Jeneva Rose is the bestselling author of The Perfect Marriage, which has been published in nearly a dozen languages and optioned for film. Originally from Wisconsin, she currently lives in Chicago with her husband and stubborn English bulldog. One of Us Is Dead is her third novel.

Linda Dahl began her career as a travel journalist and college teacher before turning to writing full time. An award-winning author, she has written groundbreaking books about women in jazz and women’s needs in recovery from addiction, as well as five works of fiction. She is currently at work on a screenplay and a new novel. She has two children, a cat, and too many plants. She lives in Riverdale in New York City.

Julie Winkle Giulioni is a champion for workplace growth and development. She believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to reach their potential. And she supports organizations and leaders who want to make that happen with keynote speeches, consulting, and training.

Jody Hadlock: I’ve always loved history. When I was in junior high school in north Texas, I was a member of the Junior Historians of Texas, and history was always one of my favorite subjects. So, of course, my first novel is historical. I also always wanted to be a writer. After getting a degree in journalism at Texas A&M University, I worked as a television news reporter and anchor, and then as a public relations professional before I started writing fiction. I also write screenplays and won the 2020 Dallas International Film Festival’s screenplay contest. My co-writer and I had interest from a Hollywood producer and almost had our award-winning script optioned, but it didn’t work out. Still, it was a great learning process. No regrets. 

Madhushree Ghosh is the author of food memoir Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family. She is the daughter of refugees, an immigrant, a woman of color in oncology diagnostics and an activist. Her nonfiction been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Longreads, Bomb Magazine, Catapult, Guernica, The Kitchn, Serious Eats, The Rumpus and others. Her work has been awarded a Notable Mention (Best American Essays in Food Writing), Pushcart-nominated, an Oakley Hall scholarship and a Sirenland Positano residency (2020-21). Editorial roles have been in gastronomy (Panorama Journal) and international fiction (Del Sol Review). She actively mentors women leaders in science and hosts food and discourse events at her home in San Diego. Ghosh has a PhD in biochemistry and a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University. She is also certified in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from Cornell University as well as in Conflict Management and Global Negotiations from Thunderbird University, AZ.

Rod Tanchanco writes medically-themed nonfiction focused on historical events and their human narratives. FIRST PATIENTS: The incredible true stories of pioneer patients launched in March 2022, His articles have appeared in numerous publications. He is an internist and has worked as a primary care physician, hospitalist, research doctor, and medical director for a global clinical research organization. He is also a champion archer, avid photographer, backyard bird-watcher, husband to a saint, father to two grown children, and loyal butler to a ridiculously cute cavapoo.

Jonathan Howland lives in San Francisco. After 36 years’ teaching and working in independent schools, he now alternates between climbing trips in western states and writing, gardening, and playing with two grandchildren at home. Also: cooking, yoga-ing, and coyote-sighting in the Presidio of San Francisco, which he frequents with Courtney and their dog Ike. His favorite writers include Melville and Morrison and Marlon James, Faulkner and Woolf and Chekhov, though if limited to just one, Emily Dickinson.

In a career that’s included work as a journalist, a psychologist, and the founder of a national art consulting company, Maggie Smith now adds novelist to her resume with the publication of her debut, Truth and Other Lies in March 2022. In addition to her writing, Maggie hosts the weekly podcast Hear Us Roar, where she interviews debut authors about their novel and their path to publication and blogs monthly for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. A board member of the Chicago Writer’s Association, she’s Managing Editor of their Write City Magazine.

Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and The Millions, Dina Greenberg’s poetry, fiction, essays, and articles have appeared widely in literary journals, anthologies, and peer-reviewed journals, both in the U.S. and the U.K.Her work facilitating creative writing workshops for combat veterans and military families led her to write her debut novel: Nermina’s Chance (Atmosphere Press), set in 1992 Bosnia. The author’s immediate goal is to use the book’s platform to inspire discussions on intergenerational trauma resulting from war and displacement—not only in the Balkans but across the globe.

Kathleen Stone knows something about female ambition. As a lawyer, she was a law clerk to a federal judge, a litigation partner in a law firm, and senior counsel at a financial institution. She also taught seminars on American law in six foreign countries, including as a Fulbright Senior Specialist. Kathleen’s work has been published in Ploughshares, Arts Fuse, Los Angeles Review of Books, Timberline Review, and The Writer’s Chronicle. She holds graduate degrees from Boston University School of Law and the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Boston.

Fiction writer, poet, antipoet, gentle quasi-misanthrope, librarian, Philip Brunetti has been writing fiction and poetry since his early 20s. His innovative work has been published in various online or paper literary journals including Cobalt Weekly, Swamp Ape Review, The Boiler, and Identity Theory. His debut novel, Newer Testaments (Atmosphere Press, 2020) is described in the Independent Book Review as 'an innovative existential novel told through hallucinatory poetics.' Via his librarianship at the Brooklyn Public Library, Brunetti also runs the Gravesend Writers Group, a monthly writers discussion group.

Ruthie Marlenée is the Mexican-American author of Agave Blues, Isabela's Island and Curse of the Ninth and is currently working on the sequel, And Still Her Voice. A Pushcart nominee, Marlenée's work can be found in several literary publications. She was born and raised in Orange County, California, and lives in Los Angeles and the desert in the Coachella Valley with her husband.

Marlena Fiol and Ed O'Connor are spiritual seekers whose writing explores the depths of who we are and what’s possible in our lives. They have devoted themselves to supporting others in identifying and removing the barriers to realizing their dreams. They consider every blog, essay, video, book or workshop an opportunity to share their insights with others, as well as learn more about their own transformational journey. Marlena is also author of the memoir, Nothing Bad Between Us: A Mennonite Missionary's Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness (Mango Publishing Group, 2020).

Lyn Liao Butler was born in Taiwan and moved to the States when she was seven. In her past and present lives, she has been: a concert pianist, a professional ballet and modern dancer, a fitness studio owner, a personal trainer and instructor, an RYT-200 hour yoga instructor, a purse designer with an Etsy shop and most recently, author of multi-cultural women's fiction. Lyn did not have a Tiger Mom. She came about her over-achieving all on her own. 

Alana Quintana Albertson has written thirty romance novels, rescued five-hundred death-row shelter dogs, and danced one thousand rumbas. A graduate of Stanford (B.A.) and Harvard (M.Ed.), she lives with her husband in sunny San Diego with her two sons and too many pets. Most days, she can be found writing her next heart book in a beachfront café while sipping an oat-milk Mexican mocha or gardening with her children in their backyard orchard and snacking on a juicy blood orange.

J.P. O’Connell is the author of Hotel Portofino, a heady historical fiction drama about a British family who open an upper-class hotel on the magical Italian Riviera during the ‘Roaring 20s.’ He has worked as an editor and writer for a variety of newspapers and magazines including Time Out, The Guardian, The Times, and the Daily Telegraph. JP has also written several books including a novel, a celebration of letter-writing, a spice encyclopedia, and, most recently, an analysis of David Bowie’s favorite books and the ways they influenced his music. JP lives in London.

Leah Angstman is the author of the debut novel of King William’s War in 17th-century New England, OUT FRONT THE FOLLOWING SEA (Regal House, January 2022), and the editor-in-chief of Alternating Current Press and The Coil magazine.

Steven Schwartz’s first novel, Therapy, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Selection and a finalist for the Harold U. Ribalow Award from Hadassah Magazine. His second novel, A Good’s Doctor’s Son, won the Colorado Book Award for the Novel. His stories, collected in four volumes, have received two O.Henry Prize Story Awards, the Nelson Algren Award from the Chicago Tribune, the Cohen Award from Ploughshares, the Foreword Review Gold Medal, the Sherwood Anderson Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Adesina Brown is a 21 year-old, queer, non-binary author who centers QTPOC in all their work. They have been previously published in Rigorous Magazine, Coffee People Zine, and more. Where the Rain Cannot Reach is their debut novel.

Sandra Cavallo Miller is a retired academic family physician in Phoenix who has helped launch hundreds of medical students and residents into their careers. Her unlikely path to medicine includes degrees in anthropology and creative writing at the University of Illinois before attending Rush Medical College. Her essays and poetry have been published in JAMA, PULSE - Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Under the Sun, and Embark, among others, as well as a trilogy about a woman physician at the Grand Canyon Clinic on the South Rim (THE COLOR OF ROCK / WHERE LIGHT COMES AND GOES / WHAT THE RIVER SAID). WHERE NO ONE SHOULD LIVE is her fourth novel.