Author: Author's Answer

Rodney Sadler – As a decorated police officer, my ability to document Michigan serial killer Don Miller’s case comes from a unique perspective.  For my entire thirty year career in law enforcement, I unknowingly fostered relationships with many of the key people involved in the investigation, prosecution, and even the defense of the killer.  The list includes acquaintances of the killer, uniformed officers, detectives, prosecutors, judges, and even Miller’s own defense attorney.

Philip Mann has begun a genre loosely called Jewish paranormal, which is to say, a non-existent genre. The best way to describe it, he believes, is a dark, Jewish version of Bewitched, a sixties comedy.

Veena Rao was born and raised in India but calls Atlanta home. A journalist by profession, she is the founding editor and publisher of NRI Pulse, a popular Indian-American newspaper. Although her day job involves news reports, interviews, and meeting press deadlines, she devotes her spare time to creative writing and long walks in the woods. Purple Lotus, her debut novel, is the winner of the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest.

Born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in St. Louis, Missouri, Marian O’Shea Wernicke is the eldest of seven children. She was a nun for eleven years and spent three years working in Lima, Peru, during that time. She is a former professor of English and creative writing at Pensacola State College and the author of a memoir about her father called Tom O’Shea: A Twentieth Century Man. She also coedited and contributed to an award-winning book of short fiction and memoir called Confessions: Fact or Fiction? Marian is married to Michael Wernicke, and they are the parents of three adult children. After many years in Pensacola, Florida, they now live in Austin, Texas.

Heidi McCrary is the youngest of five children. She has worked in the media world all her life; she spent many years with the West Michigan CBS TV station, and is currently in the advertising marketing industry. She is also a contributing writer for a regional women’s magazine. Embracing all that West Michigan has to offer, Heidi can often be found in one of the many wonderful towns along the Lake Michigan shoreline, or on the local golf course, working on her goal of becoming a mediocre golfer. She lives with her husband, Jon, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, just a short drive from Alamo, where she grew up, and owns the family woods depicted in Chasing North Star. Her two sons, Tyler and Phillip, are doing great despite being raised by a mother with no formal training. Chasing North Star is her first novel. She currently resides in Kalamazoo, MI.

Joseph A. Esposito is an historian, writer and educator. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He also held various positions over eleven years at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. He has taught history at three colleges, and is currently an adjunct associate professor at Northern Virginia Community College.

Rikki West is a birdwatcher, book lover, and student of meditation who started training in Muay Thai at age sixty-two. She holds a bachelor’s in genetics from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s in integrative humanities from San Francisco State University. Her greatest passion is ideas, and her greatest thrill is understanding a new subject, perspective, or person. Thai kickboxing and meditation support her aspiration to awaken as much as possible before her lights go out. Now retired from a thirty-five-year high-tech management career, she is the mother of Lauren Magnolia and godmother of Morgan Lisa, and she lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her spouse, Jill.

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Bronte’s Mistress, her first novel, was published by Atria Books in August 2020. Bronte’s Mistress explores the scandalous historical love affair between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson, giving voice to the woman who allegedly corrupted her son’s innocent tutor and brought down the entire Brontë family. By day, Finola works in digital advertising.

Lan Cao is the author of Monkey Bridge and The Lotus and the Storm, and most recently of the scholarly work Culture in Law and Development: Nurturing Positive Change. She is a professor of law at the Chapman University School of Law, and an internationally recognized expert specializing in international business and trade, international law, and development. She has taught at Brooklyn Law School, Duke University School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and William & Mary Law School. Harlan Margaret Van Cao graduated from high school in June 2020 and will be attending UCLA. She was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, and moved to Southern California when she was ten.

Meryl Ain’s debut novel, The Takeaway Men, won a Gold Medal for Historical Fiction in The American Fiction Awards  just two weeks after it was published. The book is the result of her life-long quest to learn more about the Holocaust, a thirst that was first triggered by reading The Diary of Anne Frank in the sixth grade.