Author Judith Turner-Yamamoto

This year’s Santa Barbara Writers Conference (June 18 to 23) features 5 authors as the conference’s evening guest speakers.  Wednesday’s Speaker, Award-winning author, poet, and journalist Judith Turner-Yamamoto was born into a family of storytellers in an insular community in rural North Carolina. An art historian and inveterate traveler, she has interviewed such luminaries as Frank Gehry, Annie Leibovitz, Alison Krauss, and Lucinda Williams and published more than 1,000 cover stories and features in publications such as The Boston Globe Magazine, Elle, Interiors, Art & Antiques, The Los Angeles Times and Travel & Leisure. A labor of love 30 years in the making, Loving the Dead and Gone is her first novel, part of a trilogy that draws upon memories of her red-dirt childhood to spin a tale that Publishers Weekly called a bittersweet, fantastical must-read debut. Currently, she lives in Cincinnati with her husband, visual artist Shinji Turner-Yamamoto. There will be a book signing after the talk.