Latino author Nick Belardes is illustrator of NYT Best-Selling Novel by Jonathan Evison, "West of Here" (2011), author of "Random Obsessions" (2009), "Lords" (2005), and the first literary Twitter novel: "Small Places" (2010). His first book of poetry, “Songs of the Glue Machines” will be available in 2013.

He launched the Random Writers Workshop (RWW) in 2009, a low-cost writing critique and discussion group that is open to the public.

Classes have been held at art galleries, college campuses, and has included guests from across America.

RWW recently expanded to Fresno, and is working in 2012 with Memoir Journal's The (In)visible Memoirs Project, which is funded locally by the James Irvine Foundation and Poets & Writers.

Nick's lectures currently are on fiction and memoir writing, the Beats in Bakersfield, and magical realism in Central Valley literature.