Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times

Attica Locke is a NY Times best-selling author of five novels. Heaven, My Home, sequel to the Edgar Award-winningBluebird, Bluebird; Pleasantville, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction; The Cutting Season, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and her debut Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.  A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for Netflix, which was a top 10 hit in 50+ countries during its first weeks on air. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.