Kim DeRose grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where she spent childhood summers holed up in her bedroom, reading and writing stories (which she was convinced her local bookstore would publish). She now lives in New York City, where she still holes up in her bedroom reading, and writing stories. DeRose earned her MFA in film directing from UCLA, and she currently works in digital media. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can be found geeking out over her favorite obsessions (Twin Peaks, Harry Potter, and anything Halloween-related, to name a few), drinking way too much coffee, listening to way too many podcasts, and spending time with her family. For Girls Who Walk Through Fire is her debut novel.

Rea Frey is the award-winning, bestselling author of several nonfiction books and the suspense novels Not Her Daughter, Because You're Mine, Until I Find You, and Secrets of Our House. Her latest women's fiction novel, The Other Year, hit bookstores in August 2023. Known as The Book Doula, Rea helps other writers birth their stories into the world. To learn more, please visit reafrey.com.

As an artist, art doula, SoulCollage® facilitator, writer, and convener of ceremony, Glenda Goodrich brings together earth-based rituals, community gatherings, and creative expression in a search for new ways to show love for the Earth. She feels most alive exploring wild places and spending time with her two children, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Glenda lives in a cottage in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.

Rica Ramos- Keenum is a former journalist and the author of “Petals of Rain” and “Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of Healing the Mother Wound.” She writes about autism, raising a son with ADHD, family trauma and more–sometimes it’s difficult with her 60-lb dog on her lap. 

Thomas Reed taught medieval and Victorian literature, film, and writing at Dickinson College for thirty years. His first novel, Seeking Hyde, grew out of courses he taught on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and was named Finalist in the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction. His second, Pocketful of Poseys, draws more broadly on his experience growing up in an academic family; his education at Yale, the University of Virginia, and as a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford; years spent living in Rome and Christchurch, N.Z.; circum-global travels with his wife and children; and courageous decisions made by his mother-in-law as she faced her death. He and wife Dottie now split their year between Sarasota, Florida, and Camp Pemigewassett, a summer camp for boys in New Hampshire.

Victor Dixen is the author of many bestselling French novels, including four series for young adults: THE STRANGE CASE OF JACK SPARK, ANIMALE, PHOBOS and VAMPYRIA; and he is a two-time winner of the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, the most prestigious science-fiction and fantasy award in France. Born to a French mother and Danish father, Victor grew up in the city of Versailles. As an adult, he has lived in Denver, Dublin, Singapore, and New York City. He now divides his time between Paris and Washington, DC with his family and his two inquisitive cats.

Laura Picklesimer’s debut novel Kill for Love will be released on September 12 by Unnamed Press. The book was the winner of the Launch Pad Prose Competition Top Book Prize and the Book Pipeline Grand Prize for Best Thriller/Mystery. Laura’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, the Arkansas International, and the Santa Ana River Review, among other publications. Laura earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA in Fiction from Cal State Long Beach. She lives in Pasadena, CA.

Julianne MacLean is a USA Today bestselling author of more than forty novels, including the Color of Heaven Series. Her recent release, THESE TANGLED VINES, was one of Amazon’s top selling Kindle ebooks of 2021 and has been optioned for film. Readers have described her books as “breathtaking,” “soulful” and “uplifting.” MacLean is a four-time RITA finalist and has won numerous awards, including the Booksellers’ Best Award and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from Romantic Times. Her novels have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been published in over a dozen languages.

Elisa M. Speranza is the author of the 2022 novel The Italian Prisoner, a work of historical fiction set during World War II in New Orleans. The book was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Elisa serves on the board of the New Orleans Writers Workshop and has been a featured author at the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival, the Islanders Write conference on Martha’s Vineyard, and the Salem (MA) LitFest. She is a co-founder of the Washashores Writers Collective. Ms. Speranza has worked in journalism, local government, politics, and the corporate world. The granddaughter of Irish and Italian immigrants and a Lynn, Massachusetts native, she lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.

Francesca McDonnell Capossela is a queer writer and Irish American dual citizen. She grew up in Brooklyn and holds an MA in creative writing from Trinity College Dublin. Her writing can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point magazine, Banshee, The Cormorant broadsheet, Columbia Journal, Guesthouse, and the anthologies Dark Matter Presents Human Monsters and Teaching Nabokov’s Lolita in the #MeToo Era. Francesca lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with her dog Lyra.

Jarie Bolander caught the startup bug right after graduating from San Jose State University in 1995 with a degree in electrical engineering. With 6 startups, 7.75 books, and 10 patents under his belt, his experience runs the gamut from semiconductors to life sciences to nonprofits. He also hosts a podcast called The Entrepreneur Ethos, which is based on his last book by the same name. When he’s not helping clients convert a concept to a viable strategy, he can be found on the Jiu-Jitsu mat (he’s a blue belt), interviewing entrepreneurs on his podcast, or researching the latest in earthship construction techniques. He’s engaged to a wonderful woman named Minerva, her daughter, and their Bernedoodle, Sage. Currently, Jarie lives and works in San Francisco, where he works as head of market strategy for Decision Counsel, a B2B growth consulting firm.

Populating ROBERT MCKEAN’S novels and stories are some five hundred characters, steelworkers and bankers, doctors and jewelers, teachers and librarians, lawyers and yardage clerks, salesmen and ballet instructors—all residents of Ganaego, a small mill town in Western Pennsylvania. Mending What is Broken, his latest novel, is just out from Livingtson Press. McKean’s short story collection I'll Be Here for You: Diary of a Town was awarded first-prize in the Tartts First Fiction competition (Livingston Press). His novel The Catalog of Crooked Thoughts was awarded first-prize in the Methodist University Longleaf Press Novel Contest. The novel was also named a Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Recipient of a Massachusetts Artist’s Grant for his fiction, McKean has had six stories nominated for Pushcart Prizes and one story for Best of the Net. He has published extensively in journals such as The Kenyon Review, The Chicago Review, and Armchair/Shotgun.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jennifer Hamm graduated with a BA in English at UCLA and began her writing career developing screenplays for movies and television. As a travel writer, she has covered the globe on assignment for various magazines and brands. She also writes It’s Only for A Year, a long-running blog chronicling her adventures raising her four boys in two countries. Hamm currently splits her time between London and Los Angeles. One Friday in Napa is her first novel.

Jean Duffy is a nonfiction writer with published essays in the Boston Globe, Concord Monitor, Lexington Observer, and WBUR Cognoscenti. Soccer Grannies: The South African Women Who Inspire the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) is her first book. Jean can be found on the soccer field in Lexington, Massachusetts where her team, the Lexpressas, have been playing for some twenty years. When she’s not pounding her fingers on the keyboard or flubbing a shot on goal, she might be consulting with nonprofits, helping people downsize, or doing crossword puzzles with her husband at their home in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Akemi is the author of a handful of unpublished novels and a smattering of unrecorded song lyrics. Her work is character-driven and genre-fluid because this gives her thoughts more space to wander.

Sarah Sapora is a writer, inspirational speaker, and the organizer of body inclusive personal growth events and self-love retreats around the world. Sarah uses her voice to make personal growth relatable to the nearly 70% of American women considered plus size. Online, her tight-knit community includes hundreds of thousands of “80’s and 90’s kids” searching for self-love and wellness free of diet culture. Sarah’s guiding principles of radical vulnerability, self-accountability and tolerance have solidified her reputation as someone who “talks about the hard stuff” with humor and heart. She lives in Las Vegas, NV with her 110lb “lap dog” Eliza, and loves cowboy boots, meditation, cooking, and crochet.

Melanie Smith has worked in the field of heartbreak, grief, trauma, transition, loss, change, reinvention, and all things Unfinished Business for over two decades and has helped thousands of people change their lives profoundly. She started her career as a platinum-selling international songwriter and award-winning actress, starring and co- starring in shows such as: As the World Turns, Melrose Place, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deep Space Nine, and The Division, to name a few. As an entrepreneur, her award-winning lifestyle, wellness, and yoga center was considered to be one of the most well-respected in the country by sources such as Vogue, Yoga Journal, Philadelphia Magazine, and others. Now a powerful motivational speaker, writer, and leader, Melanie has been a contributing writer for many national health and wellness magazines and holds the distinction of being an PCC-level ICF certified coach and an ICI-master-level coach. She is the proud mother of one grown son, Gideon. Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she presently splits her time between New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Naples, Florida.

Kathryn Brown Ramsperger is a lifelong writer, who’s published articles in National Geographic and Kiplinger, short stories in The MacGuffin, The Penman Review, and scores of others, most recently, The Nelligan Review  Her first short story was published in a local college literary journal when she was 16. She was a humanitarian journalist throughout Europe, S.E. Africa, and the Middle East, covering war, family, disaster, and displacement. She writes about her time there in her books and whenever possible. Kathryn loves to review books, coach authors in mindset, and share her stories through speaking. All her work focuses on the connections we all share, and how our stories  we tell ourselves and others can divide or heal us. It's our choice: Do we choose love and peace? Or judgment and war? 

Joanne Intrator’s life has been shaped by being the daughter of German Jewish refugees. Since childhood, she pondered why people perpetrate atrocities on their fellow human beings. After studying European history at Connecticut College, she received an MD from Columbia University and became a psychiatrist. She did a fellowship in Psychiatry and Law at Albert Einstein. Mentored by Dr. Robert Hare, she spearheaded the first brain imaging research on well-defined psychopaths, published in The Journal of Biological Psychiatry. Following her father’s death in 1993, she took it upon herself to fight for the restitution of a building in Berlin. Her journey has been the subject of news articles, television interviews, and museum exhibits. Joanne practices psychiatry in New York City. She has written for The Journal for The Study of Antisemitism, Ästhetik & Kommunikation (Berlin), Women Writers. Women(‘s) Books, and she writes a blog on psychopathy for Psychology Today.

Sherry Sidoti is an author and the founder and lead teacher of FLY Yoga School, a yoga teacher training program, and FLY Outreach, a not-for-profit that offers yoga and meditation for trauma recovery on Martha's Vineyard, MA. A certified yoga teacher, labor doula, addiction recovery coach, and somatic therapist, she leads spiritual courses, teacher training, and retreats globally. Her musings, infused by twenty-plus years of practicing and teaching yoga, healing arts, and mysticism have been published in Heart & Soul Magazine, The Martha's Vineyard Times, and Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly. Her essay "Mosaic" is featured in the 2022 She Writes Anthology: Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis: Women Writers Respond to the Call. A Smoke and a Song: A Daughter's Memoir of Living in the Layers is Sherry's first book. She currently resides on Martha's Vineyard, MA.