Born a missionary kid in Kobe, Japan, and homeschooled on the American Great Plains as part of an evangelical community, Jaye Viner straddles many worlds and too many personal interests. As an “EXvangical,” she now worships her cats and spends a great deal of time at the salon maintaining her blue hair. She holds an MFA and MA from the University of Nebraska. Her debut thriller, JANE OF BATTERY PARK, explores what it means to come from one place and want to learn how to be from somewhere else. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
Month: August 2021
Gail Reitano
Gail Reitano grew up in the southern New Jersey Pine Barrens. She graduated from Rutgers University and lived in London for twelve years before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. Her fiction, memoir and personal essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Catamaran Literary Reader, and Ovunque Siamo among others, and have been featured on public radio in the Bay Area. Italian Love Cake is her first novel.
Samantha Specks
Samantha Specks is a licensed independent clinical social worker. Dovetails in Tall Grass is Samantha’s debut novel. Currently, she is writing Dovetails of a River, which is set at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. She and her husband live in Houston with their baby (Pippa) and fur baby (Charlie). When not in Texas, they enjoy spending time on the lakes of Minnesota and in the mountains of the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado.
Susan Frances Morris
Susan Frances Morris is the author of THE SENSITIVE ONE: A Memoir (She Writes Press). She was raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, the second-oldest of seven siblings with two sets of twins. She was a practicing nurse from 1989 to 2011, including at Yale New Haven Hospital working in nursing management alongside international experts in the field of women’s health. She met her current husband, Bruce, in 1989. Her passions are walking and bike riding in nature, yoga, traveling, photography, and jewelry design. She has three grown children and four grandchildren. Susan lives with her husband and two dogs in Clifton Park, New York.
Leora Krygier
Leora Krygier is a former Los Angeles Superior Court, Juvenile Division judge. She’s the author of When She Sleeps (Toby Press), which was lauded for its “luminous prose” (Newsweek) and praised by Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus. It was also a New York Public Library Selection for “Best Books for the Teen Age.” She’s also the author of Juvenile Court: A Judges Guide for Young Adults and their Parents (Rowan & Littlefield) and Keep Her (She Writes Press), a young adult novel reviewed as a “vibrantly dazzling literary cocktail on the restorative powers of love.” She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, David.
Jackie Townsend
Before becoming a full-time writer, Jackie received her MBA from UC Berkeley and worked as a management consultant in the Bay Area alongside her husband, who worked in Silicon Valley and other parts of the world before starting and running his own tech company. Their careers, both exciting and exhausting, fuel Jackie’s novels and essays, as does her travel and exposure to foreign cultures. A native of Southern California married to a native of Italy who carries around a big hole in his heart for home, her themes revolve around displacement, crossing borders, belonging (or not belonging), loss, and love. You can find her living in New York City with her husband, sometimes. Riding High in April is her fourth novel.
Jeanne Baker Guy
Jeanne Baker Guy of Jeanne Guy Gatherings is an author, speaker, and journal-writing coach. Born and raised in Indiana, she received her bachelor’s degree in English literature and drama from Indiana University. After a twenty-five-year career in office management and business development, she found her calling in facilitating personal growth circles. Years of blogs, filled with her irreverent humor, serve as the basis for her classes and her 2015 book Seeing Me: A Guide for Reframing the Way You See Yourself Through Reflective Writing, co-authored with photographer David Rackley. Jeanne lives in Cedar Park, Texas, with her retired architect–husband Robert and their two spoiled feral cats.
Jane Elizabeth Hughes
Jane Elizabeth Hughes is a professor of international finance at Simmons College School of Business in Boston. Using the creative right side of her brain, Jane published her first novel, Nannyland, with Simon & Schuster Pocket Star Books in 2016 and is now publishing The Long-Lost Jules with She Writes Press.
Peri Chickering
Peri Chickering is a coach, consultant, herbalist, and leadership educator. Working for years in field of wilderness-based leadership, she went on to run her own leadership school in Colorado and then start new schools in South Africa and Bulgaria. Taking her leadership experience from the outdoors inside, Peri has worked with clients in private, governmental, and nonprofit sectors, including Disney Theatrical, USDA Forest Service, World Bank, Stanford Woods Institute, University of Chicago, and Renaissance Reinsurance. She holds a master’s degree in human development and a Ph.D. in human and organizational systems. Now situated in the small town of Hancock, New Hampshire, she, her husband, their cat, and two horses steward 55 acres of beautiful woodlands passed down from her grandmother.
Steve Prentice
Steve Prentice is a social worker, artist, photographer, and the author of Seventh Generation.
While working with youth and adults, he has seen firsthand the desire to hide from that which is painful. Seventh Generation addresses these concerns through the eyes of a young teenager in a way that is relatable for readers of all ages.