Dan Gemeinhart lives in a small town smack dab in the middle of Washington state with his wife and three young daughters. He was lucky and grateful to be a teacher-librarian in an elementary school for thirteen years, where he got to share awesome books with awesome kids. He loves camping, cooking and traveling. He also plays guitar (badly) and reads (constantly). His house is always a mess. He is really pretty darn happy.

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Sarah M. Eden is a USA Today best-selling author of witty and charming historical romances, including 2020’s Foreword Reviews INDIE Awards Gold Winner for Romance, Forget Me Not, and 2020 Holt Medallion finalist, Healing Hearts. She is a two-time “Best of State” Gold Medal winner for fiction and a three-time Whitney Award winner. Combining her obsession with history and her affinity for tender love stories, Sarah loves crafting deep characters and heartfelt romances set against rich historical backdrops. She holds a bachelor’s degree in research and happily spends hours perusing the reference shelves of her local library.  

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Nancy Campbell Allen is the award winning author of 20 published novels and several novellas, which encompass a variety of genres ranging from contemporary romantic suspense to historical fiction. Nancy loves to read, write, travel, and research, and enjoys spending time with family and friends. She nurtures a current obsession for true crime podcasts and is a news junkie.

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Sabrina Kleckner is a middle grade and young adult author. Her debut award-winning novel, THE ART OF RUNNING AWAY, published in November 2021. She graduated from Hamilton College with a degree in Creative Writing, and currently lives in NYC. When she is not writing, she can be found drawing (badly), hugging her three cats, or studying languages (currently: Korean).

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Esme Symes-Smith is the author of the middle grade fantasy series, Sir Callie. After cutting their teeth on a steady diet of fanfiction in the South-West of England, Esme wandered north to Wales for their degree in Literature and Creative Writing then promptly migrated to Missouri after meeting their wife on Tumblr. Esme has been a ghostwriter, an editor, a frozen-yogurt seller, a caffeine dealer, and now wrangles preschoolers for a living.

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Lynn Jung grew up in California, where she spent most of her time sketching and daydreaming instead of paying attention in math. Nowadays, she channels her creative energy into writing off-beat speculative fiction in all shades of weird. Her staples include ghosts, strange magic, and dangerous women who like sharp things.

When she’s not reading or writing, Lynn can usually be found painting, baking, or wrangling golden retrievers and the occasional pelican at work. She is currently pursuing a degree in zoology, although she considers dropping out every other week in order to follow her true dream of opening a charming bakery in a small seaside town.

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Tala Shannak writes dark, atmospheric stories about girls who are too ambitious for their own good. She is a former PitchWars mentee and an Editorial Intern at Entangled Publishing/Macmillan. When she is not writing, Tala is elbow-deep in code and CAD as a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Houston, where she also works as a teaching assistant. As always, she is dreaming up eerie settings and scribbles of mayhem for the next story.

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JJ Clapton is a queer autistic writer of science fiction and fantasy in kidlit. Originally from London, she grew up retreating from life into the stories in her head. When she became sick with a chronic illness as a teen, she relied on the stories to help her escape. She now lives in Lanzarote where she loves to write adventures in which characters like her exist and get to be the heroes.

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C.A. was born and raised in Brazil, always accompanied by daydreams, a handful of 80’s songs and goals that seemed too big. Initially, she dreamed of being Sherlock Holmes, but was quite disappointed when it turned out he was not taking any protegées at the time. Determined to find a way of satisfying her imagination, C.A. started to write, motivated by a desire to see more of who and what she is-- latinx, queer, ace, and autistic-- in fiction.

She currently live in the countryside of Portugal, forever elaborating new stories and, hopefully, living up to no other expectation than her own. When she’s not busy rhyming the lines of their literary novels and trying to make sense, she draws under the pseudonym of “Et Fictor."

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Brittany is a Canadian who makes graphic designs by daylight and writes stories by moonlight. Growing up her parents always said she had a "wild imagination" where she could be given a stick and create an entire story with it. Now as an adult they find themselves lost in the worlds they create often inspired by nature and anime. When she isn't writing she can be found hiking or drinking too much Starbucks.

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Kay is a self-proclaimed realist whose biggest dream is to chill with tunes and vibe with life. She lives on a sunny tropical island and thus writes stories that are set anywhere but there. Her inspiration comes from jokes, banter, shenanigans, and also existentialism. When not writing, she's learning new languages and exploring the world and petting cute dogs, likely in an alternate dimension.

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Kayla Morton loves a lot of things: dancing, videography, reading—but more importantly, writing. At the end of 2021, she finally decided to act on her dreams of being a writer. With her playlist at the ready and Melbourne’s cutest cafes on her doorstep, Kayla embarked on her journey. Along the way, she’s written five manuscripts that all champion a queer, neurodiverse casts of characters. When she’s not creating Pinterest moodboards and angsty Spotify playlists, Kayla can be found obsessing over her dog Jiji and drinking one-too-many iced mochas.