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Adult story judges

Ellen Sussman

Ellen Sussman’s new novel, "French Lessons," will be published by Ballantine in May, 2011. She is the author of the novel "On a Night Like This," a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller and two anthologies, "Dirty Words: A Literary

Encyclopedia Of Sex" and "Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave," which was a New York Times Editors Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller. She teaches writing classes at her house in Los Altos Hills. Her website is www.ellensussman.com.

Keith Raffel

Keith Raffel grew up in Palo Alto where he watched local orchards filled with cherry and apricot trees being replaced by tilt-up buildings filled with software engineers and MBAs. His "Dot Dead: A Silicon Valley Mystery" was called "without question the most impressive mystery debut of the year" by Bookreporter.com. His second Silicon Valley-set thriller, "Smasher," was published this year. Keith still lives in Palo Alto with his wife and four children. His website is www.keithraffel.com.

Tom Parker

A well-known, local writing teacher, Tom Parker is an O. Henry Prize-winning short story writer and author of the best-selling novels, "Anna, Ann, Annie" and "Small Business." He has taught at Stanford, the University of California Berkeley, and Foothill and Canada community colleges.