Bernhard Schlink was born in Germany in 1944. A professor emeritus of law at Humboldt University, Berlin, and Cardozo Law School, New York, he is the author of The Reader, which became a multi-million copy international bestseller and an Oscar-winning film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, and The Woman on the Stairs. He lives in Berlin and New York.

On the fifth episode of the new fourth season, Ona Russell talks with Jeri Westerson, author of many books, including Veil of Lies, and most recently Courting Dragons.

Los Angeles native Jeri Westerson was born the same day the first nuclear bomb was tested…though not the same year, so she isn’t responsible. She muddled around in life, first thinking to become an actress, woke up during a real world audition and said, “Nope, Nerp. Not doing THIS the rest of my life,” and instead, embarked on a successful career as a graphic designer. But instead of staying there, she made a lateral move to being a writer and found herself the author of fifteen Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels, a series nominated for 13 national awards from the Agatha to the Shamus. However, she is still the Susan Lucci of mystery awards, awaiting her turn.

Marivi Soliven is a Filipina author based in America where she works as an interpreter. Her background as a writer includes having taught creative writing at the University of the Philippines, the Ayala Museum, and the University of California in San Diego. The Mango Bride has earned her a Hedgebrook writing residency last August 2012, and in 2011, garnered the Grand Prize for the Novel in English at the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Soliven has authored other works, namely Suddenly Stateside and Spooky Mo.

Wade Graham is a writer, historian, & landscape designer with a practice based in Los Angeles. His writing, on cultural history, environment, urbanism, landscape, art, and other topics, has appeared frequently in the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, and Harper’s, among other publications. His books include Braided Waters: Environment and Society in Molokai, Hawaii (University of California Press, 2018), Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World (HarperCollins, 2016), and American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to Our Backyard, What Our Gardens Tell Us About Ourselves (HarperCollins, 2011). He has a Ph.D in American history from UCLA and has taught urban and environmental policy at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University since 2009. Since 1999, he has been a trustee of Glen Canyon Institute, a Colorado River restoration group based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Susan Straight is the author of several novels, including the national bestseller Highwire Moon, a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Million Nightingales, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as the memoir In the Country of Women, named a best book of 2019 by NPR and Real Simple. She is the recipient of the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, the O. Henry Prize, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, Harper’s, and elsewhere. She was born and continues to live in Riverside, California, with her family, where she serves as Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Kathi Diamant is the Director of the Kafka Project at San Diego State University. For over fifteen years she has been immersed in the story of Dora Diamant, retracing Dora's steps in Europe, discovering neglected archives and lost papers, and conducting interviews with every known living person who knew her. She lives in San Diego, CA.

On the last episode of our third season, Ona Russell talks with Adam Schiff about his book Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, his evolution as a writer, why he bookended his book around the January 6 Insurrection, leading the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, and the value of fiction.

On the fourth episode, Ona Russell talks with Robert Kerbeck, author of Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. In the conversation, they discuss his evolution as a writer, how you can publish art at any age, his career as an actor, and how language needs to fit the story you’re telling.

On the third episode of the new third season, Ona Russell talks with Héctor Tobar, author of The Last Great Road Bum. The two discuss growing up in an immigrant household, interdependent relationship between Latin America and the U.S., the similarities and differences between writing fiction and nonfiction, and learning that the written word can only be successful when you see the whole person.

On the second episode of the new third season, Ona Russell talks with Rachel Howzell Hall, author of These Toxic Things and the upcoming thriller We Lie Here. The two discuss Los Angeles as a character, why crime captures every genre, and the growth of black and diverse crime writers.

On the first episode of the new third season, Ona Russell talks with David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles. The book is an inquiry into the evolving landscape of Los Angeles through the soles of his feet. Throughout the discussion, Ulin and Russell discuss his relationship with Los Angeles and Joan Didion, the necessity of narrative, and finding stability in a landscape of instability.

In the last episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Shelley Blanton-Stroud about her latest novel, Copy Boy, her teaching career, her father’s childhood living in a tent, and why we need to celebrate—not judge—every writer’s voice.

In the fourth episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Jeffrey J. Lousteau about his book All We Have To Believe In, his day job as an architect, and how his career has shaped his writing.

In the third episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Sally J. Pla about her books The Someday Birds and Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, the beauty of different brains, and an advocate for neurodiversity in children.

In the second episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Bill Fitzhugh about his latest novel, A Perfect Harvest, exploring humor in medical diagnosis, playing with narrative conventions, working in the vein of Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne, and his screenwriting career in Hollywood.

In the first episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Caitlin Rother about her latest book, Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case, the shift from investigative journalism to fiction writing, and not writing books you don’t want to read.

In the last episode, Ona Russell talks with Amy E. Wallen about her memoir, When We Were Ghouls: A Memoir of Ghost Stories, eliminating memories in the writing process, and the art of pie-making.

In the fourth episode, Ona Russell talks with Tod Goldberg about his latest story collection, The Low Desert, his obsession with gangsters growing up, and the cultivated nature of the desert.

In the third episode, Ona Russell talks with Dennis K. Crosby about his book Death’s Legacy and how a longtime private investigator became a novelist of urban fantasy.

In the second episode, Ona Russell talks with Patricia Santana about Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility and the sequel, Ghosts of El Grullo, which captures a young woman’s struggle to create her own identity amidst a shattered, first-generation immigrant American family.

On the first episode, Ona Russell talks with Quan Huynh, author of Sparrow in the Razor Wire. The book details Huynh’s journey from behind bars after killing another man in a gang-related incident to being paroled from a life sentence in 2015 and creating his first company six months later to help those with criminal pasts.