Peace In the Hood

Author Christina Hoag is a former journalist who has had her laptop searched by Colombian guerrillas, phone tapped in Venezuela, was suspected of drug trafficking in Guyana, hid under a car to evade Guatemalan soldiers, and posed as a nun to get inside a Caracas jail. She has interviewed gang members, bank robbers, thieves and thugs in prisons, shantytowns and slums, not to forget billionaires and presidents, some of whom fall into the previous categories. Now she writes about such characters in her fiction.
Christina's noir novel Skin of Tattoos was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for suspense, while her YA thriller Girl on the Brink was named Suspense Magazine's Best YA. She also co-authored the nonfiction book, Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence, used in several universities.
She's a former staff writer for The Miami Herald and The Associated Press, and wrote from Latin America for Time, Business Week, The New York Times, Financial Times, Times of London, Houston Chronicle and other news outlets.
Christina lives in Los Angeles, where she has taught creative writing at a maximum-security prison and to at-risk teen girls. She is a regular speaker at writing conferences, book clubs, libraries and other venues.