A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is the first book of short stories by Chinese émigré and Oakland resident Li. According to Publishers Weekly, the book is “A beautifully executed debut collection of ten stories exploring the ravages of the Cultural Revolution on modern Chinese, both in China and America.”

Li grew up in Beijing, came to America to study medicine, and entered the Iowa Writers' Workshop after earning a master's degree in immunology from the University of Iowa.

Alarcon’s War by Candlelight features stories of Peru’s gritty street life. “Civil strife and natural disasters mark these nine unflinching stories set in upper Manhattan and the blighted countryside and atrophied capital of Peru,” according to Publishers Weekly.

Alarcon was born in Peru and raised in Birmingham, Alabama.  He returned to Peru on a Fulbright award and, according to Booklist, “evokes the sorrows and beauty of that ravaged land with a precision and steadiness that stand in inverse proportion to the magnitude of the losses he so powerfully dramatizes.”

Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering innovative degree programs for undergraduate women, and graduate degree and certificate programs for women and men. Consistently ranked among the top 75 liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Mills is also recognized as one of the country’s 20 most diverse colleges. The Princeton Review selected Mills as one of 11 colleges for first-time inclusion in its Best 361 Colleges - 2005. Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California on 135 lush acres, Mills provides a dynamic liberal arts education fostering women’s leadership, social responsibility, and creativity.

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