Leif Randt studied Comparative Literature, Film, English Philology, Creative Writing and Arts and Culture Journalism and earned a degree in Cultural Studies. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the KulturSpiegel Award for the Best Young Writer (2009), the Ernst-Willner-Prize at the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Prize (2011) and the Literary Award of the City of Düsseldorf (2012). In addition to Randt’s journalistic work, contributions to anthologies and screenplays, his publications include the novels Leuchtspielhaus (2009) und Schimmernder Dunst über CobyCounty (The Haze over CobyCounty, 2011). During his stay at Villa Aurora, Randt will be writing a quintessentially Californian novel about two successful German artists coming to Los Angeles to experience and record the birth of their daughter, a moment that is supposed to mark their transition to a more adult bourgeois existence. Their lives, as well as the lives of their two assistants accompanying them, will indeed change, but in a different way than they had imagined. In Randt's own words, it is “a story about grand-standing, young Germans’ perceptions of America, art marketing and aspirations that cannot be fulfilled: my first real California novel”.