Born and raised in Echo Park, California, Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers' Workshop program at UC Irvine. His first book, The Madonnas of Echo Park, received the 2011 PEN/Hemingway award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His next book is a memoir, Things My Fathers Taught Me, about growing up with five stepfathers.