David L. Ulin is the former book critic of the Los Angeles Times. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author or editor of nine books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, the novella Labyrinth, The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, and the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He lives in Los Angeles.

Paul Kolsbyhas written for The Los Angeles Times, Details, Bikini, and the former Los Angeles Reader—where Ear to the Ground was first published serially. He wrote the films “City Unplugged” and “Spread” and works currently on the television series “Masters of Sex.” Formerly on the faculties at U.C.L.A. and N.Y.U., he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.