Ally Carter
Ally Carter spent several years writing (tremendously bad) screenplays before taking the lessons she’d learned telling those stories and turning her attention to novels instead. Today, she’s the New York Times Bestselling author of I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You and Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. She might have quit screenplays, but she hasn’t turned her back on Hollywood--her popular Gallagher Girls series has since been optioned by Walden Media and the producers of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Princess Diaries. She lives in the Midwest where she is hard at work on the next Gallagher Girls adventure as well as a new series for young adults.

www.allycarter.com

Megan Crewe
Megan Crewe lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two cats. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Brutarian Quarterly and On Spec. She has worked with children and teens for several years, in rec centers and schools, and as a private tutor for children with special needs. She recently earned her degree in psychology at York University. In her free time, she reads everything she can get her hands on, posts to her blog, and speculates about the ghost that may or may not be living under her bed.

www.megancrewe.com

Jana DeLeon
Jana was raised in southwest Louisiana among the bayous and the gators. Currently she resides in Dallas, Texas with three spoiled cats, three spoiled dogs and one spoiled husband. She is the VP of Finance for a privately held corporation.

www.janadeleon.com

Lucienne Diver
Lucienne Diver is a literary agent by day, a writer by night. (Hey, it's still dark at 5 a.m.) Her credits include short stories and a romantic comedy written under the pseudonym Kit Daniels. But with her young adult novel Vamped, she's taking off the mask and stepping into the full glare of…indirect sunlight. 'Cause as her heroine would tell you, anything else is hazardous to your health, especially once you've been VAMPED.

www.luciennediver.com

Simone Elkeles
Simone Elkeles was a teen in the 80’s and still uses words like "grody" and "totally," but resists the urge to wear blue eye shadow. Her award-winning book How to Ruin a Summer Vacation placed #3 on the Teens’ Top Ten list by YALSA, a division of the American Library Association. Her novel Leaving Paradise was a Book Sense pick and How to Ruin my Teenage Life is an AJL Notable Book for Teen Readers.

Simone has a B.S. in Industrial Psychology from the University of Illinois and has a master’s degree in Industrial Relations from Loyola University-Chicago. She lives in the Midwest and loves spending her days writing books for teens.

www.simoneelkeles.com

Jamie Ford
Jamie Ford’s debut novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was sold at auction to Ballantine and will be hitting shelves Spring/Summer 2009. The novel is based on his short story, I Am Chinese, which was a finalist in Glimmer Train's 2006 Short-Story Award for New Writers. He is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a survivor of Orson Scott Cards Literary Boot Camp. Having grown up near Seattle’s Chinatown, he now calls Montana home (where he’s on a never-ending quest to find decent dim sum).

www.jamieford.com

Bobby "the Brain" Heenan
"The Brain," as Bobby is affectionately known, has encompassed every phase of the wrestling business during his 38-year career and is still recognized as the only major player from the sixties. His capabilities have yet to be surpassed as manager of some of the most influential and famous wrestlers of the century. Bobby's four decades has earned him various awards signifying his importance to the sport. He currently lives in Florida with his wife.

www.bobbythebrain.com

Carolyn Jewel
Carolyn Jewel has been writing stories ever since she could scribble. Now that she's grown up (mostly) she writes historical and paranormal romance because she loves history and imagining the lives of people who lived in years past, and because she's fascinated by the loves and travails of the not-exactly-human in any time period. Carolyn lives in Northern California with her son, three cats, a border collie, several chickens, some sheep and various strays and other rescued critters. Ms. Jewel is also a Microsoft SQL Server Database Administrator who specializes in, uhm, administering MS SQL Server databases. It's not nearly as exciting as writing.

www.carolynjewel.com

Leslie Langtry
Leslie Langtry grew up in the small town of DeWitt, Iowa, where her teachers wrote, "Leslie spends too much time day-dreaming in class," on her report cards and kids wrote, "You are funny and really weird," in her yearbooks. For some idiotic reason, Leslie didn’t fulfill her dream of becoming a published author until much later. Instead she lived and worked in Lynchburg, Virginia; Springfield, Illinois; Delmar/Clinton, Iowa; and Rock Island, Illinois. Now she lives in the Quad Cities with her family. She divides her time between writing, her most excellent critique group and her perfectly behaved Girl Scout troop. Leslie is currently working on her next book.

www.leslielangtry.com

Marianne Mancusi
Marianne Mancusi is a multiple Emmy award-winning television producer and author of novels for adults and teens. She’s worked at television stations in Boston, San Diego, and Orlando and is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communications. She recently left the local TV news world to become a segment producer for the nationally syndicated women’s lifestyle show, Better TV. When not writing or producing, she enjoys snowboarding, clubbing, 80s music, cosplay, and her favorite guilty pleasure—the World of Warcraft videogame.

www.mariannemancusi.com

Jack McCallum, M.D., Ph.D.
Jack has been a physician, a teacher, and a historian for a number of years. He holds an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and a medical degree from Emory University. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and holds board certification in Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery. Dr. McCallum also holds a masters and a doctorate in history from Texas Christian University with specialties in modern European and military history. He has held teaching appointments at the University of Pittsburgh, Texas Tech University, and Texas Christian University where he has recently been named AdRan Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife and daughter.

Becky Motew
Becky lives in Massachusetts, but is originally from Arkansas. She spent many years in the direct mail industry and many more as a community theatre actress, all of which contributed to Coupon Girl.

Becky is a graduate of the University of Illinois and of Villanova University. Her one-act comedy "Peppers, Paul, and Elizabeth" is a former winner of Best Play at the New England Theatre Conference competition. Becky currently teaches English Composition to unsuspecting freshmen at a number of colleges in central New England and would like to publicly apologize for scaring her own daughter during a performance as Miss Hannigan in "Annie."

www.beckymotew.com

Jennifer O'Connell
Jennifer’s debut novel, Bachelorette #1, was called a "poolside page turner" by Cosmopolitan magazine, declared "Chick Lit at its most fun," by the Denver Post, and selected as a "Hot Book pick" by US Weekly. Since then, Jennifer has written three more novels, including Dress Rehearsal, Off The Record, and Insider Dating. In addition to conceiving and editing the collection of essays for Everything I Needed to Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume, Jennifer’s first non-fiction book, The Divorced Girls' Society, co-written with Smith alum Vicki King, came out in October 2007.

Jennifer also writes for teens as Jenny O’Connell for MTV books. Her novels include Plan B and The Book Of Luke. The first two books in her new Martha’s Vineyard Summer Series will be published in Summer 2008. She received her B.A. from Smith College and her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

www.jenniferoconnell.com

Kelly Parra
Kelly Parra is a Mexican-Filipino-Italian young adult fiction writer. Through her teen years, her nationality was many times a guessing game by new acquaintances and today she often writes her multicultural characters with the same experiences. She debuted into young adult fiction with the Latina novel Graffiti Girl, a Latinidad top pick in 2007. Her next novel is the YA contemporary paranormal, Invisible Touch, and will be released in the fall of 2008.

Kelly currently lives somewhere in between dreamland and her hometown in Central Coast California, with her husband, two children, and Max the super turtle. When not writing her current novel, she likes to play with her abundance of websites and feed a serious television addiction.

www.kellyparra.com

Paula Reed
Paula is an English teacher at Columbine High School of Littleton, Colorado. After surviving the tragic shooting there, she, not unlike many students and teachers who were there that day, decided to reinvent her life by pursuing her true passion — writing historical novels. Paula still lives in Denver with her husband and two children.

www.paula-reed.com

Sarah Rees Brennan
Sarah Rees Brennan was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it's not called Gaelic) but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. After living briefly in New York and doing a Creative Writing MA and library work in Surrey, England, she has returned to Ireland to write. Her Irish is still woeful, but she feels the books under the desk were worth it.

www.sarahreesbrennan.com

Kim Reid
Kim Reid lives in the Denver area, but grew up in Atlanta and still calls it home. She attended Oglethorpe University and The George Washington University, where she studied national security policy because she wanted to work for the CIA. Kim has worked as a project manager and an IRS tax collector, but never did become a spy, which is fine because she believes writing is probably just as interesting and definitely not as dangerous.

kimreid.com

Hank Phillippi Ryan
Award winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan currently is on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate, where she's broken big stories for the past 22 years. Along with her 24 EMMYs, Hank has won dozens of other regional, national and international honors for her hard-hitting investigations. She's been a radio reporter, a legislative aide in the United States Senate, worked in Rolling Stone Magazine's Washington Bureau, and as news anchor and reporter in Indianapolis and Atlanta. She and her husband, a nationally-renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney, live in a Boston suburb.

www.hankphillippiryan.com

Cheryl Sawyer
Cheryl Sawyer writes epic historical novels about strong characters who fall in love when their world is changing. Her first six novels have been published in several languages and countries, including the USA. The sixth (April 2006) is The Winter Prince, set during the English Civil War and peopled by real characters from the court of Charles I. Her career has been in teaching and publishing, and she is currently publishing manager of fiction and non-fiction lists for an international company. With master’s degrees in English and French literature and a readiness to travel for research, Cheryl Sawyer brings vivid accuracy to her evocation of history, and dramatic immediacy to the protagonists’ lives.

www.cherylsawyer.com

Lisa Shearin
Lisa currently works as the editor at an advertising agency. She has been a magazine editor and writer of corporate marketing materials of every description. Lisa enjoys singing, reading, writing novels, and fencing (foil and epee, as well as rapier & dagger dueling). She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two cats, two spoiled-rotten retired racing greyhounds, and a Jack Russell Terrier who rules them all.

www.lisashearin.com

Linnea Sinclair
A former news reporter and retired private detective, Linnea Sinclair has managed to use all her college degrees (journalism and criminology) but hasn't soothed the yearning in her soul to travel the galaxy. To that end, she has authored several science fiction romance novels, including Finders Keepers (RITA-Award finalist) and Gabriel's Ghost (RITA-Award winner), and An Accidental Goddess. Her 2007-2008 releases include The Down Home Zombie Blues and Shades of Dark. When not on duty with some intergalactic fleet, she can be found in Naples, Florida with her golf-loving husband, Robert Bernadino, and their two thoroughly spoiled cats, Daiquiri and Miss Doozy.

www.linneasinclair.com

Shanna Swendson
Shanna currently works as a freelance writer doing marketing and publicity materials for various local and international companies while devoting the bulk of her time to writing novels. In addition to reading and writing, Shanna enjoys doing in-depth analyses of television science fiction series, cooking and singing. She is single and lives in Irving, Texas, with her many pet plants, including a vicious attack bougainvillea and a Christmas cactus that has outlasted three homes, three jobs and three boyfriends, yet still faithfully blooms every Christmas and Easter.

www.shannaswendson.com

Brooke Taylor
Brooke Taylor writes Young Adult fiction from her home in the Oklahoma. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys horseback riding, going to the lake, and traveling. Her many overseas adventures include sky diving in New Zealand, scuba diving with sharks, sailing through hurricanes, and having her tent attacked by wild animals in the Mara game reserve in Africa. Due to parental concerns and current health insurance rates, Brooke has agreed to let her characters do most of the risk-taking from now on.

www.BrookeTaylorBooks.com

Sherry Thomas
Sherry arrived on American soil at age thirteen. Within a year, with whatever English she’d scraped together and her trusty English-Chinese dictionary by her side, she was already plowing her way through the 600-page behemoth historical romances of the day. The vocabulary she gleaned from those stories of unquenchable ardor propelled her to great successes on the SAT and the GRE and came in very handy when she turned to writing romances herself.

Sherry has a B.S. in economics from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in central Texas with her husband and two sons. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, playing computer games with her boys, and reading some more.

www.sherrythomas.com