Author: Author's Answer

Angela Woodward is the author of the novel Ink (2023), part of the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose series. Her other books include the novels Natural Wonders (winner of the Fiction Collective Two Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize) and End of the Fire Cult, and the collections Origins and Other Stories and The Human Mind. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in many literary journals including Kenyon Review, Agni, Conjunctions, Ninth Letter, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She’s won a Pushcart Prize for short fiction and grants and awards from the Illinois Arts Council, the Council for Wisconsin Writers, The Writers Center, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and others. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Chelsea Stickle’s debut flash fiction chapbook Breaking Points was the Editor’s Choice in the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition and was released by Black Lawrence Press on October 2021. A second flash fiction chapbook is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing in January 2023. It contains stories of strangeness.

Derek Dwight Anderson is an independent high school history teacher and librarian with 35 years of teaching experience. He is also a dedicated world traveler who loves museums, large and small. Improbable Voices is Anderson’s first book and represents the cumulative integration of his professional and personal interests.

Cara Reinard is an author of women’s fiction and novels of domestic suspense, including Into the Sound and Sweet Water (hit #1 on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list). She has been employed in the pharmaceutical industry for eighteen years, and while Cara loves science, writing is her passion. She currently lives in the Pittsburgh area with her husband, two children, and Bernese Mountain dogs. 

Helen Benedict, a professor at Columbia University, is the author of seven novels, six books of nonfiction, and a play.

Her newest nonfiction book is, Map of Hope and Sorrow, while her eighth and related novel, The Good Deed, will be out in 2024.

Benedict’s previous novel, Wolf Season, was called “required reading” by Elissa Schappell and received a starred review in Library Journal, which wrote, “In a book that deserves the widest attention, Benedict ‘follows the war home,’ engaging readers with an insightful story right up until the gut-wrenching conclusion.”

Benedict’s 2011 novel, Sand Queen, which features some of the same characters as Wolf Season, was named a “Best Contemporary War Novel” by Publishers Weekly.

Eyad Awwadawnan, formerly a law student from Damascus, Syria, is a writer and poet currently living as a refugee in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is the co-author with Helen Benedict of Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece. During his four years in Greece, he worked as a cultural mediator, translator and interpreter for various NGOs. He published a featured article in Slate Magazine detailing his escape from Syria, which now makes the Preface of Map of Hope and Sorrow.

Mary Allen is the author of The Deep Limitless Air:  A Memoir in Pieces, published in May 2022 by Blue Light Press. Her literary memoir, The Rooms of Heaven, was published by Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage Books.  She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship and has published short work on the Psychology Today website and in Poets and Writers, Tiferet, Real Simple, Library Journal, The Chaos, CNN Online, and in the anthology If I Don’t Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings.  She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has taught in the University of Iowa’s nonfiction writing MFA program and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa.  She currently makes a living as a writing coach and lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Former stringer for the New York Times, John Yearwood taught in high schools and universities for 30 years, and was an award-winning journalist for 15 years. He has published hundreds of editorials and columns and thousands of news stories, as well as academic works on the First Amendment and the extra-Constitutional powers of the Presidency during times of crisis. After retiring in 2012, he now volunteers helping elementary students improve their reading skills, and assisting refugee immigrants when he is not writing. 

Molly Fader is the author of The McAvoy Sister’s Book Of Secrets. As Molly O’Keefe she is the USA Today Bestselling author of over 50 contemporary romances. She lives in Toronto Ontario with her husband, two kids and rescue dog.