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Josh Funk is a software engineer and the author of books like the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series, How to Code a Sandcastle, Dear Unicorn, Dear Dragon, My Pet Feet, the It’s Not a Fairy Tale series, Lost in the Library, and more. Josh lives in New England and when not writing Java code or Python scripts, he drinks Java coffee and writes manuscripts. Since the Fall of 2015, Josh has presented at over 800 schools, classrooms, and libraries, and over 300 bookshops, book festivals, and conferences.
Before Julia DeVillers was a bestselling and award-winning author of children’s books, she worked at Chuck E. Cheese – as Chuck E. Cheese. This inspired her newest book. Her previous book was the basis of the Disney Channel Movie “Read It and Weep,” and she sold a TV pilot to CBS based on her life as a children’s author married to a criminal prosecutor.
R. Gregory Christie has illustrated more than sixty books for young adults and children. He has received a Caldecott Honor, two New York Times Best Illustrated Book awards, six Coretta Scott King Honors for illustration, the NAACP Image Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. In addition, Greg has designed John Coltrane album covers and animated films on Netflix, and he operates his online store of autographed children’s books, GAS-ART Gifts. He lives and works in the Atlanta area.
Yangsook Choi is the author of the bestselling classic The Name Jar. Growing up in Korea, she began drawing at age four and delighted in telling her grandmother scary stories at night. After moving to New York to pursue her art, she has written and illustrated many books for young readers.
Nia Davenport attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre. She has an M.A. in Secondary Education, and she teaches English and Biology. She is also the author of Out of Body and the adult sci-fi novels The Blood Trials and The Blood Gift. When she isn’t writing she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie.
Annie Zaleski is the New York Times bestselling author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs. The Cleveland-based journalist has written multiple other books, including This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits and We Found Love, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Romantic Hits; a volume on Duran Duran’s Rio in the prestigious 33 1/3 book series; and illustrated biographies of Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, and Pink. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including NPR Music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Salon, Billboard, Classic Pop, and Record Collector.
Sherri Marie Williams is a race and representation researcher and journalism and media studies professor at American University in Washington D.C. Williams is interested in how marginalized groups, especially Black women, are depicted in media and how they use social media to advocate for representation and social justice. Williams believes that storytelling can be used as a tool for liberation. Before becoming an author and professor, Williams was a journalist for a decade including at The Columbus Dispatch.
www.american.edu/soc/faculty/sherriw.cfm
Robin Smith is employed in the research department of the Upper Arlington Public Library, where she assists with preparing online archival materials. She is the co-author (with Randall Lee Schieber) of Columbus, Ohio: A Photographic Portrait and Ohio: Then and Now and the author of Columbus Ghosts: Historical Haunts of Ohio’s Capital and Columbus Ghosts II: More Central Ohio Haunts.
ohioswallow.com/author/robin-l-smith
Maggie Smith is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of eight books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received a Pushcart Prize and numerous grants and awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more.
Jeffrey L. Smalldon grew up the son of a Hoover-era G-man. From an early age, he exhibited an interest in outliers like snake handlers, sideshow performers, celebrities, nudists, illusionists, gypsies — and criminals. He began corresponding with Charles Manson when he was just twenty-one years of age as part of an undergraduate course in abnormal psychology. When two of his co-workers were murdered in the large hospital where he was an administrator a decade later, Smalldon began working toward a career in forensic psychology. During his career, he consulted on close to 300 death penalty cases and has sought out contact with such killers as Ted Bundy, Donald Harvey, and John Wayne Gacy.
Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree, Métis, and Salish writer from Edmonton, Alberta. Her essay “Soar” won first place in the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest, then won Silver in the National Magazine Awards. She graduated with an MFA in creative non-fiction from Columbia University, where she taught as an adjunct professor. Her journalism has appeared in HuffPost, The New Quarterly, and the Toronto Star. She teaches Indigenous youth how to foster self-love and healing for Connected North and models in her spare time.
Marty Ross-Dolen is a graduate of Wellesley College and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her essays have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Lilith, and Willow Review, among others. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Nicole Graev Lipson’s writing has appeared in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Millions, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Marie Claire, among other venues. Her work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, nominated for a National Magazine Award, and selected for The Best American Essays. Originally from New York City, she lives outside of Boston with her family.
Taylor Keen is a member of both the Cherokee Nation and the Omaha Tribe, where he is known by the name “Bison Mane” within the Earthen Bison Clan. He attended Dartmouth College (BA) and Harvard University (MPA, MBA), and is a Senior Lecturer in the Heider College of Business Administration in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Creighton University. He is also the Founder of Sacred Seed, a NFP to educate and celebrate Indigenous culture and history and lives in Omaha, NE.
Forest Issac Jones is an award-winning author of nonfiction and essays, specializing in the study of Irish History, the US Civil Rights Movement and Northern Ireland. His latest essay, ‘The Civil Rights Connection Between The USA and Northern Ireland’ was awarded honorable mention in the category of nonfiction essay by Writer’s Digest in their 93rd annual writing competition. Jones has won awards from Writer’s Digest in 2022 and 2023. His award-winning essay about African Americans at D-Day was published in 2024 by WWII History Magazine.
Rebe Huntman is a memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher, and poet who writes at the intersections of feminism, world religion and spirituality. For over a decade she directed Chicago’s award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Huntman collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on Fox and ABC News. A Macondo fellow and recipient of an Ohio Individual Excellence award, Huntman has received support for this book from The Ohio State University, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA Residency, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She lives in Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Rena Glover Goss was born and raised in Adena, Ohio. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Muskingum College, a master’s degree from Indiana University and taught music for twenty-seven years in public schools and universities. She has contributed articles to genealogical publications and holds memberships in the Ohio Genealogical Society, Ohio History Connection, Adena Historical Society, Mount Pleasant Historical Society and Smithfield Historical Society. She is also active in the Jefferson County Chapter OGS and Harrison County Chapter OGS.
Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of the nonfiction books Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, The Believer, and the Best Travel Writing and Best Food Writing anthologies. He’s a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.
Deborah Fleming’s nonfiction collection Resurrection of the Wild: Meditations on Ohio’s Natural Landscape won the 2020 PEN-America Art of the Essay Award. She has published five collections of poems, one novel, two nonfiction collections, and four volumes of scholarship. Winner of a Vandewater Poetry Award and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, she served for many years as director and editor of the Ashland Poetry Press.
kentstateuniversitypress.com/author/deborah-fleming
Jaime Jo Wright is the author of twelve novels, including Christy Award and Daphne du Maurier Award winner The House on Foster Hill and Carol Award winner The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond. She’s also a four-time Christy Award finalist, as well as the ECPA bestselling author of The Vanishing at Castle Moreau, The Lost Boys of Barlowe Theater, and two Publishers Weekly bestselling novellas. Jaime lives in Wisconsin with her family and fabulous felines.
Carter Wilson is the USA Today bestselling author of nine critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers. He is an ITW Thriller Award finalist, a five-time winner of the Colorado Book Award, and his works have been optioned for television and film. Carter lives outside of Boulder, Colorado. Dynamic and compelling, he now hosts his own podcast, Making It Up, interviewing authors like S.A. Cosby, Daniel Handler, Stuart Turton, Xio Axelrod, and Julie Clark to talk shop and riff an original story live. The result is a charming, authentic peek into the writing process.
Darcie Wilde is the award-winning author of stylishly adventurous historical mysteries and romances, including the Rosalind Thorne Mysteries, a Regency-set series inspired by the novels of Jane Austen, as well as the Regency Makeover Trilogy. She has also written, under the name Sarah Zettel, Locus and Philip K. Dick Award-winning novels, including Fool’s War, a New York Times Notable Books of the Year selection. She lives in Michigan.
Neena is a horror writer who lives in a cabin in the Washington woods with her husband and the best dog in the world. She grew up between Newburgh, New York and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and holds a Master’s in Public Service from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and a Bachelor’s in Communication Studies from Arkansas State University. Her passion for philanthropy (almost) rivals her love for ghost stories. Listen To Your Sister is her debut novel.
Lena Valencia’s fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Epiphany, Joyland, the anthology Tiny Nightmares, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2019 Elizabeth George Foundation grant and holds an MFA in fiction from The New School. Originally from Los Angeles, she lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is the managing editor and director of educational programming at One Story and the co-host of the reading series Ditmas Lit.
Rebecca Thorne is an author of all things fantasy, sci-fi, and romantic, such as the Tomes & Tea series. She thrives on deadlines, averages 2,700 words a day, and tries to write at least 3 books a year. After years in the traditional publishing space, Rebecca pivoted into self-publishing. Now she’s found a happy medium as a hybrid author and leans into her love of teaching by helping other authors find their perfect publication path.
Amy Spalding is the author of several novels, including the bestselling For Her Consideration, We Used to Be Friends and The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), which was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, and more. She is a recipient of the 2023 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award for the authentic, funny, and diverse representation of the LGBTQ+ community in her books.
Vivian Shaw wears too many earrings and likes edged weapons and expensive ink, and, as an expat Brit born in Kenya, is not actually from anywhere. She has a BA in art history, an MFA in creative writing and publishing arts, and makes jewelry on the side. She is the author of the Dr. Greta Helsing contemporary fantasy series as well as the sci-fi/horror novella The Helios Syndrome. She reviews for The Washington Post and her short sci-fi/horror fiction has appeared in Uncanny, Pseudopod, and The Deadlands. She lives in Santa Fe with her wife, the Hugo-Award-winning author Arkady Martine.
Kaira Rouda is the USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author of contemporary fiction exploring what goes on beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives. Her suspense novels include Best Day Ever, The Next Wife, The Widow, The Favorite Daughter, The Second Mrs. Strom, and What the Nanny Saw. Her novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and have been selected by Library Reads, Amazon and Apple Books Editors as Best Books of the Month and Strand Magazine’s Best Book of the Year.
Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants and the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Harvard College, his writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Lightspeed Magazine, and other publications. Originally from Southern California, he now lives in Brooklyn.
Cynthia Reeves is the author of three books of fiction: the novel The Last Whaler, the novel-in-stories Falling Through the New World (winner of Gold Wake Press’s Fiction Award), and the novella Badlands (winner of Miami University Press’s Novella Prize). Her award-winning short stories, essays, and poetry have appeared widely and earned numerous Pushcart nominations. Most recently, her short story “The Last Glacier” was featured in If the Storm Clears, an anthology of speculative fiction that concerns the sublime in the natural world. A Hawthornden Fellow, Cynthia earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College and taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr and Rosemont Colleges.
Shirlene Obuobi is a Ghanaian-American physician, cartoonist, and author. She currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she practices as a general cardiologist. Her novels, On Rotation and Between Friends & Lovers, have been featured on multiple national outlets such as Teen Vogue, the Washington Post, and Good Morning America. She is a former regular contributor at The Washington Post, and has garnered a wide audience for her comics, which discuss healthcare access, identity and equity.
Vanessa Miller is a best-selling, award-winning author and playwright. Her writing has been centered on themes of redemption and books about strong Black women in pivotal moments of history. Miller’s book, The American Queen won the prestigious Christy Award and was the 2024 American Fiction Award winner for Historical Fiction. The American Queen was also the Woman Evolve Book Club Pick for October 2024 and is a North Carolina Reads pick for 2025. Her latest novel, The Filling Station, has received starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist.
Clémence Michallon is the author of Our Last Resort and The Quiet Tenant, a USA Today and international bestseller and nominee for the Dashiell Hammett Prize. She’s also a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Time Magazine, The Independent, and more. Clémence was born and raised near Paris, has lived in New York since 2014, and became a US citizen in 2022.
Jared Lemus is the author of the 2025 story collection, Guatemalan Rhapsody, and a forthcoming 2027 novel. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Story, The Pinch, The Kenyon Review Online, PANK, Cleaver, and Joyland, among others. He holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is the 2024-2025 Kenan Visiting Writer at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Ashton Lattimore is an award-winning author, journalist, and former lawyer. Her debut novel, All We Were Promised, was a Book of the Month Club pick and one of People Magazine’s Best New Books for April 2024. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Slate, CNN, and Essence. She grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and their two sons.
Nora Lange’s writing has appeared in BOMB, Hazlitt, Joyland, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. Her project Dailyness was longlisted for the 2014 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. She comes from a long line of Midwestern farmers and lives in Salt Lake City with her family.
Adib Khorram is a USA Today bestseller and award-winning author of Darius the Great is Not Okay, which was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best YA Novels of All Time. When he isn’t writing, you can find him exploring Kansas City or playing his Fender Stratocaster. I’ll Have What He’s Having is his adult debut novel.
Bob Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and graduate of the lowa Writers’ Workshop. His work has been published by The Common, Philadelphia Stories, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Barcelona Review, and elsewhere. His story “The Continental Divide” was named Short Story of the Year in The Hudson Review. He lives in South Bend, Indiana.
Amy Lynn Green has always loved history and reading, and she enjoys speaking with book clubs, writing groups, and libraries all around the country. Her debut novel, Things We Didn’t Say, was nominated for a 2021 Minnesota Book Award and won two Carol Awards. Things We Didn’t Say and The Blackout Book Club received starred reviews from both Booklist and Library Journal. Amy and her family make their home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Megan Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her novel, Lakewood, was one of New York Magazine’s 10 best books of 2020, one of NPR’s best books of 2020, a Michigan Notable book for 2021, a nominee for two NAACP Image Awards, and a finalist for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction category. Her second novel, The Women Could Fly, was named one of the Washington Post’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2022, one of Vulture’s Best Fantasy books of 2022, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her work has received support from the Barbara Deming Foundation and Hedgebrook. She lives in Minneapolis.
Wes Blake has been called a “writer to watch” by Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin. His fiction and essays have been featured in Louisiana Literature Journal, Electric Literature, Blood & Bourbon, and Book of Matches, among others. He holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio and lives in Nonesuch, Kentucky with his wife and cats.
Gina María Balibrera earned an MFA in Prose from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She’s been awarded grants from Aspen Words, Tin House, the Rackham Foundation, and the Periplus Collective, as well as a Tyson Award, the Aura Estrada Prize, and the Under the Volcano Sandra Cisneros Fellowship. The Volcano Daughters is her debut novel.
E.M. Anderson (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent writer and the author of The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher and The Keeper of Lonely Spirits. Her work has appeared in SJ Whitby’s Awakenings: A Cute Mutants Anthology, Wyldblood Press’s From the Depths: A Fantasy Anthology, and Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction. They have two master’s degrees and a feral passion for trees, birds, pole fitness, and Uncle Iroh.
Nat Cassidy is an award-winning actor, novelist, playwright, and director, and a sandwich-winning musician. His acclaimed novels, including Mary: An Awakening of Terror, Nestlings, and Rest Stop, have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, Amazon, and more. He was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire. He has won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for a one-man show about H. P. Lovecraft and has appeared on shows such as Blue Bloods, Bull, Quantico, and Law & Order: SVU. He lives in New York City.
Emily Carpenter is a bestselling author of suspense novels including Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies and Gothictown. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she graduated from Auburn University and worked in New York City as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows As the World Turns and Guiding Light. She now lives with her family outside Atlanta, Georgia.
Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Award finalist. She is an adjunct professor in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program and a mentor in the PocketMFA program. Originally from Indiana, Valerie now lives in northern Georgia.
Alby C. Williams hails from the land of snow and salt potatoes. They are a storyteller, poet, and artist of dubious skill but endless enthusiasm. If you catch them in their spare time, you might mistake them for a cat based on the amount of yarn in their immediate vicinity, but don’t be fooled — they’re actually several pigeons in a trench coat.
Carmella Van Vleet is a former teacher who now writes full-time. She is the award-winning author of over a dozen books for kids, including You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce (co-authored with Chiquita Mullins Lee), which represented Ohio at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, DC.
Sam Subity loves writing stories that explore the magic and wonder of being a kid. When he’s not writing, you might find him exploring bookstores or hiking forest trails in search of inspiration for tales of adventure and mystery.
John Schu is the author of the acclaimed picture books This Is a School, illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison, and This Is a Story, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo. Children’s librarian for Bookelicious, part-time lecturer at Rutgers University, and former Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic Book Fairs, Mr. Schu—as he is affectionately known—was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker for his dynamic interactions with readers. He lives in Naperville, Illinois.
Rosalyn Ransaw writes middle-grade mysteries with twisty plots and diverse main characters. She has a B.A. from Columbia University in political science and currently lives in Columbus, Ohio. When not writing, you can find her working her day job as a marketing manager, scrolling on social media, or brainstorming her next book idea. Smoke & Mirrors is her first book.
George Jreije (“jer-age”) is the Lebanese American author of many books, including the acclaimed Shad Hadid fantasy series, the Bashir Boutros fantasy series, and the upcoming graphic novels, Tarik’s Bazaar Adventure as well as Lilo and the League of Librarians. He served as the inaugural author-in-residence for the Concord Library and has been a guest of honor as well as an instructor for Gotham Writer’s Workshop, WriteHive, the Highlights Foundation, and more. When not writing or helping other writers, George scours the world for delicious food and visits schools to spread his love of books!
Will Hillenbrand has written and illustrated a wide range of picture books for children, including the popular Bear and Mole books and the Mighty Reader series. Spring Is Here won the Please Touch Museum Book Award. What a Treasure!, a Pennsylvania One Book, was written with his spouse Jane Hillenbrand.
Quartez Harris is a poet, teacher, and author. He was a Baldwin House fellow and named Ohio Poet of the Year for his book We Made It to School Alive, and his poetry has garnered numerous accolades. He spent many years as a second grade teacher in the Cleveland public school system, and currently spends his time writing and teaching poetry workshops. He lives in Ohio with his wife and son.
Kate Fussner (she/her) is a novelist, teacher, and accidental poet living in Massachusetts with her wife and dramatic dog. She holds her B.A. in English from Vassar College, her M.Ed. from UMass Boston/Boston Teacher Residency, and her M.F.A. in Writing for Young People from Lesley University. Her debut novel, The Song of Us (HarperCollins) was named a 2024 Notable Verse Novel by NCTE, longlisted for the MA Book Awards for YA/MG, and named a Best Children’s Book of the Year by Bank Street College of Education. 13 Ways to Say Goodbye, a story of learning to live and love beyond grief, is her second queer middle grade novel-in-verse.
Nicole D. Collier writes warm-hearted stories about learning to be true to yourself. Her work centers smart, creative girls who discover the power of courage, compassion and inner wisdom. Her most recent work, The Best Friend Bracelet, was called sentimental and kindhearted in a Publishers Weekly starred review. It’s her first book with a hint of magic.
Tamika Burgess (Ta-mee-Ka Bur-jess) is the award-winning middle grade fiction author of Sincerely Sicily and Danilo Was Here. Born to parents who migrated from Panamá, Tamika has always taken a particular interest in writing themes that explore her Black Latina identity. Because of her passion for spreading knowledge about her culture, Tamika writes fiction novels that feature Black Panamanian main characters. Tamika currently resides in Southern California.
Roseanne “Rosie” A. Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana and immigrated to the wild jungles of central Maryland as a child. Her debut novel A Song of Wraiths and Ruin was an instant New York Times Bestseller, an Indie Bestseller, and received six starred reviews. Her debut middle grade novel Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting launched as part of the critically acclaimed Rick Riordan Presents line. She has worked with Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney among other publishers.
Amélie Wen Zhao was born in Paris and grew up in Beijing, where she spent her days reenacting tales of legendary heroes, ancient kingdoms, and lost magic at her grandmother’s courtyard house. She attended college in the United States and now resides in New York City, working as a finance professional by day and fantasy author by night. In her spare time, she loves to travel and spend time with her family in China, where she’s determined to walk the rivers and lakes of old just like the practitioners in her novels do. Amélie is the author of the Blood Heir trilogy: Blood Heir, Red Tigress, and Crimson Reign; Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and its sequel, Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White; and The Scorpion and the Night Blossom.
Jenna Voris writes books about ambitious girls and galaxy-traversing adventures. She was born and raised in Indiana—where she learned to love roundabouts and the art of college basketball—and now calls Washington, DC, home. When she’s not writing, she can be found perfecting her road trip playlists and desperately trying to keep her houseplants alive. She is also the author of Every Time You Hear That Song.
L.T. Thompson writes stories about queer kids and teens discovering themselves and having adventures. They’re a proud library worker and the author of two books for middle-grade readers: The Best Liars in Riverview and The House That Whispers. L.T. grew up in Kentucky, spent a decade in Boston, and now lives in Iowa with their wife and cat. When they’re not writing, they enjoy picking up new hobbies and letting their interests cycle like the tides.
Swati Teerdhala is the author of The Boyfriend Wish and The Tiger at Midnight trilogy. She’s passionate about many things, including how to make a proper cup of tea, the right ratio of curd-to-crust in a lemon tart, and diverse representation in the stories we tell. She currently lives in New York City.
From playing the DM in Dungeons and Dragons to writing fantasy novels, Nikhil Prabala loves storytelling, from the epic to the cozy and everywhere in between. The Duchess of Kokora is his first published novel. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, he graduated from Stanford in 2019 and is currently based in the Bay Area. In his free time he enjoys ballroom dancing, singing, playing the guitar, tabletop games, and spending time with friends and family.
Mia P. Manansala (she/her) is a writer from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series and the YA novel Death in the Cards. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture.
Carlyn Greenwald writes romantic and thrilling page-turners for teens and adults. A film school graduate and former Hollywood lackey, she now works in publishing. She resides in Los Angeles, mourning ArcLight Cinemas and soaking in the sun with her dogs.
Kristy Boyce played her first role-playing game in high school and has been friends with that group ever since. In fact, she married the DM. Nowadays, she teaches psychology as a senior lecturer at the Ohio State University. When she’s not spending time with her husband and son, she’s usually writing, reading, or watching happy reality TV. Kristy is the author of Dating and Dragons, Dungeons and Drama, Hot British Boyfriend, and Hot Dutch Daydream and lives in Pickerington, Ohio.
Samira Ahmed is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of young adult novels Love, Hate & Other Filters, Internment, Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know and Hollow Fires, as well as the middle grade fantasy adventure series Amira & Hamza. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in anthologies including Take the Mic, Color Outside the Lines, Ink Knows No Borders, Vampires Never Get Old, and A Universe of Wishes.
Scott Woods is the author of Urban Contemporary History Month (2016), We Over Here Now (2013) and Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods (2017). He was the co-founder of the Writers’ Block Poetry Night. In April of 2006 he became the first poet to ever complete a 24-hour solo poetry reading, a feat he bested by performing the event seven more times without repeating a single poem. He is the founder of Streetlight Guild, an arts nonprofit arts organization in Columbus, Ohio.
Bruce Vilanch is an actor (occasionally an actress), a Emmy-winning writer (occasionally a rewriter), and comedian (occasionally for money, often for causes). He has coauthored 25 Academy Award spectacles, many Tonys, Emmys, Grammys, People’s Choice, SAG Awards, and various other trumped-up reasons for people to strut a red carpet. He has coauthored dozens of variety television shows and put words in the mouth of Cher. He’s also a lyricist, scoring gold and platinum records for disco songs he wrote for Eartha Kitt and the Village People. Musical theatre geeks will remember him as the coauthor of the Broadway misfire called Platinum, which was revived off-Broadway for reasons that continue to mystify Bruce.
chicagoreviewpress.com/it-seemed-like-a-bad-idea-at-the-time-products-9780914091929.php
Rikki Santer was named the Ohio Poet of the Year in 2023. She has published six full-length collections and six chapbook sequences exploring such topics as the Hopewell earthworks of Newark, the late Kahiki Supper Club of Columbus, the art of ventriloquism, the complex world of fashion, and the TV series Twilight Zone. Her collection Resurrection Letter was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and her newest collection, Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books.
Lindy Ryan is an award-winning author, anthologist, and short-film director whose books and anthologies have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal. Several of her projects have been adapted for screen. Ryan is the current author-in-residence at Rue Morgue. Declared a “champion for women’s voices in horror” by Shelf Awareness, Ryan was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2020, and in 2022, was named one of horror’s most masterful anthology curators. Born and raised in Southeast Texas, Ryan currently resides on the East Coast. She is a professor at Rutgers University.
Caitlin McGurk is the Curator of Comics and Cartoon Art at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and Associate Professor at The Ohio State University. McGurk’s scholarship and exhibitions center around the work of women in comics, alternative and underground comics, and early American comic strips.
Scott Longert is a graduate of the Ohio State University and has his master’s degree in American history from Cleveland State University. Scott is the author of seven books on Cleveland baseball history and numerous articles. He has appeared on radio and television programs, and has been a guest speaker at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Sara Kaushal is a historian and the author of Murder & Mayhem in Dayton and the Miami Valley and Dayton Ghosts & Legends. She loves historic true crime, mysteries and ghost stories. She co-writes the blog Dayton Unknown and loves to point out haunted places in her hometown.
Roger Jerome, born 1936 in St. Albans, U.K., is an experienced actor and educator now living in Columbus, Ohio. Jerome holds a B.A. from Birmingham University, an Honors Diploma from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, an M.A. from Sussex University, and was a founder-member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His extensive acting career spans from the U.K. (1960-65) to the U.S. (1997-2023). Jerome also served as a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre director at University of the South Bank, and a director for the Association for Cultural Exchange. A member of the Dickens Fellowship and Aldus Society, Jerome has also edited two books by Daniel Jerome.
William Haldeman is a presidential historian and author of the book Meeting the Moment: Inspiring Presidential Leadership That Transformed America. Haldeman has extensive high-level government experience, serving the White House Domestic Policy Council, the seventh floor of the U.S. Department of State, and as a member of a governor’s senior staff. He currently serves as Vice Chancellor and Chief Strategy Officer at the University of Pittsburgh. He earned a PhD in History from American University and Term Membership on the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sandra Gurvis is the author of many commercially published nonfiction books and two novels. A freelance writer for over 30 years, she has written corporate profiles, technical articles and curated and created web content. Her newest nonfiction title is the 4th edition of Day Trips from Columbus.
Sarah Gormley is a writer and art gallery owner living in Columbus, Ohio. Her undergraduate degree from DePauw University reinforced an early love for literature and writing, while the heavy sprinkling of liberal-arts fairy dust taught her how to analyze and articulate a clear point of view. She rounded out this foundation with concentrations in marketing and operations from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Her art gallery operates from the belief that original art can be a source of joy for everyone and actively eschews pretense of any kind.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently So Much More. He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry.
Steven Conn is the W. E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University. In 2021 he helped create a spin-off website in collaboration with Getty images, which has since developed into the book Picturing Black History. He is the author of seven books and the editor of three others.
Heather S. Cole is a writer and public historian living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She is the author of Ohio’s Presidents: A History & Guide, Virginia’s Presidents: A History & Guide, and more. She works as an editor for Bridgewater College and runs a small publishing company specializing in local and family history.
Peg Bobel is a freelance writer and former cultural resource specialist for Summit Metro Parks. Peg holds a Master of Science in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University and for nearly twenty years was a social worker in public agencies. Later, while serving as executive director of the Cuyahoga Valley Association, she and her husband Rob edited the book Trail Guide: Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and the popular Towpath Companion. In 2009, Peg and her colleague Lynn Metzger edited and contributed to Canal Fever: The Ohio & Erie Canal from Waterway to Canalway.
blogs.uakron.edu/uapress/product/native-americans-of-the-cuyahoga-valley
Jarod K. Anderson has three best-selling collections of nature poetry, Field Guide to the Haunted Forest, Love Notes from the Hollow Tree, and Leaf Litter. His memoir Something in the Woods Loves You explores his lifelong struggle with depression through a lens of love and gratitude for the natural world. Jarod created and voices The CryptoNaturalist podcast, a scripted audio-fiction show about real adoration for imaginary wildlife. He lives in Ohio between a park and a cemetery.
Khan Wong is the author of The Circle Infinite, a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award and long-listed for the British Science Fiction Association’s Best Novel for that same year, and Down in the Sea of Angels. In the past he has played cello for an earnest folk-rock duo, worked as an arts funder, and was an internationally known hula hoop teacher and performer.
Julian Winters is the author of the award-winning Young Adult novels Running With Lions, Right Where I Left You, How to Be Remy Cameron, The Summer of Everything, and As You Walk On By, as well as the upcoming Prince of the Palisades and his Adult romance debut, I Think They Love You. A self-proclaimed comic book geek, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta where he can be found swooning over rom-coms or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer.
Denise Williams wrote her first book in the 2nd grade. I Hate You and its sequel, I Still Hate You, featured a tough, funny heroine, a quirky hero, witty banter, and a dragon. Minus the dragons, these are still the books she likes to write. After finishing second grade, she eventually earned a PhD. Just Our Luck is her tenth book. A military brat who grew up around the world and across the country, Denise now lives in Iowa with her husband, son, and an ornery shih-tzu who only enters the room walking backwards. Denise can usually be found reading, writing, or thinking about love stories.
Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.
Edward Underhill grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he could not walk to anything, so he had to make up his own adventures. He studied music in college, spent several years living in very small apartments in New York, and currently resides in California with his partner and a talkative black cat. He is the author of the young adult novels Always the Almost, This Day Changes Everything, and In Case You Read This. The In-Between Bookstore is his first novel for adults.
Brad Taylor, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is a New York Times bestselling author of eighteen heart-pounding thrillers and ten eBook short stories. Taylor is a twenty-one-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with Delta Force. He retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. When he’s not writing, Taylor is a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and two daughters.
Christine Hill Suntz knew she wanted to write the day she finished Anne of Green Gables and she’s been lost in her imagination ever since. Her debut novel, The Lawyer and the Laundress, combines her love of romance with a passion for local history and its impact on domestic life. She lives on a hobby farm in Ontario with her family and a herd of entitled goats. When she’s not writing, she teaches high school French and tries out historical recipes on her (mostly) willing family.
Andrea Stewart is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Drowning Empire trilogy and The Gods Below. Her debut epic fantasy novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy and Debut Novel, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and the BookNest Award for Best Traditionally Published Novel. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes.
Helena Rho is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominated writer and the author of American Seoul. A former assistant professor of pediatrics, she has practiced and taught at top ten children’s hospitals: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh.
Joanna Davidson Politano is the award-winning author of Lady Jayne Disappears, A Rumored Fortune, Finding Lady Enderly, The Love Note, A Midnight Dance, The Lost Melody, and The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple. She loves tales that capture the colorful, exquisite details in ordinary lives and is eager to hear anyone’s story. She lives with her husband and their children in a house in the woods near Lake Michigan.
Cynthia Pelayo is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Forgotten Sisters, Children of Chicago, and The Shoemaker’s Magician. In addition to writing genre-blending novels that incorporate fairy-tale, mystery, detective, crime, and horror elements, Pelayo has written numerous short stories, including the collection Lotería, and the poetry collection Crime Scene. The recipient of the 2021 International Latino Book Award, she holds a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her family.
Ehigbor Okosun, or just Ehi, is the #1 International Bestselling author of The Tainted Blood duology, an action-packed adult epic fantasy. Raised across four continents, she now resides in the US, where she writes speculative fiction, mystery thrillers, and contemporary novels for adult and YA audiences. She writes in hopes of doing justice to the myths and traditions she grew up steeped in, and to honour her large, multiracial and multiethnic family. She is a graduate of UT Austin with degrees in Plan II Honors, Neurolinguistics, and English, as well as Chemistry and Pre-Medical studies. When she’s not reading, you can catch her bullet journalling, gaming, baking, singing, doing yoga and spending time with her loved ones.
Katie Naymon lives and writes in Stockholm, Sweden. Originally from Northeast Ohio, she got her BA in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and her MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. You Between the Lines is her debut novel.
Megan Murphy grew up in small-town Kentucky, aside from a short stint in northern Indiana, which became the basis for her debut novel. When she’s not writing (or reading) swoony, laugh-out-loud contemporary romances, Megan works as a business analyst. She’s most at home, well, at home, with her husband and rescue dog Captain, or enjoying a concert or local festival.
Arkady Martine is the Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace. She is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She currently works on clean energy policy and utility regulation in New Mexico. Under both names, she writes about border politics, rhetoric, propaganda, and the edges of the world. Arkady grew up in New York City and, after some time in Turkey, Canada, Sweden, and Baltimore, lives in Santa Fe with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw.
P.H. Low is a Rhysling- and Locus-nominated Malaysian American writer and poet whose debut novel These Deathless Shores is now out from Orbit Books (US) and Angry Robot (UK). Their shorter work is published in Strange Horizons, Reactor, Fantasy Magazine, and Diabolical Plots, among others. P. H. has a bad habit of moving cities every few years, but can always be found online.
Jennifer K. Lambert lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband of over thirty years, his chocolate-lab assistance dog, two Maine coon cats who assist no one, and plentiful free-range lizards. She also writes as the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of 64 published titles, Jeffe Kennedy, primarily in epic fantasy romance.
Carolyn Korsmeyer turned her hand to fiction after a career as a university professor teaching and publishing in philosophy. Her previous two novels include a historical narrative and a mystery set at the turn of the last millennium. Riddle of Spirit and Bone features the spiritualist movement, a topic that prompts reflection on belief and knowledge, illusion, delusion, certainty, and doubt.
Darci Hannah grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, is a graduate of Indiana University, and currently lives in a small town in Michigan with her husband, three sons, and two dogs. She has lived around the Great Lakes all her life and considers them a source of inspiration. When she’s not engaged in a rollicking family adventure, walking her dogs, or working at the historic Howell Carnegie District Library, she’s either baking up a storm or hard at work on her next Beacon Bakeshop Mystery.
Michelle Griep has been writing since she first discovered blank wall space and Crayola. She is a Christy Award–winning author of historical romances that both intrigue and evoke a smile. She’s an anglophile at heart, and you’ll most often find her partaking of a proper cream tea while scheming up her next novel . . . but it’s probably easier to find her online.
Alex Grecian is the national bestselling author of Red Rabbit, The Yard, The Black Country, The Devil’s Workshop, The Harvest Man, Lost and Gone Forever, and The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, as well as the critically acclaimed graphic novels Proof and Rasputin, and the novellas The Blue Girl and One Eye Open. He lives in the Midwest with his wife, his son, their dog, and a tarantula named Rosie.
Miriam Gershow is the author of Closer, Survival Tips: Stories and The Local News, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Her writing is featured in The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review, among other journals. She is the recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship and a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.
Varun was born in India and raised in the American Midwest. After studying philosophy in college and public policy in graduate school, he worked for more than two decades on global poverty and human rights, publishing academic articles and books on development economics and behavioral economics. He now teaches at Princeton University and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. His short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recognized in Best American Nonrequired Reading. He was a Summer Writer-in-Residence at Washington, DC’s The Inner Loop. For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus is his first novel.
Katherine Bryant is a queer author and the mother of a transgender child. Her interest in LGBTQ history, and in particular, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and The Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin, led her to write her debut novel, Give My Love to Berlin.
Colleen Cambridge is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the American in Paris Mysteries and the Phyllida Bright Mysteries, the first of which, Murder at Mallowan Hall, was an Agatha Award finalist and an Indie Next Pick. The first American in Paris Mystery, Mastering the Art of French Murder, was both an Indie Next Pick and a LibraryReads selection. An accomplished historian whose meticulously researched novels appeal to fans of historical fiction and mysteries alike, she also writes under the pennames C.M. Gleason and Colleen Gleason. She lives in the Midwest.
Savannah Carlisle writes heartwarming romance novels with idyllic beach settings. Her stories transport readers to fun and quirky small towns where friends feel like family. In her other life, she writes about sports business as Kristi Dosh. She lives on Amelia Island with her husband, German Shepherd and three cats.
Tracy Clark is the acclaimed author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Detective Harriet Foster series. Clark received Anthony Award and Lefty Award nominations for her series debut Broken Places, which was shortlisted for the American Library Association’s RUSA Reading List and named a CrimeReads Best New PI Book of 2018, a Midwest Connections Pick, and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. A Chicago native, Clark is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime and sits on the boards of Bouchercon National and the Midwest Mystery Conference.
Amanda Cox is the Christy Award–winning author of The Edge of Belonging, The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery, and He Should Have Told the Bees. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Bible and theology and a master’s degree in professional counseling, but her first love is communicating through story. Her studies and her interactions with hurting families over a decade have allowed her to create multidimensional characters that connect emotionally with readers. She lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with her husband and their three children.
Matt Dinniman is a writer and artist from Gig Harbor, Washington. He is the author of the best-selling Dungeon Crawler Carl series along with several other books about the end of the world. He doesn’t really hate Cocker Spaniels, and he plays bass in two bands.
Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of fifteen suspense novels, including House on Fire, The Fixer, and Suspicion. Two of his novels have been adapted into major motion pictures—Paranoia (starring Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman) and High Crimes (starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman). Four more have won the industry’s top best novel awards—Killer Instinct (the International Thriller Writers Award), Buried Secrets (the Strand Critics Award), Guilty Minds (the Barry Award), and Company Man (the Barry Award). Finder lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Lauren Marie Fleming (xe/her) is an author, story coach, and founder of SchoolForWriters.com, where she helps diverse storytellers thrive. During her 20 year writing career, Lauren has been featured in prominent media outlets including Good Morning America, Glamour, xoJane, Autostraddle, and Cosmo, and has had columns for Curve Magazine, Vice Magazine, and the Huffington Post. Because Fat Girl is her debut novel.
Lauren Francis-Sharma is the author of Casualties of Truth, Book of the Little Axe, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the critically acclaimed novel ’Til the Well Runs Dry. She was a MacDowell fellow and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College. She lives near Washington, D.C. with her family.
Dianne Freeman is the USA Today bestselling author of the Agatha and Lefty award-winning Countess of Harleigh Mystery series. She is also a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark and the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award. After thirty years of corporate accounting, she now writes full-time. Born and raised in Michigan, she and her husband split their time between Michigan and Arizona.
Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including The Song of Sourwood Mountain, In the Shadow of the River, When the Meadow Blooms, Along a Storied Trail, An Appalachian Summer, River to Redemption, These Healing Hills, and Angel Sister. She and her husband live on a farm a mile from where she was born in rural Kentucky. Ann enjoys discovering the everyday wonders of nature while hiking in her farm’s fields and woods with her grandchildren and her dogs, Frankie and Marley.
Jonny Garza Villa is a product of the Great State of Texas, a Sagittarius sun and Capricorn everything else, and an award-winning author of contemporary stories that reflect their own Tejane, Chicane, and queer identities. Their work includes Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, Ander & Santi Were Here, Canto Contigo, and Futbolista, their debut new adult romance. They live in San Antonio.
Miesha Wilson Headen is the winner of a Best Minority Issues Reporting Award from the Greater Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists, aand a BINC Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists. She is the former mayor of Richmond Heights, OH, where she lives with her husband and two sons. She graduated from Columbia University and Ursuline College. She is also a preacher’s kid. Her latest work is as an editor of Cleveland Noir.
Michael Streissguth is the author of ten books, including the critically acclaimed Johnny Cash: The Biography and Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris and the Renegades of Nashville (one of Rolling Stone’s top music books of 2013). He has written and directed three documentary films including the award-winning The Tower Road Bus and Nighthawks on the Blue Highway and served as a program advisor on Ken Burns’ Country Music (2019). He teaches in the Department of Communications and Film Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.
Alisa Alering, author of the debut novel Smothermoss, grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. Their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.
Alex Brown is a queer, biracial Filipino-American writer who loves rooting for the final girl—especially if she’s a monster. Alex is also one of the co-creators and producers of The Bridge, a spooky, folklore-filled audio drama podcast that has over one million downloads to date! Alex’s Young Adult horror-comedy debut, Damned If You Do was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and was also selected for the 2024 TAYSHAS Reading List. Alex also co-edited Night Of The Living Queers, a YA Horror anthology in its second printing.
Julia was that GenX kid who rode her bike to the library or bookstore and spent all day there. On the way home she drank out of people’s garden hoses when she was thirsty. Now her life looks nothing like that but she still loves books and libraries. Julia remains largely unsupervised and gets paid to make up stuff.
Andromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was translated into eleven languages and was chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, BookSense pick, and one of Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. Her next novels, The Detour (2012), Behave (2016) and Plum Rains (2018) have covered subjects from classical art, to the early years of psychology, to artificial intelligence, aging and relationships in the near future. The Deepest Lake (2024) is her first thriller.
Tracey is the 2021 Emma Award winner for Best Interracial Romance for Like Lovers Do, which was named one of the 100 Best Fiction Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews. A former criminal defense attorney, she lives in Virginia with her husband—who she met on the very first day of law school—and is counting down the days until they have an empty nest. (Don’t worry, their three kids are well aware.)
Mazey Eddings is a neurodiverse author, dentist, and (most importantly) stage mom to her cats, Yaya and Zadie. She can most often be found reading romance novels under her weighted blanket and asking her fiancé to bring her snacks. She’s made it her personal mission in life to destigmatize mental health issues and write love stories for every brain.
With roots in Ohio and Philadelphia, she now calls Asheville, North Carolina home. She is the author of A Brush with Love and Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake.
Born and raised in Detroit, DeAnn Wiley is a self-taught illustrator with a master’s degree in counseling psychology. She advocates for social justice from the intersection of multiple identities—Black, Woman, Queer, and Disabled— and she stands in solidarity with other marginalized communities outside of her own.
When she’s not painting, she’s learning, growing, and healing, with each phase of her journey depicted in her art. She is the illustrator of Sarah Rising and the Sunday Adventures series. Homegrown is her author-illustrator debut.
Suma Subramaniam’s picture books include My Name is Long As A River, A Bindi Can Be, Namaste is a Greeting (Crystal Kite Award Winner), She Sang for India, The Runaway Dosa, and more. Suma is also a contributing author of The Hero Next Door (Finalist -Massachusetts Book Award). Her poems have been published in Poetry Magazine, What is Hope?, and other anthologies for children. She lives in Seattle with her family and a dog who will do anything for Indian sweets and snacks.
Keith O’Brien is the New York Times best-selling author of Paradise Falls, Fly Girls, and Outside Shot, a finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, and an award-winning journalist. O’Brien has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico, and his stories have also appeared on National Public Radio and This American Life. A native of Cincinnati, he now lives in New Hampshire.
Kat Zhang loves traveling to places both real and fictional–the former have better souvenirs, but the latter allow for dragons, so it’s a tough pick. She is the author of the novels The Hybrid Chronicles, The Emperor’s Riddle, and The Memory of Forgotten Things, and the picture books Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao and Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon.
When not writing, spends her free time scribbling poetry, taking photographs, and climbing atop things she shouldn’t.
A. J. Sass (he/they) is an author whose narrative interests lie at the intersection of identity, neurodiversity, and allyship. He is the critically acclaimed author of the ALA Rainbow Book List Top 10 titles Ellen Outside the Lines, which was also a Sydney Taylor Honor Book, Ana on the Edge, and Just Shy of Ordinary, as well as the co-author of Camp QUILTBAG (with Nicole Melleby).
When he’s not writing, A. J. figure skates and travels as much as possible. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his husband.
Born in Puerto Rico and based in Columbus, Rafael Rosado is a seasoned writer, director and storyboard artist for the animation industry. He began his career at Character Builders as an assistant animator and worked his way up to become a character designer, storyboard artist and commercial director. He worked on such shows as Fox’s Emmy Award-winning Life With Louie, HBO’s Happily Ever After and Fox’s Where in The World Is Carmen San Diego.
Jenn Reese (they/she) writes speculative fiction for readers of all ages. Jenn is the author of Every Bird a Prince, the Oregon Book Award-winning A Game of Fox & Squirrels, and the Above World trilogy. They also write short stories for teens and adults.
Jenn lives in Portland, Oregon where they make art, play video games, and build cardboard forts for their cats.
Katie Mazeika is an author/ illustrator who specializes in telling stories based on real people and events. She likes to highlight disabled voices in her work. Katie is the author and illustrator of Annette Feels Free and Beulah Has A Hunch! Katie has illustrated several other books, including three in the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Babies series.
Julia Devillers is a bestselling and award-winning author of middle grade and YA fiction and nonfiction books. Her book was turned into the Disney Channel movie “Read It and Weep.” She recently sold a TV pilot to CBS inspired by her life.
Her newest book, Meet Isabel and Nicki, shares the teenage lives of American Girl twins living in the 90s.
Veronica Park Anderson (she/they) is a neurodivergent, queer, feminist millennial writer with a resume that Victor Frankenstein would disown for being “a bit much.”
V’s previous job titles include: award-winning community theater actor, professional lecturer on cruise ships, indie film producer, literary agent, and creative project manager; however, “writer” is the title that always fits. V plays competitive flat track roller derby as “Scarlet Five” #55 and prefers the pivot role, aka “surprise jamming.” Born in Alaska and raised in Oregon, she currently lives with her partner in Upstate NY and has two cats named Skeletor and Bo-Catan.
Kristen Simmons is a critically acclaimed young adult author of more than a dozen books, including the Article Five trilogy, The Deceivers series, and The Glass Arrow. Kristen Simmons’ writing is inspired by her work with trauma survivors as a mental health therapist. She currently lives with her husband and son in Cincinnati, where she spins stories, herds a small pack of semi-wild dogs, and teaches Jazzercise.
Hal Schrieve grew up in Olympia, Washington. Hir debut novel Out of Salem was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2019. Hal’s poetry has appeared in Vetch magazine, and hir comics have been featured in Stacked Deck Press’s 2018 anthology We’re Still Here. Hal works as a children’s librarian in New York.
Mark Sebastian Jordan wears many hats: Local history columnist, historical storyteller, music journalist, screenwriter, poet and more. He has had two books selected by the Ohioana Library Book Festival, has appeared as a history expert on multiple TV shows, has written program notes for the Cleveland Orchestra, and was the screenwriter for the short film “recovered” which was awarded Best US Short Drama Film at the Austin Revolution Film Festival.
Kim Johnson held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen. She’s now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders. This Is My America was her debut novel.
She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park. Kim lives her best life in Oregon with her husband and two kids.
Kellie M. Parker is an award-winning writer of YA fantasy and thrillers. She has college degrees in biology and nautical archaeology, but she’s always found her sense of adventure most satisfied by a great story. When not writing, Kellie can be found teaching her four children, camping, baking, and gardening. She lives with her family in west Michigan.
As a lawyer and daughter of Guatemalan and Cuban bakers, Jessica Parra never objects to an extra slice of cake. She’s a Los Angeles native who loves to write about Latinas with big hair (and even bigger dreams), complicated families, and the healing magic of acceptance.
She’s the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success and The Quince Project (both published with Wednesday Books), as well as many unfinished first drafts about cats living their best lives—all nine of them. When she isn’t drafting books you can find her sipping kombucha, cuddling with her kitties, or co-piloting the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge.
Jane Simon Ammeson is the author of 16 books ranging from food and travel to true crime. She is the winner of the Lowell Thomas Journalism Competition in the “Travel Book” category and runs a popular travel/food blog. She reviews books for the Shelf Life blog and the New York Journal of Books.
Bestselling author and journalist, Terreece M. Clarke, writes love stories about courageous Black women, in extraordinary circumstances, who are loved completely and unapologetically. Her debut novel, Heartbeat: A Courageous Love Novel, is an international bestseller in two categories.
Mark Cecil is host of The Thoughtful Bro show, for which he conducts interviews with an eclectic roster of award-winning and breakout storytellers. Formerly a journalist for Reuters, he is Head of Strategy for literary social media startup, A Mighty Blaze, and has taught writing at Grub Street in Boston. This is his first book.
Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny
Born in the Caribbean, Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times bestselling and World Fantasy Award-winning author. His novels and almost 100 stories have been translated into 19 different languages. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Astounding Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. He currently lives in Ohio.
The Runes of Engagement
Karina Yan Glaser is the New York Times best-selling author of The Vanderbeekers series and A Duet for Home. A former teacher as well as employee of New York City’s largest provider of transitional housing for the homeless, Karina is now a contributing editor at Book Riot.
Karina lives in Harlem, New York City, with her husband, two children, and an assortment of rescue animals. One of her proudest achievements is raising two kids who can’t go anywhere without a book.
Ali Terese writes funny and heartfelt middle grade and YA stories. Free Period is her debut novel. It is a story of friendship and period equity complete with laugh-out-loud shenanigans, delightfully disgusting desserts, and some world-changing crafts.
Visit Ali online for book bonuses, giveaways, and resources like discussion guides, recipes, craftivism projects, and more.
Debbie Rigaud is the author of A Girl’s Guide To Love & Magic, Simone Breaks All The Rules, Truly Madly Royally, and the co-author of Alyssa Milano’s New York Times bestselling Hope series and Sarah Mlynowski’s Best Wishes: The Sister Switch.
Debbie started her career writing for entertainment and teen magazines. She now lives with her husband and children in Columbus.
Nicole Melleby, a New Jersey native, is the author of highly praised middle-grade books, including the Lambda Literary finalist Hurricane Season, ALA Notable book How to Become a Planet, Camp QUILTBAG (co-written with A. J. Sass), and The House on Sunrise Lagoon series.
She currently teaches at the Fairleigh Dickinson MFA Creative Writing program and lives with her wife and their cats, whose needs for attention oddly align with Nicole’s writing schedule.
Malia Maunakea is a Hawaiian writer whose middle-grade debut Lei and the Fire Goddess was an Amazon Best Book of the Month and received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. She grew up on Hawaiʻi Island before moving to a valley on Oʻahu in 7th grade.
George is the Lebanese-American author of the Shad Hadid children’s fantasy series and the upcoming graphic novel, Tarik’s Bazaar Adventure. He has also written short stories published in collaboration with UNICEF.
George currently serves as a Creative Writing instructor with Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City. He has been a guest of honor as well as a featured speaker for WriteHive, WorldCon, SCBWI, and the Highlights Foundation.
Nashae Jones is a freelance writer and an educator. Her pieces have appeared in publications such as HuffPost, McSweeney’s, Yahoo Voices among others. Currently she lives in Virginia with her husband, two kids, two cats, and one dog. She is passionate about diversity initiatives, especially in children’s literature.
Hugh “H. D.” Hunter is a storyteller, teaching artist, and community organizer from Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the author of Torment: A Novella, the Futureland trilogy, and Something Like Right, as well as the winner of several international indie book awards for multicultural fiction. Hugh is committed to stories about Black kids and their many expansive worlds.
Tatiana Hill (she/her) is a Black and Latina illustrator by day and roller skater by night. Her art journey began alongside her love for anime in the early 2000s and culminated with a BA in Animation. Receiving awards for Best Art Direction, she would later apply her skill set in color and design to illustration.
Born in Los Angeles and a member of the roller skate community there, Tatiana enjoys participating in a space that celebrates diversity, identity, and found family. She illustrated The Roller World Tarot deck and Blood City Rollers, her debut graphic novel as an illustrator.
Breanna Carzoo is the author-illustrator of the picture books Lou, Greenlight, and The Squish. She crafts illustrations with painted cut-paper collage and mixed media.
Her debut picture book, Lou, was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2022, was shortlisted for the 2023 Barnes and Noble Children’s and YA Book Awards, has been named on many state award lists, and both Lou and Greenlight received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Austin, TX, with her husband and dog.
Meghan P. Browne is the award-winning author of Indelible Ann: The Larger-than-Life Story of Governor Ann Richards, Dorothy the Brave, and The Bees of Notre-Dame.
Meghan holds a BA from The University of Arizona and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas where she now lives with her husband, Greg, their three children, a pasture full of goats and chickens, a thriving honeybee apiary, and two ranch dogs named Josie and Cricket.
Lindsay Bonilla is a professional storyteller and author whose previous picture books include Parents’ Choice Award winner Polar Bear Island, I Love You with All of My Hearts, and The Note Who Faced the Music. She lives with her husband, two wild and creative kids, and her dog, Blitzen, in North Canton, Ohio.
Jenn Bishop is the author of five novels for young readers, including the Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner Things You Can’t Say. Her books have been named Junior Library Guild selections and Bank Street College of Education best books and have been finalists for state book awards. She currently calls Cincinnati home.
Ann Zhao (she/her) is a student at Wellesley College, where she studies linguistics with a minor in women’s and gender studies. She enjoys cooking, baking, and knitting, but she does not enjoy cleaning up after herself when she’s done with these activities. Dear Wendy is her debut novel.
LaDarrion Williams is a Los Angeles based-playwright, filmmaker, author, and screenwriter whose goal is to cultivate a new era of Black fantasy, providing space and agency for Black characters and stories in a new, fresh and fantastical way. He is currently a resident playwright/co-creator of The Black Creators Collective, where his play UMOJA made its West Coast premiere in January 2022 and produced North Hollywood’s first Black playwrights festival at the Waco Theater Center.
Blood at the Root is his first novel. His viral and award-winning short film based on the same concept, is currently on YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Jonny Garza Villa (they/them) is an author of contemporary young adult literature with characters and settings inspired by their own Tejane, Chicane, and queer identities. Their debut YA novel Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun was a Pura Belpré Honor Book and a Kirkus Best YA Fiction of 2021 selection and their sophomore YA—Ander & Santi Were Here—was a Barnes & Noble YA Book Club selection, an AudioFile Earphone Award Winner, and a Best YA of 2023 selection by Audible.
When not writing, Jonny enjoys reading, playing Dungeons & Dragons, visiting taquerías, listening to Selena, and caring for their many cacti children. They live in San Antonio.
Swati Teerdhala is a storyteller at heart. After graduating from the University of Virginia with a BS in finance and BA in history, she tumbled into the marketing side of the technology industry. She’s passionate about many things, including how to make a proper cup of tea, the right ratio of curd to crust in a lemon tart, and diverse representation in our stories. She currently lives in New York City.
Christen Randall (she/they) is a queer, fat, neurodivergent author of queer, fat, neurodiverse books. When they’re not writing joyful stories for the next generation of geeky gay kids, you can find them working at their local library branch or at home planning all the D&D campaigns they’ll run one day, they swear.
Christen lives in Covington, Kentucky. The No-Girlfriend Rule is her debut novel.
Skye Quinlan (they/them) is a queer, autistic author of YA fiction. They’re an avid reader, have an absurd amount of crystals and gemstones, and if they’re not tending to their garden, you can usually find them playing Animal Crossing. Skye lives in Ohio with their wife, two dogs, a snake, and two lizards.
Jae-Jones (called JJ) is an artist, an adrenaline junkie, and the New York Times bestselling author of the Wintersong duology and the Guardians of Dawn series. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives on the wrong coast, where she can’t believe she has to deal with winter every year. When not writing, JJ can be found working toward her next black belt degree in taekwondo, being run ragged by her twin dogs, Castor and Pollux, or indulging in her favorite hobby — collecting more hobbies.
Fern Haught is an author, illustrator, and adjunct professor based in Cleveland Heights. They love crafting stories incorporating queer characters and their relationships, often set in magical worlds. Their two cats, Binx and Honey, are often looking over their shoulder while they work, and do a great job of being honorary co-authors. When they aren’t creating books they decorate cookies at a local bakery and do background painting for games. The Baker and the Bard is their debut graphic novel.
Michael Thomas Ford is the author of numerous books for both adults and young readers. A five-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ books, he has also been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Firecracker Award. He lives in rural Ohio with his husband and dogs.
Jen Ferguson is Michif/Métis and white, an activist, an intersectional feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD in English and creative writing. Her acclaimed debut, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, won the Governor General’s Award and received six starred reviews.
In her remarkable second novel, Those Pink Mountain Nights, Jen writes about the hurt of a life stuck in past tense, the hum of connections that cannot be severed, and one week in a small snowy town that changes everything.
Ana Ellickson writes about fierce girls, family curses, and everyday magic. The Vanishing Station is her debut novel, inspired by daydreams about jumping portals in the San Francisco subway. Roman the Renegade—her graphic novel script about street art and Filipino monsters—was awarded the 2021 New Visions Honor by Lee & Low Books. She lives in sunny Santa Barbara.
Nora Shalaway Carpenter’s novels and anthologies have been named “Best of the Year” by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Bank Street Books, and A Mighty Girl, and have won accolades including the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Her newest books, Fault Lines and AB(solutely) NORMAL, were both named to the 2024 TAYSHAS Texas state reading list.
Shalaway Carpenter holds an MFA from VCFA and serves as faculty for the Highlights Foundation’s Whole Novel Workshop. Hailing from rural West Virginia, she aims to disrupt stereotypes surrounding rural people as well as those living with mental health conditions.
Maurice Vellekoop was born in 1964 in a suburb of Toronto. A prolific artist and illustrator, he has worked non-stop for the last three decades. In addition to publications, his corporate clients include Swissair, Abercrombie & Fitch, Air Canada, Smart Car, LVMH, and Bush Irish Whiskey. He lives on Toronto Island with his partner, Gordon Bowness.
Peter Stark is an adventurer and historian. Born in Wisconsin, he attended Dartmouth College and University of Wisconsin and set out to write adventure-travel articles about Greenland, Tibet and elsewhere for magazines such as Outside, Smithsonian, and The New York Times Magazine.
Based in Montana, he now specializes in researching and writing historical accounts of early American explorers in wilderness settings and their contact with Indigenous peoples. His most recent book is Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation (Random House, 2023).
Susan Sleeper-Smith is emerita professor of history at Michigan State University. She is author of Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes and editor or co-editor of several essay volumes, including Why You Can’t Teach United States History Without American Indians, Violence in Indigenous Communities: Confronting the Past, Engaging the Present, Rethinking the Fur Trade: Cultures of Exchange in an Atlantic World, Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives, and New Faces of the Fur Trade.
Kathy Schulz is a retired college librarian from Wittenberg University. A native of northeast Ohio, she has deep roots in the state and degrees from three of its universities: a B.S. in Education from Ohio State, an M.L.S. from Kent State, and an M. Hum. from Wright State. This is her first traditionally published book.
Highlighting the rich tapestry of Columbus’ firefighting history, the 200th Anniversary History Book presents the most comprehensive historical collection since the organization’s inception in 1822. The 352-page book begins with a detailed accounting of the history of the CFD from 1822 to the present, highlighted with photographs to help tell the department’s story. Nearly 1600 individual photos of current personnel are proudly included. This publication is made possible by the dedicated vision of Columbus Fire Historians, the Central Ohio Fire Museum and the 200th Anniversary Yearbook Committee.
Steven P. Locke is an alumni of The Ohio State University where he did his undergraduate and graduate work. He taught history in the Granville, Ohio Exempted School District. He was Curator of History at the Ohio Historical Society.
Anya Liftig is a performance artist and writer. Her first book, a memoir titled Holler Rat, was published by Abrams Press in August 2023. Called “a searing debut” by Publishers Weekly and cited by Jo Ann Beard as a new influence in her writing, Holler Rat has become a USA Today best seller.
Her experimental film and video work has been screened in festivals in Canada, Greece, UK, Holland, France, and her essays have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and noted in Best American Non-Fiction.
Andrew King is an award-winning journalist who has experience in local news, sports reporting, copywriting and more. He has written for publications including The Athletic, The Columbus Dispatch, Major League Soccer and Columbus Monthly.
Dayna Jalkanen is a proud Buckeye who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended The Ohio State University, where she earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art Education. Her career path surprised her by leading her to museums rather than a classroom, and she has spent more than 17 years working in the field of museum education, including eight years as the Deputy Director of Museum and Education at the Ohio Statehouse.
She is the author of the book The Art and Artistry of the Ohio Statehouse, which gave her the opportunity to write about two of her passions: art and history.
Highlighting the rich tapestry of Columbus’ firefighting history, the 200th Anniversary History Book presents the most comprehensive historical collection since the organization’s inception in 1822. The 352-page book begins with a detailed accounting of the history of the CFD from 1822 to the present, highlighted with photographs to help tell the department’s story. Nearly 1600 individual photos of current personnel are proudly included. This publication is made possible by the dedicated vision of Columbus Fire Historians, the Central Ohio Fire Museum and the 200th Anniversary Yearbook Committee.
Rob Harvilla is the host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s and a senior staff writer at The Ringer; he’s been a professional rock critic for 20-plus years with stops at the Village Voice, SPIN, Deadspin, and various other alt-weeklies that generally no longer exist. (Not his fault.) He lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio, by choice.
David Goodrich is a retired climate scientist who served as the Director of the UN Global Climate Observing System in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States.
In addition to his cross-country trip, he has ridden down the Appalachians and across Montana, South Dakota, Texas, France and Spain.
Ben Ferree is the former assistant director of officiating and sport management at the Ohio High School Athletic Association who now works as a civil rights investigator for the Ohio State University. He is a tenacious researcher, radio broadcaster and former sports journalist.
Tom Ewing was the guitarist/lead singer of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys for ten years. He is the editor of The Bill Monroe Reader and wrote the “Thirty Years Ago This Month” column for Bluegrass Unlimited.
A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profits’ first Executive Director. He went on to write for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in sixteen countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Emancipator/Boston Globe.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. His essay in Bon Appetit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023.
Joyce Dyer has lived in Summit and Portage counties nearly all her life, and her work is often tightly connected to the history and people of Northeast Ohio. She’s authored books about her mother and Alzheimer’s disease (In a Tangled Wood), the Akron rubber industry and the company town where she was raised (Gum-Dipped), an immigrant community in Akron (Goosetown), and her “neighbor” John Brown (Pursuing John Brown). She’s edited or co-edited two collections and published essays in magazines and newspapers including the New York Times and North American Review, as well as numerous anthologies.
Dyer has taught English and writing at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson and at Hiram College–where she was first director of the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature.
Dick Burry has been a photographer most of his life. After retiring from the Department of Neuroscience in the College of Medicine at Ohio State Univeristy, he devoted his time to photography of buildings for many preservation organizations. He has exhibited in many galleries and has three photos on permanent exhibit at the Ohio Statehouse.
Steve Basford is a statistician for Ohio State home football games, a play-by-play sportscaster for Ohio Wesleyan University and Dublin Jerome High School sports, and the author of three books on sports. His sports production jobs have taken him to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
Growing up in bluegrass, Fred Bartenstein had the privilege of knowing and working with virtually all of the music’s first generations. The editor of Muleskinner News from 1969-1974, he has also been a broadcaster, musician, festival MC and talent director, founder of a regional association, scholar, educator, and a lifelong fan.
In his professional life, Fred has been a manager and consultant for nonprofits, government and business. He was named a Distinguished Achievement Award recipient by the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2006 and is currently the chair/president of the IBMA Foundation.
Kerry Winfrey is the author of the romantic comedies Waiting For Tom Hanks , Not Like the Movies, Very Sincerely Yours, Just Another Love Song, and Faking Christmas, all published by Berkley. She’s also the author of two YA novels. Kerry lives with her family in the middle of Ohio.
Douglas Westerbeke is a librarian who lives in Ohio and works at one of the largest libraries in the United States. He has spent the last decade on the local panel of the International Dublin Literary Award, which inspired him to write his own book.
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez is a writer born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of Manchester and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and scruffy dog, Gus.
The Waves Take You Home is her first novel.
mariaalejandrabarriosvelez.com
Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, The Offing, and The Kenyon Review. He has an MFA in prose from The University of Notre Dame and is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania.
An excerpt of his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and he has received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House, and Bread Loaf. He is writing a collection of stories, Leviathan Beach, among other oddities.
Sarah Sundin is the bestselling author of When Twilight Breaks, Until Leaves Fall in Paris, The Sound of Light, and the popular WWII series Sunrise at Normandy, among others. She is a Christy Award winner and a Carol Award winner, and her novels have received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, and have appeared on Booklist’s “101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” Sarah lives in California.
Toni Shiloh is a wife, a mom, and an award-winning Christian contemporary romance author. Her novel In Search of a Prince won the first-ever Christy Amplify Award. It has also been praised by Oprah Daily, POPSUGAR, Library Journal, and Booklist, and is a Parable bestseller. Her books have won the Selah Award and have been finalists for the Carol Award and the HOLT Medallion.
As a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Toni loves connecting with readers and authors alike via social media.
John Scalzi is one of the most popular sci-fi authors of his generation. His debut, Old Man’s War, won him the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel), The Last Emperox, and 2022’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. Material from his blog, Whatever, has earned him two other Hugo Awards.
He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.
Alexandra Rowland is the author of fantasy books including A Taste of Gold and Iron, A Conspiracy Of Truths, and Some by Virtue Fall, as well as a four-time Hugo Award-nominated podcaster. They have a degree in world literature, mythology, and folklore, and all their work is supervised by their feline quality control manager.
Ali Rosen is a writer of both cookbooks and novels and is the Emmy and James Beard Award-nominated host of “Potluck with Ali Rosen” on NYC Life. Her first novel is Recipe for Second Chances (2023). She has been featured on NBC’s Today Show and Food Network Kitchen and has written for publications including Bon Appetit, The Washington Post and New York Magazine.
Ali is originally from Charleston, SC but now lives in New York City with her husband and three kids and can usually be found cooking in her kitchen or curled up in a chair reading a romance novel.
Chris Panatier lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife, daughter, and a fluctuating herd of animals resembling dogs (one is almost certainly a goat). He writes short stories and novels, draws album covers for metal bands, and occasionally practices law.
Wanda Morris is the award-winning author of All Her Little Secrets, which has been praised by Karin Slaughter as “brilliantly nuanced” and reviewed by The Boston Globe, LA Times, New York Times, among others.
Her second novel, Anywhere You Run, won the Anthony award for Best Historical Novel of 2023 and was longlisted for the prestigious Mark Twain Voice in American Literature Prize. She is married, the mother of three, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Melissa Mogollon holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a BA from the George Washington University. Originally from Colombia and raised in Florida, she now teaches at a boarding school in Rhode Island, where she lives with her partner and dog. Oye is her first novel.
Sujata Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She was a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun before becoming a full-time novelist. The first Perveen Mistry novel, The Widows of Malabar Hill, was an international bestseller and won the Agatha, Macavity, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards.
Christine Ma-Kellams is a Harvard-trained cultural psychologist and writer whose fiction and essays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Saturday Evening Post, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today and elsewhere.
Two of her short stories were also nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her empirical studies on culture and relationships have also been widely covered in GQ (Australia), Esquire (Middle East), Boston Globe, Vice News, Elle Magazine (UK), Yahoo News and more.
Meredith grew up in New Orleans, collecting two degrees from Louisiana State University before running away to Chicago to be an actor. She fought in the Chicago Golden Gloves, ran the Chicago Marathon, and competed for team U.S.A. in the savate world championships in Paris. In spite of doing each of these things twice, she couldn’t stay warm and relocated to Nashville.
She owns several swords, but lives a non-violent life, saving all swashbuckling for the page, knitting scarves, gardening, visiting coffee shops, and cuddling with her husband and two panther-sized cats. Ghost Tamer is her first novel.
Ananda Lima is the author of the poetry collection Mother/land, winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Witness, and elsewhere. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark.
Craft: Stories I wrote for the Devil is her fiction debut.
Yume Kitasei is the author of The Deep Sky. She is half Japanese and half American and grew up in a space between two cultures—the same space where her stories reside. She lives in Brooklyn with two cats, Boondoggle and Filibuster.
Her stories have appeared in publications including New England Review, Catapult, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Baltimore Review. The Stardust Grail is her second novel.
Libby Kay lives in Columbus with her husband. When she’s not writing, Libby loves reading romance novels of any kind. Stories of people falling in love nourish her soul. Contemporary or Regency, sweet or hot, as long as there is a happily ever after—she’s in love! When not surrounded by books, Libby can be found baking in her kitchen, binging true crime shows, or on the road with her husband, traveling as far as their bank account will allow.
Libby cohosts the Romance Roundup podcast with Liz Donatelli. Together they share their favorite romance books, authors, and tropes, as well as interview fellow romance authors and readers.
Linda Kass is the author of three historical novels: Tasa’s Song (2016); A Ritchie Boy (2020), an IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Historical Fiction in 2021; and Bessie, which was named A Hasty Book List Most-Anticipated Historical Fiction Title for 2023.
Linda began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. She is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Columbus, Ohio.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, award-winning playwright and winner of the Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. Stephen has received many accolades for his August Snow crime/thriller series, which won the Nero Award, and he has been shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and a finalist for the Shamus Award as well as the Strand Critics Award.
In 2018, the International Association of Crime Writers presented Stephen with the prestigious Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime writing. He currently lives in the suburbs of Detroit.
Lauren Kung Jessen is a mixed-race Chinese-American writer with a fondness for witty, flirtatious dialogue and making meals with too many steps but lots of flavor. She is fascinated by myths and superstitions and how ideas, beliefs, traditions, and stories evolve over time. From attending culinary school to working in the world of Big Tech to writing love stories, Lauren cares about creating experiences that make people feel something.
When she’s not writing novels, she works as a content strategist and user experience writer. She also has a food and film blog, A Dash of Cinema, where she makes food inspired by movies and TV shows. She lives in Nashville with her husband (who she met thanks to fate—read: the algorithms of online dating), two cats, and dog.
Anastasia Hastings is the author of the Dear Miss Hermione historical mystery series. In a review of the first book of the series, Of Manners and Murder, the Wall Street Journal says, “The book’s thrilling denouement evokes the shocking revelations of Wilkie Collins, the social acuity of Jane Austen and the comic melodrama of Oscar Wilde.” The second book of the series, Of Hoaxes and Homicide, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Anastasia lives in northeast Ohio with her husband, David, and her two dogs. When she’s not planning murders, she enjoys exploring old cemeteries and digging into family genealogy.
Sarah Gailey is a Hugo Award winning and bestselling author of speculative fiction, short stories, and essays. Their nonfiction has been published by dozens of venues internationally. Their fiction has been published in over seven different languages.
Their most recent novel, Just Like Home, and most recent original comic book series with BOOM! Studios, Know Your Station are available now.
Alex Erickson has always wanted to write, even at a young, impressionable age. He’s always had an interest in the motive behind murder, which has led him down his current path. He’s always ready with a witty—at least in his opinion—quip, and tries to keep every conversation light and friendly.
Alex lives in Ohio with his family and resident felines, who provide endless amounts of inspiration.
Amanda Dykes’s debut novel, Whose Waves These Are, is the winner of the prestigious 2020 Christy Award Book of the Year, a Booklist 2019 Top Ten Romance debut, and the winner of an INSPY Award. She’s also the author of All the Lost Places and Christy Award finalists Yours Is the Night and Set the Stars Alight.
Jason B. Dutton is a Columbus-based author, where he does all he can to nurture his lifelong love of song, dance, and books. When he’s not writing, Jason loves to watch and passionately discuss movies, particularly anything involving Spider-Man. He can often be found singing, whether bystanders want him to or not, and as a writer with cerebral palsy, he delights in finding the humor, beauty, and possibility in life with a disability.
Phyllis R. Dixon is the acclaimed author of Intermission, Forty Acres, and Down Home Blues, which was shortlisted for the Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List by the Texas Library Association. She also is a contributor to the New Tri-State Defender book review column and to Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she is a former independent bookstore owner, previously worked for the U.S. Treasury Department, and serves on several nonprofit boards. She currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan–American writer originally from Minnesota, and currently based in Kingston, New York. He is the author of Riots I Have Known, which NPR named “one of the smartest—and best—novels of the year,” among other accolades. His criticism and humor pieces have appeared in Bookforum, The New Yorker, The Guardian, McSweeney’s and elsewhere.
The Audacity
Christopher Buehlman is an author, comedian, and screenwriter from St. Petersburg, Florida, whose books include The Blacktongue Thief and The Daughters’ War. He tours the country most years, writing fantasy and horror and performing at Renaissance festivals. He and his wife, Jenn, travel with their rescue dog, Duck, and a black cat named Jane Mansfield, who is proficient in ninjutsu.
The Daughters’ War
