Category: Author’s Answer

Rachel Howzell Hall is the critically acclaimed author and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist for And Now She’s Gone. A New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, Rachel is an Anthony, International Thriller Writers and Left Award nominee and the author of They All Fall Down, Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, Trail of Echoes and City of Saviors in the Detective Elouise Norton series. She is a past member of the board of directors for Mystery Writers of America and has been a featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed Crime in the City series and the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast; she has also served as a mentor in Pitch Wars and the Association of Writers Programs. Rachel lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Natalka Burian is the cofounder of the Freya Project, a nonprofit reading series that supports community-based activism and the work of women and nonbinary writers. She is the author of Welcome to the Slipstream, a young adult book, and the cocktail cookbook A Woman’s Drink, and is the co-owner of two bars, Elsa and Ramona.

David L. Bluder holds a degree in Business from Northern Iowa University and received his MBA at St. Ambrose University. Before becoming an author, David was a banker, politician, business owner and investor, as well as taught Business at the University of Iowa.

Monika Strand is a Realtor in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, she is a lifelong entrepreneur, and now, a children’s book author.

Vivianne Knebel was born in Berlin during WWII. Vivianne grew up in the post-war years. Those challenging times left their mark on her but also toughened her against all the adversities of this world. These experiences are ultimately what led her to become an author and the hopes of inspiring others everywhere.

Aimee Parkison’s newest book Suburban Death Project, published by Unbound Edition Press, is a collection of stories about people who haunt each other while still alive. Parkison is the author of 7 books and has won the FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize, the Kurt Vonnegut Prize from North American Review, an Isherwood Fellowship, and a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, in translation in Italian, and in the Best Small Fictions. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Oklahoma State University.

K.B. Jensen is an award-winning author, with two novels, Painting With Fire, an artistic murder mystery, and A Storm of Stories, which veers literary and handles love, craziness and impossibility. K.B. lives in Littleton with her family and rescue mutt. She enjoys skiing and writing poetry. A former crime reporter and journalist, K.B. shifted to the publishing world in 2014, and is a senior publishing consultant and youth writing camp director for My Word Publishing. Her new collection of short stories, Love and Other Monsters in the Dark, will be published summer 2022.

Shelley Blanton-Stroud: I grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants who made good on their ambition to get out of the field. I recently retired from teaching writing at Sacramento State University and still consult with writers in the energy industry. I co-direct Stories on Stage Sacramento, where actors perform the stories of established and emerging authors, and serve on the advisory board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children. I’ve also served on the Writers’ Advisory Board for the Belize Writers’ Conference. Copy Boy is my first Jane Benjamin Novel. Tomboy (She Writes Press 2022) will be my second. The third, Working Girl, will come out in November 2023. My writing has been a finalist in the Sarton Book Awards, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award, the American Fiction Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. I and my husband live in Sacramento with an aging beagle, Ernie, and many photos of our out-of-town sons and their wonderful partners.

Mark Zvonkovic is a writer who lives in Rosarito Beach, Baja California, Mexico, with his wife Nancy and their two dogs, Finn and Cooper. He has written three novels, A Lion in the Grass, The Narrows, and Belinda, and he also regularly writes book reviews and essays for various  publications. Before retiring to Mexico, Mark practiced law for 35 years at 3 multinational law firms in Houston, Texas and New York City. He attended college at Southern Methodist University and Boston University, and his law degree is from SMU School of Law. Mark grew up as an oil company brat and lived in Latin America, Texas and New York.

Lisa Knopp is the author of seven books of creative nonfiction including Bread: A Memoir of Hunger and What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte. Her essays have appeared in the best journals including Georgia Review, Seneca Review, Missouri Review, Shenandoah, Gettysburg Review, Creative Nonfiction, and Brevity. Knopp is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She lives in Lincoln.