Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. Her forthcoming novel, Ecstasy, will release on June 17, 2025. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row, Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.