The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

Bernadette Murphy, contributing book critic for the Los Angeles Times, teaches at Antioch University, has published three works of narrative nonfiction and is completing Grace Notes, a novel.

Karen Joy Fowler is the best-selling author of several books, including The Jane Austen Book Club, which was developed into a movie. She is a PEN/Faulkner and Dublin IMPAC nominee. Fowler's most recent novel is Wit's End

Debra Ginsberg is the author of the memoirs Waiting, Raising Blaze and About My Sisters. Her second novel, The Grift, is a 2008 New York Times Notable Book.

Gigi Levangie Grazer wrote the screenplay for the film "Stepmom." Her previous novels include Maneater, The Starter Wife and Rescue Me, which is being developed into a film at Fox. Grazer's next novel, "Queen Takes King," will be published in June.

Nancy Spiller is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles. She was a staff feature writer at the San Jose Mercury News and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Entertaining Disasters is her debut novel.