Holy crap, it’s been FIVE YEARS?! It feels like we just started. And in a way, we have. 2018 brought new challenges and new changes to Shades & Shadows, and this event is going to cap off our main Los Angeles events for the year. So we’re going to close out with a BIG BANG. Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning, or this is your very first time coming to one of our events, you’ll be in for a spectacular treat as we give you a phenomenal lineup of authors.

And, if you’ve been to an anniversary show before, you know there is one other thing to expect: CAKE.

We’ve got more than just cake, though. This lineup is out of this world. No, really, not a single thing takes place in a world you’d recognize.

Bree Barton is a novelist, ghostwriter, and dance teacher in Los Angeles. Heart of Thorns is her debut YA trilogy.

Maura Milan is a short, Filipino girl from Chicago, IL. Now, she resides in Los Angeles, where she can be found in cafes all throughout Koreatown, drinking green tea lattes and writing and writing and writing. In her free time, Maura enjoys watching Korean soap operas and eating rice krispie treats.

Maura received a BA from USC’s School of Cinema-Television and has placed a number of short films in festivals all over the United States. Her most notable and favorite short film, “Crocodile,” is based on her days running around the Australian outback during her summer vacations visiting the Aussie side of her family.

To this day, Gilbert Blythe is her ultimate boy crush.

Steven Barnes is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist and screenwriter who is the creator of the Lifewriting™ writing course, which he has taught nationwide. He recently won an NAACP Image Award as co-author of the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series with actor Blair Underwood and his wife, Tananarive Due.

Nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Cable Ace awards, writer of the Emmy-winning “A Stitch In Time” episode of The Outer Limits, winner of the Endeavor and the NAACP Image Awards, NY Times Bestselling author, Steven has written comic books, animation, newspaper copy, magazine articles, television scripts and three million words of published fiction published in seven languages, making him one of the world’s most honored, diverse and popular writers.

Once a nationally ranked karate competitor, he now makes his home in Southern California with his wife, American Book Award winner Tananarive Due, and his son, Jason.

Maria Alexander is a produced screenwriter, games writer, virtual world designer, award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer, prolific fiction writer and poet. Since 1999, her stories have appeared in acclaimed publications and anthologies.

Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Publisher’s Weekly called it, “(a) splendid, bittersweet ode to the ghosts of childhood,” while Library Journal hailed it in a Starred Review as “a horror novel to anticipate.” Her breakout YA novel, Snowed, was unleashed on November 2, 2016, by Raw Dog Screaming Press. It won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel and was nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children’s/YA Novel. She’s represented by Alex Slater at Trident Media Group.

When she’s not stabbing someone with a foil or cutting targets with a katana, she’s being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog.

Jeff Sweat has made a living from words his entire career, starting out as an award-winning tech journalist for InformationWeek magazine and moving into marketing.

He led the content marketing team for Yahoo and pioneered its use of social media. He directed PR for two of the top advertising agencies in the country, Deutsch LA and 72andSunny. He now runs his own Los Angeles–based PR and marketing agency, Mister Sweat.

He grew up in Idaho as the middle of eight children—seven boys and one girl—and attended Columbia University in New York. Jeff lives in a big blue house in Los Angeles with his wife Sunny and their three kids, two cats, and a racing greyhound.

He loves to travel and writes everywhere he goes, even when there’s not a desk. He likes karaoke, motorcycles and carpentry. He was once shot in the head with a nail gun, which was not a big of a deal as it sounds. But it still hurt like crazy.

Doors open at 8 p.m.