Louise Steinman is a writer, artist, and independent literary curator. She is the author of three books: The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation; The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War, and The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance. Her essays have been widely published in U.S. and abroad. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships (Chora Prize; NEA Artist Fellowship; Danish Arts Council) and artist residencies at Rauschenberg Foundation; Warsaw Bauhaus; Ucross, and others. She founded and was the longtime curator of the ALOUD literary and performance series for the Los Angeles Public Library. She is co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities, USC