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Clay Stafford is an American bestselling and award-winning author, poet, screenwriter, and playwright; film and television producer, director, showrunner, actor; book, film, and stage reviewer as well as public speaker. He has sold nearly four million copies of his books overall and has had his work distributed in sixteen languages. He is founder and CEO of the annual Killer Nashville International Writers' Conference and a contributor to Writer's Digest magazine with his monthly online column, “Killer Writer”. In addition, Clay is the founder of theBalancedWriter.com, a creative learning platform for writers. For more information visit, www.claystafford.com.

Robert Bailey is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Jason Rich series, which includes Rich Justice, Rich Waters, and Rich Blood; the Bocephus Haynes series, which includes The Wrong Side and Legacy of Lies; and the award-winning McMurtrie and Drake legal thriller series, including The Final Reckoning, The Last Trial, Between Black and White, and The Professor. He also wrote the inspirational novel, The Golfer's Carol. 

Alex Kenna is a mystery writer, prosecutor, and amateur painter. Before law school, Alex studied painting and art history at Penn. She has also worked as a freelance art critic and sold art in a gallery. Originally from Washington DC, Alex lives in Sierra Madre, California with her husband, two sons, and giant schnauzer, Zelda, who is frequently mistaken for a bear. For the past ten years, Alex has prosecuted a variety of violent and white-collar crimes. Her fiction is heavily informed by her law enforcement and fine art background.  When she's not writing Alex can be found nerding out in art museums, exploring flea markets, wrangling toddlers, and playing string instruments badly.  Alex's debut novel, What Meets the Eye, was nominated for a Shamus Award for best first PI novel. Her second novel, BURN THIS NIGHT, was released in November 2024. 

Nancy Kricorian, who was born and raised in the Armenian community of Watertown, Massachusetts, is the author of four novels about post- genocide Armenian diaspora experience, including Zabelle, which was translated into seven languages, was adapted as a play, and has been continuously in print since 1998. Her essays and poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Guernica, Parnassus, Minnesota Review, The Mississippi Review, and other journals. She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale, and New York University, as well as for Teacher & Writers Collaborative in the New York City Public Schools and for the Palestine Writing Workshop in Birzeit. She has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Gold Medal from the Writers Union of Armenia, and the Anahid Literary Award. She lives in New York City. 

William Luvaas has published four novels: The Seductions of Natalie Bach (Little, Brown) Going Under (Putnam), Beneath The Coyote Hills (Spuyten Duyvil), and Welcome To Saint Angel (Anaphora Lit. Press); and three story collections: A Working Man's Apocrypha (Univ. Okla. Press) Ashes Rain Down: A Story Cycle (Spuyten Duyvil), The Huffington Post's 2013 Book of the Year and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards – and his most recent, The Three Devils.  His new collection The Three Devils And Other Stories is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press at the Univ. of Wisconsin.  His honors include an NEA fellowship, first place in Glimmer Train's Fiction Open Contest, The Ledge Magazine's 2010 Fiction Awards Competition, and Fiction Network's Second National Fiction Competition.  Over one hundred of his stories, essays, and articles have appeared in many publications, including The Sun, North American Review, Epiphany, The Village Voice, The American Literary Review, Antioch Review, Cimarron Review, Short Story, and the American Fiction anthology.  He has taught creative writing at San Diego State University, U.C. Riverside, and The Writer's Voice in New York and has also worked as a carpenter, craftsman, community organizer, and freelance journalist.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Lucinda, an artist and filmmaker.

Elizabeth Rose Quinn is a novelist and screenwriter. She graduated with a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in marriage and family therapy.  Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Elizabeth lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years while working in production and writing for television.  She is married with two children and currently lives in New Mexico. In addition to traveling and exploring nature with her family, Elizabeth loves rolling fresh pasta, swimming in the Pacific Ocean, and looking for rainbows in the desert sunsets.

Dennis James Sweeney is the author of How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses (New World Library, February 2025, Paperback). He has an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Denver. Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he teaches Creative Writing at Amherst College.  

Stuart Nadler is the author of Wise Men, The Inseparables, and Rooms for Vanishing, and the short story collection The Book of Life. His work has been named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus and Amazon, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writer selection, a finalist for the Mark Twain Prize for the American Voice, and has been translated across Europe. He is a recipient of the 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation. He teaches in the MFA program at Bennington College.

A native of Traverse City, Michigan, STEPHANIE CARPENTER is the author of Missing Persons: Stories, which won the 2017 Press 53 Award in Short Fiction; her work has also appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, The Missouri Review, and Witness. She's an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Michigan Technological University. Moral Treatment is her debut novel.

Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of More or Less Maddy, Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O'Briens, and Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar–winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She is featured in the documentary films To Not Fade Away and Have You Heard About Greg. Her TED talks on Alzheimer's disease and memory have been viewed over eleven million times. Her latest novel is More or Less Maddy.

Jordyn Taylor is the former deputy digital editor at Men's Health magazine and the award-winning author of the young adult novels The Paper Girl of Paris, Don't Breathe a Word, and The Revenge Game. She is also an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Jordyn was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in New York. Her latest noel is Wicked Darlings.

Kim (Freilich) Dower (City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood from October 2016 – October 2018) has published six highly acclaimed collections of poetry all from Red Hen Press. Her most recent book, What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria, was called “witty, sultry and thoughtful” by the Washington Post, and her bestselling, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom, an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, was called a “fantastic collection” by The Washington Post, “impressively insightful, thought-provoking, and truly memorable” by The Midwest Book Review and Shelf-Awareness said, “These gorgeous gems are energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent style.” Air Kissing on Mars, Kim's first collection, was described by the Los Angeles Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache,” Slice of Moon was called “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine, and Sunbathing on Tyrone Power's Grave, won the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Award Gold Medal for Poetry. Kim's work has been featured in numerous literary journals including Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac," and her poems are included in several anthologies. She teaches poetry workshops for UCLA Extension Writer's Program, and the West Hollywood Library. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, Kim lives with her family in West Hollywood, CA. To learn more about Kim visit her website: www.kimdowerpoetry.com

Jessica Soffer is the author of This Is a Love Story and Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. She grew up in New York City, attended Connecticut College, and earned her MFA at Hunter College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Real Simple, Saveur, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, and on NPR's Selected Shorts. She teaches creative writing to small groups and in the corporate space and lives in Sag Harbor, New York, with her husband, young daughter, and dog.

Philip Kenney is an author and psychotherapist. His most recent work is a novel entitled, The Mercy Dialogues. That work examines the power of dialogue, in the service of love, to bridge seemingly impossible divisions between people. Prior to that, in 2022, his chapbook of haiku entitled, Only This Step, was published by Finishing Line Press. In 2018, his first non-fiction book, The Writer's Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, was a finalist for The Red City Review Non-Fiction Book of the Year. That work was written to support writers with the emotional vulnerabilities they face living a creative life. On occasion, Philip gives workshops based on The Writer's Crucible at The Attic Institute in Portland.Those workshops enable authors to understand and work with the emotions that complicate the creative process. In 2018, his essay, The Rebirth of Masculinity: What We Can Learn from Harvey Weinstein and Co. was published in issue #7 of The Timberline Review. 

Rachel Kaplan, MA, MFT, is a licensed psychotherapist with a thriving practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Creator and host of the acclaimed podcast Healing Feeling Sh*t Show, she is active on a variety of social media channels and has published multiple features in Common Ground. Kaplan has studied yoga, meditation, and hands-on healing practices in India and Nepal, earned a master's degree in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and trained in cutting-edge trauma modalities such as EMDR. Her first book is, Feel, Heal, and Let That Sh*t Go: Your Guide to Emotional Resilience and Lasting Self-Love.  She divides her time between Oakland and Joshua Tree, California. More information at TheFeelingsMovement.com.

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is the author of Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality & Spirit, now in its second edition; the novel Hannah, Delivered; a collection of personal essays, On the Threshold:  Home, Hardwood, and Holiness; the chapbook, A Map to Mercy, due out winter 2025; and three books on writing: Writing the Sacred Journey:  The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir; Living Revision: A Writer's Craft as Spiritual Practice, winner of the silver Nautilus Award; and The Release: Finding Creativity and Freedom After the Writing is Done.  She is a founding member of The Eye of the Heart Center, where she teaches writing as a transformational practice and hosts an online writing community.  She is a recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board artists' fellowships, the Loft Career Initiative Grant, and is a Minnesota Book Awards finalist.  She lives in Minneapolis with her wife, daughter, and two rambunctious cats.  You can learn more about Elizabeth at www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com and www.spiritualmemoir.com.

Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer, podcaster, and true-crime historian whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WCBS News and ABC News Radio, “PBS NewsHour,” and “Nightline.” She is the creator of three hit podcasts (BB has about 1.5 million downloads a month): “Tenfold More Wicked” and “Wicked Words,” and the cohost of the “Buried Bones” podcast on the Exactly Right network. She is the author of American Sherlock, Death in the Air, All That Is Wicked, The Sinners All Bow, and is a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.

Nancy Slonim Aronie has been a commentator for National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She was a Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, wrote a monthly column in McCall's magazine and was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Nancy won teacher of the year award for all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles.

Bill Kenower will be hosting an in-person Fearless Writing Retreat January 26-31 in Portland, OR.Space is limited! Hope to see you there:Bill's website: https://www.williamkenower.com/Retreat website: https://www.portlandretreathouse.com/fearless-writing-with-bill-kenower

GARY GOLDSTEIN is an award-winning writer for film, TV, and the theatre, with  more than 30 produced screen and stage credits. His first novel, the romantic  comedy The Last Birthday Party, won an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for Excellence in Fiction. Gary's second novel, the family drama The Mother I Never Had, was named one of the "Must-Read Books of Fall 2022" by Town & Country  magazine. His latest book, the coming-of-age romantic dramedy, Please Come to  Boston, was published in September. A New York native, he resides in Los Angeles, where he is also a contributing film reviewer and arts feature writer for the L.A. Times.

Since coming through Clarion West in 2005, Cat Rambo's 300+ fiction publications have included stories in Asimov's, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and frequently appear in year's best of collections. They work across genre, writing literary, thriller, science fiction, slipstream, fantasy, magic realism, historical, and humor with fluid ease, making them one of the leaders in American story writing. In 2013, Rambo's short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” was a Nebula nominee and 2020 Rambo won the Nebula Award for their fantasy novelette Carpe Glitter, published by Meerkat Press. They have edited several anthologies as well as Fantasy Magazine, and received a World Fantasy Award nomination for their work with the latter. They have also written the writing book Moving from Idea to Finished Draft and co-edited Ad Astra: The SFWA 50th Anniversary Cookbook.A frequent reader for podcasts, Rambo is part of the team behind the If This Goes On (Don't Panic) podcast, and has worked with it since its beginning in 2020. They are a former two-term President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and continue to work with the organization as a mentor. Their most recent work is space opera Rumor Has It (Tor Macmillan, 2024); upcoming in 2025 is Wings of Tabat (Wordfire).For more about Cat, as well as links to fiction and popular online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, see their website at catrambo.com 

Georgia Jeffries is a writer of Emmy Award winning drama and critically acclaimed noir fiction. Honored with multiple Writers Guild Awards, Golden Globes and the Humanitas Prize, her work in film has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as “standing ovation television.” The Los Angeles Review of Books described her short stories in the national anthologies, Odd Partners and The Last Resort, as “firecracker tales” and “domestic tragedy brilliantly segueing into comic farce.” She has also written biographical profiles for HuffPost and UC Press, including “The Last Gun of Tibercio Vasquez,” which can be viewed on the KCET-TV website, Artbound. Born in the Illinois heartland, she worked as a journalist for American Film before writing and producing ground-breaking female-driven dramas, Cagney & Lacey, China Beach and Sisters. Her screenwriting career has been distinguished by extensive field research, from patrolling the mean streets of Rampart with the LAPD to crashing a Vegas bounty hunters' convention to reporting from a Walter Reed Army Hospital surgical bay, each investigation the basis for one of her many docudramas and series pilots for CBS, ABC, NBC, HBO and Showtime. A cum laude UCLA graduate, Jeffries is a professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts where she created the first undergraduate screenwriting thesis program at an American university.  The Younger Girl is her first novel.

Jan Gangsei is an award-winning author of books for young adults and tweens. Her debut YA thriller, Zero Day, was named to several state award lists and was one of Bank Street's Best Books of the Year. She's also penned several middle-grade books, including Project Me 2.0, The Wild Bunch, as well as series fiction under various pen names commissioned by book packagers and publishers. Her latest YA novel is Dead Below Deck 

LILLY DANCYGER is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship (2024), which Leslie Jamison called "fiercely felt and finely etched;" and the memoir Negative Space (2021), which was selected by Carmen Maria Machado as a winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards; and the editor of Burn It Down (2019), a critically acclaimed anthology of essays on women's anger. Dancyger's writing has been published by New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and more. She writes the Substack newsletter The Word Cave.A 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts, Dancyger lives in New York City and teaches creative nonfiction at Columbia University School of the Arts and Randolph College. She has taught creative writing workshops for Tin House, Corporeal Writing, Catapult, Barrelhouse, and more; and she is a nonfiction editor at Barrelhouse Books. 

Adam Plantinga's first book, 400 Things Cops Know, was nominated for an Agatha Award and won the 2015 Silver Falchion award for best nonfiction crime reference. It was hailed as “truly excellent” by author Lee Child and deemed “the new Bible for crime writers” by The Wall Street Journal. His second book, also nonfiction, is Police Craft. Plantinga is currently a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department assigned to street patrol. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, daughters, and Chow Chow named Ziggy. The Ascent is his debut novel. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, was a USA Today bestseller, and was recently optioned by Universal for television. 

KIRBY LARSON is the acclaimed author of many books for young people, including the 2007 Newbery Honor Book Hattie Big Sky; Dash, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; Duke; Liberty; Code Word Courage; Audacity Jones to the Rescue, and Audacity Jones Steals the Show, and the new Shermy and Shake chapter book series, to name a few. QUINN WYATT has lived with Crohn's for most of her life and is encouraged by all the progress that has been made over the years in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. This is her first book. A mother-daughter writing team, both Quinn and Kirby live in Kenmore, Washington.

Cherry Lou Sy is a writer and playwright originally from the Philippines and currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU and her MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College, where she has been an adjunct lecturer in the English and American Studies departments. Cherry is also a teacher with PEN America's DREAMing Out Loud. She has received fellowships and residencies from VONA, Tin House, and elsewhere. Love Can't Feed You is her debut novel.

Andrew Bridgeman's debut novel has it all – characters you fall in love with, a plot that keeps you racing from page to page, twists that leave you dumbfounded and thrilled, a satisfying conclusion, a final wish when you close the book that you could start all over again. Fortunate Son, by Andrew Bridgeman (Mission Point Press, September 24, 2024), a “propulsive, brilliantly executed thriller that will keep readers guessing . . .” (Kirkus Reviews) is more than just a wild, suspenseful ride. It's a fascinating study of an American Family – of their secrets, corruption, greed, and betrayal. It's a story about trust and sacrifice, and the risks we take in order to succeed.

Sebastian Smee is an art critic for the Washington Post and the author of "Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism" (Norton) and “The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art” (Random House), which was translated into a dozen languages. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism while at the Boston Globe in 2011, after being runner up in 2008. Living in the UK between 2000 and 2004, he worked for the Daily Telegraph, The Art Newspaper, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Financial Times, Prospect, and The Spectator. In Australia, he worked as the art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian. He was awarded the Rabkin Prize for art journalism in 2018 and was a MacDowell Fellow in 2021. He taught the Garis Seminar for Creative Non-fiction at Wellesley College between 2010 and 2022.  He has authored books on Mark Bradford and Lucian Freud and contributed essays to books on an array of other artists. He has been invited to speak at, among other places, Harvard University, Boston College, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences. 

As a mythopoeic scholar, Nadia Salem researches mythic structures in narrative throughout literature and film. By understanding mythology's influence in creating classics, bestsellers, and blockbusters, she studies cross-cultural, genre-bending, marginalized stories for popular and political impact. Nadia has a doctorate in Creative Writing and has taught mythic structure at Georgetown and Northwestern Universities. She is a produced playwright, and the author of The Monomyth Reboot: A Transmodern Update for Mythopoeia.

David Rocklin is the author of The Luminist and Foreward LGBTQIA award-winning The Night Language. He also wrote The Write Formula: Twelve Weeks From Concept To Completion, a craft book which accompanies his editorial and book coaching services. He hosts and curates “Roar Shack,” a long-running Los Angeles reading series, and has established a writers' retreat based in Idyllwild, CA. The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger is his latest novel. 

Molly Giles is an award-winning fiction writer. Her first collection of stories, ROUGH TRANSLATIONS won the Flannery O'Connor Prize for Short Fiction, the Boston Globe Award, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers award. Four subsequent collections—CREEK WALK, BOTHERED, ALL THE WRONG PLACES, and WIFE WITH KNIFE, have also won awards, including the Small Press Best Fiction Award, the California Commonwealth Silver Medal for Fiction, the Spokane Short Fiction Award, and the Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize.  She published her first novel, IRON SHOES, in 2000, and twenty-three years later, published its sequel, THE HOME FOR UNWED HUSBANDS. Giles has taught fiction writing at San Francisco State University, University of Hawaii, San Jose State University, the National University of Ireland at Galway, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and at numerous writing conferences, including The Community of Writers and Naropa. Her work has been included in many anthologies including the O.Henry and Pushcart Prize (three times), and she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arkansas Arts Council. She has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Book Reviewing, been awarded residences at MacDowell, Yadoo, and The House of Literature in Paros, Greece. Life Spans is her first memoir.

Bill revisits his conversation with Andre Dubus last year after his release of Such Kindness.Andre Dubus III's nine books include the New York Times' bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times "Editors Choice". His work has been included in The Best American Essays and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies, and his novel, House of Sand and Fog was a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and was made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. His 2013 novella collection, Dirty Love, was listed as a “Notable Book” by The Washington Post and The New York Times, and was named a New York Times Editors' Choice” and a Kirkus “Starred Best Book of 2013”.  His 2018 novel, Gone So Long, was named on many “Best Books” lists, including selection for The Boston Globe's “Twenty Best Books of 2018” and “The Best Books of 2018, Top 100”, Amazon. His most recent novel, Such Kindness, was one of Amazon's “The Best Books of 2023, Top 100”. His acclaimed collection of personal essays, Ghost Dog: On Killers and Kin, was published in March 2024. He is also the editor of Reaching Inside: 50 Acclaimed Authors on 100 Unforgettable Short Stories, 

Miles Harvey is the author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects: Stories, which won The Journal Non/Fiction Prize and was published by Mad Creek Books, the trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Conjunctions, AGNI, North American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Fiction Magazine, and others, and has received a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories, 2004, a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses, 2013, and the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award from Mid-American Review, 2015. His most recent work of nonfiction, The King of Confidence (Little, Brown & Co., 2020), was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and was named as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selection. He also wrote The Island of Lost Maps (a national and international bestseller for Random House, 2000) and Painter in a Savage Land (Random House, 2008). His play, How Long Will I Cry, premiered in 2013 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Harvey teaches creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where he chairs the Department of English and is a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books, a nonprofit, social-justice publisher. 

Jeffery Deaver is the award-winning #1 international and New York Times bestselling author of the Lincoln Rhyme, Colter Shaw and Kathryn Dance series, among many others. Deaver's work includes forty-seven novels, one hundred short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.  Isabella Maldonado is the award-winning and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Nina Guerrera, Daniela Vega and Veranda Cruz series. Her books are published in twenty-four languages.  Their co-authored book, FATAL INTRUSION, is the launch of a new series featuring Homeland Security agent Carmen Sanchez and Professor Jake Heron. 

Maribeth Fischer is the founder and executive director of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. She has received three Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowships and two Pushcart Prizes for her essays. Her two previous books, The Language of Good-bye and The Life You Longed For, have been sold in six foreign countries. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her latest novel is A Season of Perfect Happiness. 

Bill welcomes poet and fiction writer Emily Jon Tobias to the show. Emily is an American author and poet. She is an award-winning writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, along with other honorable mentions, and has been featured in literary journals such as Santa Clara Review, Talking River Review, Flying South Literary Journal, Furrow Literary Journal, The Opiate Magazine, The Ocotillo Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, Big Muddy, Spoon Knife, Peauxdunque Review, and elsewhere. Midwestern-raised, she now lives and writes on the coast of Southern California and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University Oregon. MONARCH: STORIES (Black Lawrence Press, 2024) is her debut collection and winner of the 2024 American Book Fest International Book Awards in the short story collection category. 

Bill welcomes debut novelist Jill Fordyce to the show. Jill received a law degree from Santa Clara University in 1989. For the majority of her law career, Jill's practice was devoted to representing indigent criminal defendants on appeal. She has argued cases before the California courts of appeal and the California Supreme Court. While practicing law, Jill studied writing through the Stanford Continuing Education creative writing program. Belonging is her debut novel.

Bill welcomes debut memoirist Suzette Mullens to the show. Suzette Mullen is the founder of Your Story Finder nonfiction book coaching and a founding board member of the Lancaster (PA) LGBTQ+ Coalition. Her “tiny love story,” the seed which became her new book, The Only Way Through is Out, was published in the New York Times “Modern Love” column. Mullen is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Wellesley College.

Bill welcomes debut novelist Sydney Morrison to the show. Sidney lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Karan. He is a retired teacher and school principal and now a part-time educational consultant and leadership coach. Frederick Douglas is his first novel.

Bill welcomes essayist and memoirist Kelly McMasters to the show. Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah's top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,' a 2012 Sundance selection, and the anthology she co-edited with Margot Kahn, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017), was a New York Times Editor's Choice. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The American Scholar, Literary Hub, Newsday, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, Romper, and The Rumpus, among others.

Bill welcomes bestselling novelist Joyce Maynard to the show. Joyce Maynard is the author of twelve previous novels and five books of nonfiction, as well as the syndicated column Domestic Affairs. Her bestselling memoir, At Home in the World, has been translated into sixteen languages. Her novels To Die For and Labor Day were both adapted for film. Her latest novel is How the Light Gets In. 

Bill welcomes novelist, short story writer, and essayist Debra Spark to the show. Debra is the author of five novels, two collections of short stories, and two books of essays on fiction writing. Her most recent books are the novel Discipline and the essay collection And Then Something Happened. With Deborah Joy Corey, she co-edited Breaking Bread, a book of food essays by Maine writers to raise funds for a hunger nonprofit. Her short work has appeared in Agni, AWP Writers' Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Cincinnati Review, the Chicago Tribune, Epoch, Esquire, Five Points, Food and Wine, Harvard Review, Huffington Post, Maine Magazine, Narrative, New England Travel and Life, the New England Review, the New York Times, Ploughshares, salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, Yankee, and Yale Alumni Quarterly, among other places.  

Bill welcomed award-winning novelist and short story writer Ellen Birkett Morris back to the show. Ellen's novel Beware the Tall Grass is the winner of the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence, judged by Lan Samantha Chang. She is the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories, winner of the Pencraft Award. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, and South Carolina Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship for her fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council.

Bill welcomes poet and writing instructor Meredith Heller to the show. Meredith is the author of Writing by Heart, Write a Poem, Save Your Life, and several poetry collections. A poet, singer-songwriter, avid nature lover, and educator with degrees in writing and education, she leads writing workshops online and in-person at schools, juvenile detention centers, women's prisons, and wellness retreats. Her latest book is Writing by Heart: A Poetry Path to Healing and Self-Discovery.

Bill welcomes novelist Anastasia Zadeik to the show. ANASTASIA is a writer, editor, and narrative nonfiction performer. She lives in San Diego, CA, where she serves as Director of Communications for the San Diego Writers Festival, as a mentor for the literary nonprofit So Say We All, and as a board member for the International Memoir Writers Association. Her first novel, Blurred Fates, won both the 2023 Sarton Award and the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award in Contemporary Fiction. Her latest novel is The Other Side of Nothing. Find her online at anastasiazadeik.com

Bill welcomes novelist Hazel Hayes to the show. Hazel is an Irish-born, London-based writer and director who for many years wrote primarily for the screen. After graduating from Dublin City University with a degree in journalism, she went on to study creative writing at the Irish Writers Centre, before honing her craft as a screenwriter through numerous short films and sketches. Her eight-part horror, PrankMe, won series of the year at Social in the City, as well as the award for excellence in storytelling at Buffer Festival in Toronto. Out of Love was her first novel, and Better By Far is her most recent!

Bill welcomes author and podcaster Jo Piazza to the show. Jo is a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and critically acclaimed podcast creator. Her books have been published in ten languages and twelve countries. Many of her projects are currently in development for film and television. Jo's podcasts have garnered more than twenty-five million downloads and regularly top podcast charts, and her journalism has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York magazine, Marie Claire, Time, and numerous other outlets. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three feral children.

Bill welcomes bestselling author Steve Almond to the show. Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His essays and reviews have been published in venues ranging from the New York Times Magazine to Ploughshares to Poets & Writers, and his short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Mysteries, and Best American Erotica. Almond is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He cohosted the Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed for four years, and teaches Creative Writing at the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and Wesleyan. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his family and his anxiety.

Bill welcomes bestselling novelist Eileen Garvin to the show. Eileen is the author of the national bestselling novel The Music of Bees and the acclaimed memoir How to Be a Sister. Crow Talk is her latest novel. Born and raised in Washington State, she lives in Oregon. Visit her website at www.eileengarvin.com.      

Bill welcomes novelist and short story writer John Michael Cummings back to the show. John is the author of three novels, two novellas, and more than one hundred short stories. His debut novel, The Night I Freed John Brown (Penguin Group, 2008), won The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People and was selected for Black History Month by USA Today. Ugly To Start With (West Virginia University Press, 2011) was a finalist in the Foreword INDIES Book of Year Award. Don't Forget Me, Bro (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016) was widely excerpted in the Chicago Tribune. His nonfiction has been published by New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, Charleston Gazette-Mail, The Providence Journal, Richmond Free Press, and The Newark Star-Ledger. His short stories have appeared in Kenyon Review, North American Review, and The Iowa Review. His latest short story collection is The Spirit in My Shoes.