Chip Jacobs is an award-winning author and journalist. His books include the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler; the environmental social histories The People's Republic of Chemicals and the international bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles; the dark-humor true crime caper The Ascension of Jerry; and the stories collection The Vicodin Thieves. He also has contributed pieces to anthologies, most recently for Los Angeles in the 1970s: "Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine" about the attack on an idealist lawyer by a depraved cult. His reporting has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and LA Weekly, among others.

Colleen Dunn Bates is the publisher of Prospect Park Books, one of the leading book publishers in Southern California. A sixth-generation Southern Californian, Bates studied journalism at USC and has lived in Pasadena for 28 years. She is the editor and co-author of Hometown Pasadena, the definitive book about the culture, history, people, and noteworthy places in the greater Pasadena area. She also serves as the president of the PubWest board and is a board trustee of Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.