Author: Author's Answer

Judith M. Ford is a widely published writer whose short work has appeared in over thirty magazines, including Connecticut Review, Evening Street Review, Southern Humanities Review, and many others. Her work has been nominated three times for Pushcart prizes. She was a psychotherapist for thirty-five years and also taught creative writing in a private elementary school, at the University of Wisconsin Extension, and in a teen runaway shelter. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Fever of Unknown Origin is her first book.

Lenore Borja grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. She attended Arizona State University before moving to New York City to study acting at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After a brief career as an actress, she spent several years working in executive search and human resources in both New York and San Francisco. She now resides in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband and a bossy feline named Maximus. When she’s not writing, she enjoys adventure travel and anything that gets the heart racing, whether it’s hiking, running, or getting lost in a good book.

T.J. Champitto is the author of The Medina Device and The Shadowmaker. In 2020, Champitto was given the PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence, the Maxy Award for Best Thriller, and was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award. Born in Troy, New York, the author currently resides in Greenville, South Carolina with his wife and two dogs.

Yvonne Martinez is a retired labor negotiator/organizer. She has been published by ZyZZyVa, Crab Orchard Review, Labor Notes, and NPR. She also formerly wrote a local labor blog in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her forthcoming memoir in essays, Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman, covers her childhood in Salt Lake City/South Central/Boyle Heights and her work as a labor negotiator/organizer in California and the Pacific Northwest. Her play Scabmuggers is based on her experience as a National Fellow of the Harvard Trade Union Program in 1994. Yvonne lives in Berkeley, CA, and Portland, OR.

Amelia Zachry was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After graduating from Curtin University in Kuala Lumpur with a degree in marketing, she worked in public relations and marketing until she met her American husband, Daniel, when he was traveling through Malaysia with friends on a short vacation from their job in Japan. Since then, they have lived together in Japan, Canada (where Amelia obtained a second degree in human ecology from the University of Western Ontario), and Kentucky, and had two daughters together. Now a full-time writer, Amelia is also an advocate for sexual assault survivors and those who suffer from mental illness. She was recently published on HuffPost and Moms Don’t Have Time to Write, and weekly blogs, where you can find a list of her recent appearances and more information about her and her work. Amelia lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Linda Moore: The first time I visited the Prado Museum in Madrid, I followed my Spanish art history professor around the hallowed but stuffy galleries. The actual masterpieces, El Greco, Zurbarán, Velázquez, Goya, became part of a tumultuous year I spent at the Complutense University of Madrid.

In those times, Franco, the Fascist dictator who controlled Spain fought anyone who wanted to end his tyranny. University days were spent running from police on horseback swinging clubs hitting anyone in their path, until the government closed the university -for four months. I learned that leadership matters, that society is not separate from politics and I pursued a major in political science. I went on to graduate school to study Latin American politics at Stanford University.

Patricia Grayhall is a medical doctor and author of Making the Rounds: Defying Norms in Love and Medicine as well as articles in Queer Forty and The Gay and Lesbian Review. After nearly forty years of medical practice, this is her debut, very personal, and frank memoir about coming out as a lesbian in the late 1960s and training to become a doctor when society disapproved of both for a woman. Patricia chose to write using a pen name to protect the privacy of some of her characters as well as her own. She lives with the love of her life on an island in the Pacific Northwest where she enjoys other people’s dogs, the occasional Orca and black bear, hiking, and wine with friends.

Isidra Mencos was born and raised in Barcelona. She spent her twenties experimenting with the new freedoms afforded by the end of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, bouncing from man to man and job to job while immersing herself in books and dancing. She freelanced for prestigious publishing houses, traveled the world as a tour leader, and worked for the Olympic Committee. In 1992 she moved to the US to earn a PhD in Spanish and Latin American contemporary literature at UC Berkeley, where she taught for twelve years. She also developed her own business as a writer and editor for Spanish-speaking media. From 2006 to 2016 she worked as Editorial Director of the Americas for BabyCenter, the leading global digital resource for parents, and managed teams in several countries. In 2016 she quit her job to dedicate herself to writing. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Quarterly Review, Front Porch Journal, The Penmen Review, WIRED, The Huffington Post, and Better After Fifty among others. Her essay “My Books and I” was listed as Notable in The Best American Essays Anthology. Today Isidra lives in Northern California with her husband and son.

Alli Frank has worked in education for over twenty years, from an overcrowded, cacophonous public high school to a pristine private girl’s school. She has been a teacher, curriculum leader, college counselor, assistant head, co-founder, sometimes pastor, often mayor, and de facto parent therapist. A graduate of Cornell and Stanford University, Alli lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. She is the co-author of Tiny Imperfections and Never Meant to Meet You.

Asha Youmans: The daughter of an education pioneer and Children’s Hospital administrator, after attending UC Berkeley Asha spent the next twenty years teaching elementary school. Asha continues to work in schools in the Pacific Northwest believing children keep her youthful, as do her husband and two sons. She is the co-author of Tiny Imperfections and Never Meant to Meet You. 

Brennen Matthews is the editor of ROUTE Magazine, the leading Route 66 and classic Americana magazine, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Destination Magazine, East Africa’s premiere lifestyle publication. After obtaining his Master of Arts in International Development Studies with a minor in Creative Writing, and bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Community Development Studies with a minor in Literature, Brennen worked with some of the world’s largest nonprofit humanitarian organizations, including World Vision, CARE, Red Cross, and Tearfund UK. Brennen’s first book is Miles to Go: An African Family in Search of America along Route 66, the unique story of a foreign family’s great American road trip featuring vignettes of Americana — one-of-a-kind vintage roadside attractions and insightful encounters with locals and fellow travelers — culminating in a vision of America as a land defined by diversity, individuality, and possibility. Originally from Mombasa, Kenya, Brennen lives with his family in Toronto, Canada.