Wally Rudolph is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and equity advocate based in Los Angeles. As a writer, he is the author of the literary novels Four Corners and MIGHTY,MIGHTY (Counterpoint/Soft Skull) and served as the 2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica. His screen credits include Sons of Anarchy, Legion, and the award-winning, Bang Bang.

As an educator, Wally develops and teaches decolonized creative writing curricula at both UCLA and Stanford through their professional and continuing studies programs. He currently teaches Novel I, Novel II, and developed the course curriculum for the Voices Of Color workshop at UCLA, a workshop for underrepresented writers of color that takes a process-driven approach to creating work that accurately depicts the writer’s respective communities’ values in their own words.

As an activist, Wally’s work in cannabis social equity has had a lasting impact. He founded the Working Group Coalition, the nation’s only Social Equity policy advisement organization composed exclusively of Black, Brown, and LGBTQ+ cannabis licensees. Wally has developed Social Equity and workforce development programs in Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York, focused on communities disproportionately impacted by systemic racism and the War on Drugs. His work has informed local and statewide initiatives in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis, New York State’s Office of Cannabis Management, the CalAsian Foundation, Oakland’s Success Centers, and the Los Angeles–based nonprofit This Is Our Dream.

Born in Canada to Jamaican immigrants and raised in Texas, he’s traveled and lived throughout North America, but now he and his son, Redd, call The City of Angels home.