Attica Locke’s first novel, Black Water Rising, was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK in 2010 and nominated for an Edgar Award as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Attica has spent many years working as a screenwriter, penning movie and television scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox, among others. She was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab and is a member of the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Most recently, she wrote the introduction for the UK publication of Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. Her second book is The Cutting Season, for which Locke recently received The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.