawyer. She is the senior development officer for the Donor Relations Department at Cedars Sinai. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors for the Mystery Writers of America, is a member of Sisters in Crime, and has participated as a mentor in the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer-to-Writer Program. She lives in Los Angeles.

Joe Ideis of Japanese American descent and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. Joe’s favorite books were the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories. The idea that a person could face the world and vanquish his enemies with just his intelligence fascinated him. Joe went on to earn a graduate degree and had several careers before writing his debut novel, IQ, inspired by his early experiences and love of Sherlock. Joe lives in Santa Monica, California.

Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar-winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Blood Hina, Sayonara Slam, and the seventh and final in the series, Hiroshima Boy. Her Mas Arai books have earned such honors as the Chicago Tribune's Ten Best Mysteries and Thrillers and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. She is also the author of the L.A.-based Ellie Rush mystery series and her most recent title Iced in Paradise: A Leilani Santiago Hawai'i Mystery. The Stanford University alumna lives in Pasadena, California.

Désirée Zamorano is a playwright, Pushcart Prize nominee, and novelist, author of The Amado Women. She is the director of the the Community Literacy Center at Occidental College; she also collaborates with InsideOut Writers, a program that works with formerly incarcerated youth. She lives in Pasadena, California.

LA Crime Writers Panel featuring Steph Cha, Rachel Howzell Hall, Joe Ide, and Naomi Hirahara; Moderated by Désirée Zamorano