Pasadena Festival of Women Authors

Marie-Helene Bertino

2025

Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel, Beautyland, tells the story of Adina Giorno, an alien girl sent to Earth as an infant to gather intelligence about whether the planet is habitable. The discovery of a fax machine becomes a path for her to navigate life in Philadelphia with a single and somewhat distant mom. Adina’s outsider’s perspective takes ordinary life and describes it so perfectly that it is as if the reader is seeing it for the very first time. Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on Earth and in the universe. Bertino is the author of two novels and a story collection. She won the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and was the 2017 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow. She teaches at NYU and Yale and lives in Brooklyn. 

“Astonishing.” – The New York Times. “Poignant, bracing. . .” – The LA Times. “Warm, witty, and touching.” – Esquire. “A monumental accomplishment, a shimmering masterpiece.” – The Boston Globe.

Yangsze Choo

2020, 2025

Time Magazine Best Book of February

“Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking.” So begins The Fox Wife, an enchanting tale told by Snow, a hypnotically beautiful woman on a journey seeking vengeance for her child’s death. Snow is enigmatic, and one wonders, is she a woman or is she a white fox who has transformed herself into a woman? Set in 1908 in Manchuria, Snow’s story involves murder, disappearances, and bumbling detectives. The Fox Wife is a novel of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Choo is a fourth generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. Her first novel, The Ghost Bride, became a Netflix series. Her second, The Night Tiger, was a Reese’s Book Club Pick and a New York Times bestseller. She lives in California. 

“Like all the best supernatural stories, The Fox Wife reveals something profound about humanity.” – The Washington Post. 

Xochitl Gonzalez

2025

Reese’s Book Club Pick 

The mysterious death of rising star Anita de Monte is the talk of the New York art world – until both her art and her life are erased by her famous avant garde artist husband. Decades later, Raquel, a Latina, first-generation college student, studying art at an Ivy League college, becomes involved with a fellow student artist from a privileged and well-connected family. After stumbling upon de Monte’s story, Raquel examines her own relationship, which has some eerie parallels to the forgotten artist. Gonzalez injects magical realism, issues of class, and the question of how women of color fit in the elite world of fine art into this beautifully written story. Gonzalez earned her BA from Brown University and her MA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her bestselling debut novel, Olga Dies Dreaming, was a Reese’s Book Club Pick, and was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New York Times, Time, Kirkus, The Washington Post, and NPR. Gonzalez lives in Brooklyn. 

“This novel is the best, most elusive combination: a thought-provoking and a brilliantly entertaining triumph.” – NPR. “Unflinching and thought-provoking.” – People.

Rachel Khong

2025

New York Times Bestseller

In Real Americans, a multigenerational novel that spans three continents, Khong asks the big questions: Who are we? How do we decide what’s important to us – and how do we become who we are? Reaching backwards and forward in time, from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to Y2K to 2021, Khong tells the story of Lily Chen, her son, and her mother, a brilliant genetic scientist, who escaped the Communists in China. Along the way, Khong explores class, race, genetics, scientific ethics, ambition, and the power of a lotus seed. The novel was a May Read With Jenna’s Book Club Pick. Khong’s debut novel, Goodbye, Vitamin, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Esquire. Born in Malaysia to a Malaysian Chinese family, Khong lives in Los Angeles. 

“Riveting in its unexpected turns, Real Americans is a novel about past mistakes and their echoes –  and a reminder that those histories need not be binding.” – San Francisco Chronicle. “Real Americans is both a novel of ideas and of beautiful sentences.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune