Author: Author's Answer

After decades of working with incarcerated youth and raising three kids as a single parent, Mona is fulfilling her passion for writing fiction. She is a member of SCBWI, Macondo Writers, and a co-founder of #LatinxPitch, an annual Twitter pitch event. Mona’s novels feature diverse characters in historical and contemporary fiction. She writes to amplify the voices of underrepresented women.

Mary Pascual is a writer and artist who believes finding magic is only a matter of perspective. She loves stories about characters with heart and fantastical settings that are more than meets the eye. She grew up in California and enjoys reading, art, traveling, exploring outside, and building elaborate stage sets for Halloween. Writing has taken her on a number of unexpected adventures, including working in high tech, meeting psychics, interviewing rock bands, and even once attending a press conference for Bigfoot. She got hooked on reading adult science fiction and fantasy in the fifth grade—so in retrospect, much of her reading material was completely inappropriate (which probably explains a few things). She lives with her husband, son, and assorted demanding cats in San Jose, CA.

Marianne C. Bohr, published author and award-winning essayist, married her high school sweetheart and travel partner. She has two grown children and is the eldest of 11. She follows her own advice and hits the road at every opportunity. Marianne lives in Park City, Utah, where, after decades in publishing, and many years of teaching middle school French, she skis, hikes, and writes.

Vanessa Cuti’s fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, West Branch, Indiana Review, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Rumpus and others. She received her MFA from Stony Brook University and lives in the suburbs of New York. The Tip Line is Vanessa’s debut novel.

Neely Tubati-Alexander is the author of women’s fiction with rom-com feels you can escape into with a smile. If she’s not tucked away at the little desk in her bedroom writing, you can find her at some kiddo activity (so many activities), drinking wine, or watching reality TV, usually both of the last two together.

Ann Putnam is an internationally known Hemingway scholar who has made more than six trips to Cuba as part of the Ernest Hemingway International Colloquium. Her forthcoming novel, Cuban Quartermoon (June 2022), came, in part, from those trips, as well as a residency at Hedgebrook Writer’s Colony. She has published the memoir Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye (University of Iowa Press) and short stories in Nine by Three: Stories (Collins Press), among others. She holds a PhD from the University of Washington and has taught creative writing, gender studies, and American literature for many years. She has bred Alaskan Malamutes, which appear prominently in I Will Leave You Never. She currently lives in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Rachel Lacey is an award-winning contemporary romance author and semi-reformed travel junkie. She’s been climbed by a monkey on a mountain in Japan, gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and camped out overnight in New York City for a chance to be an extra in a movie. These days, the majority of her adventures take place on the pages of the books she writes. She lives in the mountains of Vermont with her family and a variety of rescue pets, and she’s a passionate fangirl: she has attended hundreds of concerts, sitting anywhere from the last row to the front, and even backstage. 

Susan Wands is a writer, tarot reader, and actor. A co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, she helps produce monthly online book launches and author panels. In London, she has lectured at Watkins Books for their Recorded Authors series, and at Atlantis Books, also traveling to present at the Occulture Berlin Festival. Ms. Wands’ writings have appeared in Art in Fiction, Kindred Spirits magazine, and The Irving Society journal, FIRST KNIGHT. Some of her podcast interviews include: ‘Biddy Tarot’, ‘Imaginary Worlds’, ‘Bad Ass Bitches Tarot’, and the ‘Spirited Tarot’ YouTube channel. Her first book in a series, Magician and Fool, Book One, Arcana Oracle Series will be out in 2021, is based on Pamela Colman Smith, creator of the best-selling tarot, the Waite Smith deck. High Priestess and Empress, and Emperor and Hierophant, the next two books in the series, are in final edits.

Antonia Deignan is a mother of five children by choice, a dancer by calling, and a writer by necessity. She was born on the East Coast but spent most of her life in the Midwest, where she danced with multiple dance companies and raised her children. She opened her own dance studio and directed a pre-professional dance company before a bike accident wish-boned her path, and her identity. Her work has been published in print magazines and online. Now retired, she resides in a beloved island home in Martha’s Vineyard, where she continues to be inspired and write. This is her first book.

Corie Adjmi grew up in New Orleans and started writing in her thirties. Her award-winning fiction and personal essays have appeared in dozens of publications including North American Review, Indiana Review, Huff Post, Medium, Motherwell and Kveller. Her first book-length publication was a collection of short stories titled Life and Other Shortcomings. The collection won a number of prizes including an International Book Award, an American fiction award and an IBPA: Benjamin Franklin Award. When she is not writing, Corie does volunteer work, cooks, bikes and hikes. She and her husband have five children and a number of grandchildren, with more on the way. She lives and works in New York City.