Meryl Ain's debut novel, The Takeaway Men, won a Gold Medal for Historical Fiction in The American Fiction Awards  just two weeks after it was published. The book is the result of her life-long quest to learn more about the Holocaust, a thirst that was first triggered by reading The Diary of Anne Frank in the sixth grade. 

When he’s not writing Caley Cross, Jeff Rosen creates award-winning children's television series like Bo on the Go, Poko, Animal Mechanicals, The Mighty Jungle, Pirates!, Monster Math Squad, and Space Ranger Roger. He was the principal writer of the beloved Theodore Tugboat. His programs have been viewed around the world and translated into numerous languages. Jeff was a founding creative partner of WildBrain (formerly DHX Media), a global children’s content company, home to Peanuts, Teletubbies, Strawberry Shortcake, Caillou , Inspector Gadget, and Degrassi. Jeff got the idea for Caley Cross when some horses escaped from his daughter’s riding academy and roamed the city, popping into various shops along the way, mixing it up with the locals. The books have nothing to do with that, but you never know where ideas will lead. An accomplished painter, Jeff’s work can be found in galleries, at www.jeffrosenart.com, and on Instagram. Jeff lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with his wife and vampire poodle, Vlad.

Iris Mitlin Lav grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. She moved to Washington, DC, with her husband in 1969, where they raised three children. She is retired from a long, award-winning career of policy analysis and management with an emphasis on improving policies for low- and moderate-income families. She has traveled extensively in the US and abroad, and she lived in Thailand for two years in the 1970s. She and her husband now live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with Mango, their goldendoodle, and with grandchildren nearby.

LB Gschwandtner has attended numerous fiction-writing workshops―the Iowa Writers Workshop and others―studied with Fred Leebron, Bob Bausch, Richard Bausch, Lary Bloom, Joyce Maynard, Sue Levine, and Wally Lamb, and published five adult novels, one middle-grade novel, and one collection of quirky short stories. She began her professional career as an artist, became a magazine editor in 1980, and began writing fiction in 1986. She’s won awards in literary contests and independent publishing contests, and been published in literary digests and magazines. A Place Called Zamora is her eighth book.

Feyisayo Anjorin is a filmmaker and a writer. He trained as a filmmaker at AFDA Johannesburg. He was the narrator of "The Land of Gulungulun" fiction podcast. His writing has appeared in Litro, Bella Naija, Brittle Paper, African Writer and Kalahari Review. He is the author of Kasali's Africa, "The Night My Dead Girlfriend Called" and"The Stuff of Love Songs"

Katherine Snow Smith has lived throughout the South as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, public relations executive, daughter, sister, mother, wife, divorcee, and friend. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and started her journalism career covering three miniscule towns in South Carolina. After a stint covering business in Charlotte, NC, she got married, moved to Florida, and started a twenty-year career at the Tampa Bay Times―first covering business, and then, after having a baby, creating a parenting column, Rookie Mom, for the paper. Now―three kids, two careers, and one divorce later―she’s embracing the fact that life has many chapters. Her latest book is Rule for the Southern Rulebreaker. 

A.R. Taylor is the author of JENNA TAKES THE FALL (She Writes Press) as well as an award-winning playwright, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut novel, Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion, won a Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction at the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2015, was a USA Best Book Awards Finalist, and was named one of the 12 Most Cinematic Indie Books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews. She's been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Southwest Review, Pedantic Monthly, The Cynic online magazine, the Berkeley Insider, So It Goes—the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Magazine on Humor, Red Rock Review, and Rosebud.  

Brandi Spering has a BFA in Creative Writing from Pratt Institute. Her forthcoming book, This I Can Tell You, will be released by Perennial Press, winter 2020. Spering’s work can be also be found in Perennial Press' anthology, 'Super/Natural: Art and Fiction for the Future,' as well as Stardust Magazine, The Odyssey Online, and the Boston Calendar, etc. Spering resides in Philadelphia where she writes, sews and paints.

Kendra Atleework is the recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award and was selected for The Best American Essays, edited by Ariel Levy. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and now lives in Bishop, California. 

Mamta Chaudhry’s debut novel, HAUNTING PARIS (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), has been praised as “elegantly wrought” by The New York Times Book Review and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly. Marilynne Robinson called “this fine first novel . . . a small parable, pondering the nature of civilization itself,” and Russell Banks described it as “powerful and moving . . . with a heartbreaking, profoundly adult love story at its center.”  

Hilary Levey Friedman is the author of Here She Is: The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America. She is a sociologist at Brown University, where she has taught a popular course titled "Beauty Pageants in American Society." She is a leading researcher in pageantry, merging her mother's past experiences as Miss America 1970 with her interests as a glitz- and glamour-loving sometime pageant judge, and a mentor to Miss America 2018. Friedman also serves as the president of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women. Her first book, Playing to Win, focused on children's competitive afterschool activities.

Phil Halton is a Toronto based novelist and screenwriter. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked in conflict zones around the world as an officer in the Canadian Army and as a security consultant. In particular, he has extensive experience in Afghanistan. He is the author of a novel set in Afghanistan, This Shall Be a House of Peace (Dundurn Press, 2019) and a contrarian history, Blood Washing Blood: Afghanistan’s Hundred-Year War (Dundurn Press, 2021). His latest novel, Every Arm Outstretched (Double Dagger Press, 2020), is set in 1978 during the Nicaraguan revolution. He has published stories and articles in such publications as Thing, Ricky’s Backyard and the Canadian Army Journal. He founded Toronto-based literary journal Blood & Bourbon. He holds a Master’s Degree in Defence Studies from Royal Military College of Canada, and a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College.

Daniel G. Newman is a national expert on government accountability and money in politics. He is president and co-founder of MapLight, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes transparency and political reform, earning a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, a Library Journal Best Reference award, and a Webby Award nomination for Best Politics Website. Newman has appeared in hundreds of media outlets, including CNN, CBS, MSNBC, FOX Business, and NPR. He led a ballot measure campaign establishing public funding of elections in Berkeley, California, and was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. Newman received an MA in political psychology from U.C. Berkeley and a BA from Brown, and was a Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Janet Rebhan is the author of the novel Finding Tranquility Base (2012) and Rachael's Return (2020). Born in Texas, she was sixteen when she moved to Los Angeles, where she pursued acting and modeling before studying creative writing at UCLA. Rebhan has two grown daughters and still resides in the Los Angeles area.

Donna Hemans is the author of two novels: River Woman and Tea by the Sea (June 2020, Red Hen Press). In 2015, she won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature for the unpublished manuscript of Tea by the Sea. 

Award-winner Catherine Wallace Hope is the author of Once Again: A Novel, a speculative thriller from Alcove Press releasing on 10/06/2020. She earned her degree in creative writing at the University of Colorado and delved into dance in New York and art and psychology in California. When she returned to Colorado, she became an instructor at the renowned Lighthouse Writers Workshop, offering creativity workshops for writers. Currently, she and her family are living on an island in the Pacific Northwest where they serve at the pleasure of two astonishingly spoiled dogs.

Teressa Shelton is the author of The Sergeant's Daughter (She Writes Press, August 11), a memoir reminiscent of The Glass Castle. It follows Teressa and her sisters through a childhood of abuse and torment, aided only by the solace of books, music, and family found outside of their home, until Teressa ultimately escapes to build a better life for herself. She has lived in nine states and three countries. After graduating from Belmont University in Nashville, she embarked on a career in managing medical practices. The Sergeant’s Daughter is her first book. She lives with her family in Springfield, IL.

Len Joy is the award-winning author of the novels, American Past Time (2014), Better Days (2018) and Everyone Dies Famous (August 2020). He is a nationally ranked triathlete and competes internationally representing the United States as part of TEAM USA.

Martha Hunt Handler grew up in northern Illinois dreaming about wolves and has always understood that her role in this lifetime is to tell stories and be a voice for nature. She has been an environmental consultant, a magazine columnist, an actress, and a polar explorer, among other occupations. She has also driven across the country in an 18-wheeler and been a grand-prize winner of The Newlywed Game.

Linda Ulleseit, born and raised in Saratoga, California, has an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University. She is a member of the Hawaii Writers Guild, Marketing Chair for Women Writing the West, and a founding member of Paper Lantern Writers. Linda is the author of Under the Almond Trees, which was a semifinalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Contest, and The Aloha Spirit, to be released in 2020. Linda believes in the unspoken power of women living ordinary lives. Her books are the stories of women in her family who were extraordinary but unsung. She recently retired from teaching elementary school and now enjoys writing full-time, as well as cooking, leatherworking, reading, gardening, spending time with her family, and taking long walks with her dogs. She currently lives in San Jose with her husband. They have two adult sons and two yellow Labradors.