Colleen Dunn Bates is the publisher at Prospect Park Books, an independent press in Pasadena, California. She founded Prospect Park in 2006 after spending 25 years as an author, magazine journalist, book editor, and newspaper editor. Prospect Park publishes trade books in several areas: fiction, food/cooking, humor, children's and regional. Titles include two of Naomi Hirahara's acclaimed Mas Arai mysteries, Strawberry Yellow and Blood Hina; Lian Dolan's bestselling novels Elizabeth the First Wife and Helen of Pasadena; hit cookbooks Little Flower: Recipes from the Cafe, Celebrating with Julienne, and Who Wants Seconds?; the anthology Literary Pasadena; Linda Peterson's mysteries The Devil's Interval and Edited to Death; humor titles Things I Want to Punch in the Face and The Neurotic Parent's Guide to College Admissions; and EAT: Los Angeles. Prospect Park's books are distributed by Consortium/Perseus.Bates is on the board of directors of PubWest, a national association for small and mid-size publishers. A sixth-generation Southern Californian, she lives in Pasadena.