Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times

Attica Locke’s latest novel Bluebird, Bluebird won the Edgar Award for best novel and was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was named as a Best of 2017 book by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Financial Times. Her previous novel, Pleasantville, was the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. Her first novel, Black Water Rising, 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. Her second book, The Cutting Season, was a winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke has worked as a screenwriter and TV producer as well. Most recently, she was a writer and producer on the upcoming Netflix miniseries, When They See Us, directed by Ava Duvernay; Hulu’s limited series, Little Fires Everywhere; and the Fox drama Empire. She is currently developing several television projects, as well as plotting the next two novels in the Highway 59 series.