Beth Romero was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After a thirty-year sojourn on the West Coast, she recently moved back to Philadelphia. In addition to having made her a pizza aficionado, her Italian American, East Coast background inspires the straightforward, humorous, and self-deprecating narrative style that characterizes her writing. (As every good cook knows, the secret is the salt.)

With a background and degree in psychology, Beth channeled her creativity into a successful sales and branding career. From Veep to Boss to Happiness Junkie, persuasive storytelling is her superpower. She showcases those skills to their fullest in this practical and entertaining how-to guide for happiness.

Jody Gelb has a forty-year career acting on stage and screen. She has portrayed roles in the Tony Award-winning Broadway plays The Who’s Tommy, Titanic, Big River, and Wicked, among others. Gelb also played Joan of Arc’s mother in the David Byrne rock opera Joan of Arc: Into the Fire at The Public Theater in New York and was a featured player in the world premiere of Shel Silverstein’s Wild Life with Julie Hagerty, Henderson Forsythe, William H. Macy, and Raynor Scheine. On television, she has appeared in guest roles in Gunplay, Law & Order, and Dr. Death. Gelb is now following the career of her daughter, Dora Jar, as she tours the USA and the world as a singer-songwriter.

CJ Cook is an author, historian, and biographer of artists working in Polynesia, primarily Hawaii and Tahiti. His first biography about Ralph Burke Tyree, Tyree: Artist of the South Pacific (2017), won two Gold Awards for Best Cover and Best Biography from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). His second book about Edgar Leeteg, Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art, was awarded a Gold Medal for Best Biography from the IBPA. Cook is a lifelong manuscript collector who has a particular interest in art and the South Pacific. He is a Manuscript Society board member dedicated to preserving historical documents. 

Teresa H. Janssen’s essays and short fiction have appeared in Zyzzyva, Catamaran, Parabola, Chautauqua, Eastern Iowa Review, Los Angeles Review and elsewhere; and in the anthology, Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis. Her writing has twice been designated notable in Best American Essays. Her debut novel, The Ways of Water, inspired by her grandmother’s early life, is forthcoming November 2023 from She Writes Press. She lives with her husband in Port Townsend, WA.

Céline Keating is an award-winning writer from Rhode Island. She is the author of the forthcoming The Stark Beauty of Last Things (2023), Layla (2011) and Play for Me (2015). She is also the co-editor of the anthology On Montauk, A Literary Celebration (2016).

Susan Godwin is a fervent educator, writer, and freelance artist whose world has always been steeped in books, from Harold and the Purple Crayon; she couldn’t resist drawing on her bedroom wall, no matter how many reprimands; to her first job as a library book mender in her Shaker Heights High School basement to teaching English at the prestigious University School of Nashville. A former Oxford scholar, Godwin has received writing awards from the University of Michigan, Middle Tennessee State University, and Bread Loaf School of English. Though writing is her true passion, she is also a visual artist working primarily in oils and pastels. Her home is outside of Nashville, in Dickson, TN, on the banks of a winding Tennessee river, in a hayloft renovated by her sweet, sexy husband, Tony; with help from their rotty, Roady!

Carmen Peone is an award-winning author of Young Adult and Inspirational Western Romantic Suspense. She worked with a Tribal Elder, Marguerite Ensminger, for three years learning the Arrow Lakes Language and various cultural traditions, which led to her writing career.

With the love of history and the Western woman's lifestyle, she weaves healing, hope, and horses into her stories. With a thread of romance.

She lives with her husband in northeast Washington and on the Colville Confederated Indian Reservation.

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.