Last update 1/27/23

Kimberly Belle

• Kimberly Belle worked in marketing and nonprofit fundraising before turning to writing fiction. The Personal Assistant explores the dark side of the digital world when a mommy blogger’s assistant goes missing.

Kimberly Brock

• Kimberly Brock is the founder of Tinderbox Writers Workshop and has served as a guest lecturer for regional and national writing workshops. The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare explores the meaning of female history and the sacrifices every mother makes for her daughter.

Kristen Mei Chase

• Kristen Mei Chase is an author, web entrepreneur, and media personality. A Thousand Miles to Graceland is a sharply funny and achingly tender debut novel about mothers, daughters, and the surprising power of Elvis.

Johnny Compton

• Johnny Compton’s short stories have appeared in several markets, and he is the creator and host of the podcast Healthy Fears. The Spite House is a terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father's love.

Ann Dávila Cardinal

• Ann Dávila Cardinal is a novelist and Director of Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). The Storyteller’s Death is a Puerto Rican saga steeped in equal parts magical realism and mystery brimming with dark family secrets.

Mazey Eddings

• Mazey Eddings has made it her personal mission in life to destigmatize mental health issues and write love stories for every brain. Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake mixes passion and humor to create a luscious love story between two people stumbling through life and learning to open their hearts.

Scott Gates

• Scott Gates is a writer and editor whose first novel, Hard Road South, was a finalist for a Feathered Quill Book Award. In Gone, the Redeemer, Thomas Sparkman desires to return home to his wife and infant son, but through a series of unexpected turns, he becomes a notorious gold robber hunted in two states.

Silas House

• Bestselling author Silas House is a former commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and was the recipient of the Governor’s Award for his service to the arts in Kentucky. Lark Ascending is a riveting story of survival and hope, set in the not-too-distant future, about a young man forced to flee the United States and seek refuge across the Atlantic.

Timothy Janovsky

• Timothy Janovsky is a queer, multidisciplinary storyteller whose work as a humor writer has been featured in several publications. Never Been Kissed is a feel-good summer LGBTQIA+ New Adult RomCom with second chances, letter writing, and finally getting a happily-ever-after. 

Pam Jenoff

• Pam Jenoff’s novels are inspired by her experiences working at the Pentagon and as a diplomat for the State Department handling Holocaust issues in Poland. In Code Name Sapphire a woman must rescue her cousin’s family from a train bound for Auschwitz, setting forth a riveting tale of bravery and resistance during World War II.

Lauren Kung Jessen

• From attending culinary school to working in Big Tech to writing love stories, Lauren Kung Jessen cares about creating experiences that make people feel something. Lunar Love is a debut rom-com pitting two matchmakers -- one using Chinese zodiac traditions and one using algorithms-- against each other.

Jennifer McGaha

• Jennifer McGaha has taught creative nonfiction and memoir writing for more than twenty years, currently at the University of North Carolina-Ashville. With humility, humor, and wisdom, Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out honors writing craft traditions and offers fresh insights into how close communion with nature can transform your writing and your life.

Jamila Minnicks

• Jamila Minnicks’ novel Moonrise Over New Jessup won the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. It is a thought-provoking and enchanting debut novel about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama.

Wanda M. Morris

• Wanda M. Morris is the acclaimed author of All Her Little Secrets, which has been optioned for a limited series on the Showtime network. Anywhere You Run tells the story of two sisters on the run—one from the law, the other from social shame— unaware that a man with dark secrets is on their trail. 

Adele Myers

• Adele Myers grew up in Ashville, North Carolina, and has a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Tobacco Wives is a debut historical novel set in 1947 North Carolina following a young female seamstress who uncovers dangerous truths about the Big Tobacco empire ruling the American South.

Robin W. Pearson

• Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern roots, her faith, and her love of her husband and seven children. In Walking in Tall Weeds, Paulette and Fred Baldwin find themselves wading through a new season in their marriage. When their only son arrives home for a visit, conflict arises.

Matthew Quick

• Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook—which was made into an Oscar-winning film—and eight other novels. We Are the Light, the humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame, offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art.

Eden Robins

• Eden Robins co-hosts a science podcast called No Such Thing As Boring, and produces Tuesday Funk,  a monthly live lit show in Chicago. When Franny Stands Up is a story about a Jewish woman in post-WWII Chicago breaking boundaries, finding her voice, and healing her and her family's trauma through laughter.

Saket Soni

• Saket Soni is the founder and director of Resilience Force, a national nonprofit that advocates for the rising workforce that rebuilds after climate disasters. The Great Escape tells the true story of 500 Indian men who were lured to America under the false pretenses of receiving green cards in exchange for work rebuilding oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina.

Goldie Taylor

• Goldie Tayor is a veteran journalist, political analyst and human rights activist who has written about national politics and social justice issues for over thirty years. The Love You Save shares the deeply hopeful story of Taylor’s troubled childhood in East St. Louis—a memoir of family, faith, and the power of books.

E.M. Tran

• E.M. Tran is a Vietnamese American author with an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Creative Writing; her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in several publications. Daughters of the New Year tells the story of a lineage of extraordinary women fighting to reclaim the power they've been stripped of for centuries.

Eric G. Wilson

• Eric G. Wilson is the Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University. How to be Weird is a guidebook for beating the monotony of the everyday by purposefully cultivating the surprising joys that come from living an off-kilter life.

Nicole Zelniker

• Nicole Zelniker is a writer and activist whose books include Mixed, Last Dance, and Letters I’ll Never Send. Until We Fall is a dystopian novel that explores themes around social revolution and family—given and chosen.

*Mark Powell not being able to attend as originally scheduled.