Author: Author's Answer

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

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

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

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

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

Kim DeRose grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where she spent childhood summers holed up in her bedroom, reading and writing stories (which she was convinced her local bookstore would publish). She now lives in New York City, where she still holes up in her bedroom reading, and writing stories. DeRose earned her MFA in film directing from UCLA, and she currently works in digital media. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can be found geeking out over her favorite obsessions (Twin Peaks, Harry Potter, and anything Halloween-related, to name a few), drinking way too much coffee, listening to way too many podcasts, and spending time with her family. For Girls Who Walk Through Fire is her debut novel.

Rea Frey is the award-winning, bestselling author of several nonfiction books and the suspense novels Not Her Daughter, Because You’re Mine, Until I Find You, and Secrets of Our House. Her latest women’s fiction novel, The Other Year, hit bookstores in August 2023. Known as The Book Doula, Rea helps other writers birth their stories into the world. To learn more, please visit reafrey.com.

As an artist, art doula, SoulCollage® facilitator, writer, and convener of ceremony, Glenda Goodrich brings together earth-based rituals, community gatherings, and creative expression in a search for new ways to show love for the Earth. She feels most alive exploring wild places and spending time with her two children, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Glenda lives in a cottage in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.

Rica Ramos- Keenum is a former journalist and the author of “Petals of Rain” and “Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of Healing the Mother Wound.” She writes about autism, raising a son with ADHD, family trauma and more–sometimes it’s difficult with her 60-lb dog on her lap. 

Thomas Reed taught medieval and Victorian literature, film, and writing at Dickinson College for thirty years. His first novel, Seeking Hyde, grew out of courses he taught on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and was named Finalist in the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction. His second, Pocketful of Poseys, draws more broadly on his experience growing up in an academic family; his education at Yale, the University of Virginia, and as a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford; years spent living in Rome and Christchurch, N.Z.; circum-global travels with his wife and children; and courageous decisions made by his mother-in-law as she faced her death. He and wife Dottie now split their year between Sarasota, Florida, and Camp Pemigewassett, a summer camp for boys in New Hampshire.

Victor Dixen is the author of many bestselling French novels, including four series for young adults: THE STRANGE CASE OF JACK SPARK, ANIMALE, PHOBOS and VAMPYRIA; and he is a two-time winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the most prestigious science-fiction and fantasy award in France. Born to a French mother and Danish father, Victor grew up in the city of Versailles. As an adult, he has lived in Denver, Dublin, Singapore, and New York City. He now divides his time between Paris and Washington, DC with his family and his two inquisitive cats.

Laura Picklesimer’s debut novel Kill for Love will be released on September 12 by Unnamed Press. The book was the winner of the Launch Pad Prose Competition Top Book Prize and the Book Pipeline Grand Prize for Best Thriller/Mystery. Laura’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, the Arkansas International, and the Santa Ana River Review, among other publications. Laura earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA in Fiction from Cal State Long Beach. She lives in Pasadena, CA.