Month: June 2024

Shane Svorec is a lifelong writer who loves tenderly stringing words together to capture real emotions and create genuine connections. Her expressive writing touches hearts of all ages, provoking wonder, igniting empathy, and fostering understanding. Shane aims to rekindle the joys of appreciating the simple things in life and believes everyone can make a difference in this world and the life of another. She frequently delivers inspirational talks and keynote speeches and enjoys working with children and animal advocacy groups. Shane lives in Northern New Jersey but spends much of her time in the Adirondacks with her husband, three children, rescue dog, and chicken. Svorec’s works include the award-winning Broken Little Believer and The Busy Bridge That Got Its Break.

C.J. Spataro is an award-winning short fiction writer, and her work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies including Taboos & Transgressions, Iron Horse Literary Review, december, Sequestrum, and Exacting Clam. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing and the MA in Publishing programs at Rosemont College in suburban Philadelphia and was a founding partner of Philadelphia Stories. Her debut novel, More Strange Than True, is forthcoming from Sagging Meniscus Press in June of 2024.

P.D. Blackwell is an accomplished author in the field of Science Fiction. With years of experience crafting compelling stories that challenge the imagination, P.D. Blackwell is a name that is synonymous with excellence. P.D. Blackwell’s fiction writing is characterized by a deep understanding of human nature and an ability to weave complex themes into captivating plots. Readers are sure to be engrossed in P.D. Blackwell’s works and will come away with a new appreciation for the power of storytelling.

Catherine Bybee is a #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Indie Reader bestselling author. In addition, her books have also graced The New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. In total, she has written thirty-nine beloved books that have collectively sold more than 11 million copies and have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Before moving to the rural West at age forty-two, Lynne Spriggs curated exhibitions of folk and self-taught art at the High Museum in Atlanta. She spent ten summers on northern Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation while pursuing fieldwork for her PhD in Native American Art History at Columbia University. She also worked in the film industry as Production Coordinator for Spalding Gray and Jonathan Demme on the iconic Swimming to Cambodia. After landing in Montana, she curated Bison: American Icon, a major permanent exhibit for the C. M. Russell Museum on bison in the Northern Plains. For the past fifteen years, she and her husband have lived on a cattle ranch in an isolated Montana mountain valley east of the Rockies, where her life centers on writing, animals, and family. Elk Love is her first memoir.

Susan Weissbach Friedman is a psychotherapist with a specialty in women’s issues, family therapy, and trauma-focused therapy. A graduate of Hamilton College, Boston University’s MSW/MPH program, and the Ackerman Institute for Couples and Families, she has also completed EMDR and Somatic Experiencing (SE) training in trauma therapy techniques and has been a practicing clinician for more than twenty-five years. Originally from Long Island, she now lives in Westchester County, New York, where she enjoys practicing yoga and mindfulness, going for walks in nature, listening to music, and spending time near the ocean. Susan has been married to her husband for thirty years and has two daughters in their twenties. Klara’s Truth is her first novel.

C.A. Parker has spent a lifetime working at the intersection of spirituality and social justice, both as the Executive Director of several non-profit organizations and as a pastor. His doctoral work is in early Anglican spirituality, and he has spent many years exploring the commonalities between Christian and Buddhist contemplative traditions.

Bay Area native Elizabeth Stix writes, edits, and oversleeps in Berkeley, California. Her stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House, Boulevard, The Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, and elsewhere. She has contributed to numerous anthologies, including Best Microfiction 2019, Drivel, and 642 Things About You (That I Love). Her work was performed live at the New Short Fiction Series in LA, and her story “Alice” was optioned by Sneaky Little Sister Films. In the early 2000s, she founded the vanguard lit zine The Big Ugly Review. Her stories have won the Katherine Manoogian Scholarship Prize, the Bay Guardian Fiction Prize, the Southampton Review Short-short Fiction Prize, and have been finalists or semi-finalists for the Disquiet Prize, Glimmer Train Fiction Open, Boulevard Emerging Writers Contest, Sherwood Anderson Prize, and others. Elizabeth has a BA from Brown University and an MA and MFA from San Francisco State. When she’s not writing, she can be found staying up way too late doing the NYT Spelling Bee.

Gina Carroll began writing, blogging and speaking after leaving a large corporate law practice to raise her five children. Her first book, 24 Things You Can Do with Social Media to Help Get into College, helped students show their best selves and tell their own stories online. Dedicated to the belief that everyone has a story worth the writing and the telling, she wrote A Story That Matters: A Gratifying Way to Write About Your Life, to help aspiring writers get their life stories written, polished and shared. She founded Story House, LLC (formerly InspiredWordsmith), a writing, editing, and authorship services company based on the belief that the storytelling universe needs more authentic and diverse voices. She is most proud of the debut Story House publishing effort, Stories Are Medicine: Writing to Heal, An Anthology, a beautiful offering from a committed and brave group of Black women writers from Houston and beyond.