Naomi J. Williams is the author of Landfalls (FSG), long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Electric Literature, Zoetrope: All-Story, One Story, Rumpus, LitHub, A Public Space,Bourbon Penn, and Sacramento Noir. Honors have included a Pushcart Prize, Sustainable Arts Foundation fellowship, UC Davis Maurice Prize, and residencies at Hedgebrook, Djerassi, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Willapa Bay AiR. Educated at Princeton, Stanford, and UC Davis, she has taught creative writing in many places, including, currently, with the low-res MFA program at Ashland University in Ohio. A biracial Japanese-American, Naomi was born and partly raised in Japan; a long-time Northern Californian, she has made Midtown Sacramento her home since 2018. A founding board member and three-year co-director of Stories on Stage Davis, she is thrilled to join the wonderful writers bringing CapLit to literature lovers in Sacramento.

Valerie Fioravanti was the founder of Stories on Stage Sacramento and is delighted to co-found CapLit with Sacramento literary standouts Naomi Williams and Sue Staats. Sheis the author of Garbage Night at the Opera, winner of the Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction from BkMk Press. Her work has appeared widely in literary magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and North American Review.  She has received eight Pushcart Prize nominations and one Special Mention, perhaps making her the Susan Lucci of that anthology. A former Fulbright Fellow to Italy, Valerie has received many accolades, but one of her proudest remains being named a “Best Friend to Fiction Writers” by Sacramento News & Review.

Sue Staats is a former director of Stories on Stage Sacramento (2013-2019,) and is thrilled to be co-directing CapLit with fellow writers and longtime friends Valerie Fioravanti and Naomi Williams.  Her fiction and poetry have been published in The Los Angeles Review, Graze Magazine, Farallon Review, Tule Review, Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets, Sacramento Voices, and others. She earned an MFA from Pacific University, and was runner-up in the recent “Wild Women” contest in Tulip Tree Review, runner-up for the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction and a finalist for the Nisqually Prize in Fiction. Her stories have been performed at both the Sacramento and Davis reading series Stories on Stage, and she has read her work at the SF Bay-area reading series Why There Are Words, Babylon Salon, and Litcrawl.  Her short story collection, Hardpan, was a recent finalist for the Acacia Fiction Prize. She’s currently working on a novel, a family saga that, of course,  includes a ghost…

Anara Guard is honored to join CapLit after years of enthusiastically attending events. She is the author of two poetry collections, a novel, and a short story collection. Her poems have won a John Crowe Ransom Award, Jack Kerouac Prize, and a Pushcart Prize nomination, as well as first place from the California State Poetry Society. She has had work published as a New York Times Tiny Love Story, in Persimmon Tree, On the Seawall, Under the Gum Tree, and elsewhere. Originally from Chicago, Anara has also lived in Ohio, Minnesota, and New England, before happily landing in Sacramento.

Atim Udoffia, CapLit’s Casting Director, is an actor, director, and proud mother of two working in theatre and film in Sacramento and the Bay Area. She recently produced and adapted her first grass-roots project at the CLARA Auditorium, Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT, playing the role of Rosalind. Udoffia has also appeared at Capital Stage, Sacramento Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, and SF Playhouse, and she has directed multiple shows at Big Idea Theatre. Udoffia continues to expand her body of work and her mission to bring together skilled and dedicated theatre artists to create fresh and exciting work in the Sacramento theatre community. Udoffia earned a Bachelors degree in Human Biology from Stanford University before pursuing acting training in London and Los Angeles.