PRIZE WINNER: Michelle Latiolais, above, has won...

PRIZE WINNER: Michelle Latiolais, above, has won the fiction gold medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, following in the footsteps of John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner and Amy Tan. Latiolais, the director of the UCI undergraduate writing program, won for her first novel, “Even Now.” . . . The book portrays the troubles of a teen-age girl whose parents divorce. Latiolais says she’s almost finished her second book, which is “sort of about sisters and dependence and anxiety.”