James Sallis is the critically acclaimed author of numerous novels, including the Lew Griffin series, The Killer Is Dying, Death Will Have Your Eyes, Drive, and the recently released Willnot. He has also published multiple collections of poetry, essays, and short stories, a major biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau’s Saint Glinglin. Sallis lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Karyn. He drives a Nissan Frontier pickup but says that he is saving up for that pinnacle of modernity, a Hudson Terraplane.
Wallace Stroby is the author of seven novels, four of which feature professional thief Crissa Stone. An award-winning journalist, he was an editor for thirteen years at the Newark Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper. His first car was a jet-black 1967 Mustang convertible, which he bought in 1978 for five hundred dollars and wishes he still owned. These days, he drives a more sedate (but still jet-black) Toyota Scion TC.
Luis Alberto Urrea is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of sixteen books, including The Hummingbird’s Daughter and Into the Beautiful North. His most recent book, The Water Museum, a collection of short stories, was a finalist for the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award and contains the Edgar Award–winning “Amapola.” The Devil’s Highway, his 2004 nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His work is taught in universities throughout the country. Urrea lives in Chicago with his wife, Cindy, and drives a Ford Escape but imagines he’s driving a ’67 Mustang fastback in metal-flake blue with mag wheels and glasspack mufflers.
Willy Vlautin is the author of four novels, The Motel Life, Northline, Lean On Pete, and The Free. In addition to being a writer, he is a musician, a singer-songwriter, and a founding member of Richmond Fontaine, whose latest album, You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing to Go Back To, was released in March of 2016. Vlautin also writes and records with the Delines, whose debut album, Colfax, has earned worldwide critical acclaim. The Motel Life, Vlautin’s first novel, was adapted for the big screen in 2013. Vlautin lives in Portland, Oregon, and is at work on his fifth novel. Sadly, he says, he had to sell his prized derelict red 1968 Le Mans to a hesher. But even now he still dreams of her, and he rates the sale at number fourteen in his top one hundred biggest mistakes.
Ben H. Winters is the award-winning author of nine novels, most recently Underground Airlines (Mulholland, 2016). World of Trouble (Quirk), the concluding book in the Last Policeman trilogy, was nominated for the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Countdown City was an NPR Best Book of 2013 and the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction. The Last Policeman was the recipient of the 2012 Edgar Award. Winters has also written extensively for the stage and has published several books for young readers. He recently moved to Los Angeles, where he drives his second Honda Odyssey in a row.