With The End of Manners, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and novelist Marciano takes us to a place most Westerners visit only in news clips and headlines: Afghanistan. This thrilling, darkly comic story of men and women and war brings vividly to life the Afghanistan of journalists and mercenaries, NGO workers and international contractors, as an unlikely pair of women reporters, food photographer Maria Galante and larger-than-life journalist Imogen Glassare, are thrown together on assignment there.

Spanning 60 years of writing, Latinos in Lotusland portrays vivid accounts of complex and entertaining characters that bring to life the diverse and soulful communities that comprise Southern California, from East L.A. to Malibu, from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley, from Venice Beach to El Sereno. Contributors to this landmark anthology include John Rechy, Luis Rodriguez, Helena Maria Viramontes, Alex Espinoza, and others. Participants for this event include Daniel Olivas (the editor of the anthology, who will moderate the event), S. Ramos O'Briant, Victorio Barragan, Conrad Romo, and Lydia Alvarez.