Author Events

ABOUT Rebecca:

Rebecca Balcárcel’s novel, THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPY (2019), is a Pura Belpré Honor Book, an ALSC Notable Book, and was called “a must-have for all library collections” by School Library Journal. She serves the students of Tarrant County College as Associate Professor of English.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Ellen Crosby

Ellen Crosby is the author of the Virginia wine country mysteries, two mysteries featuring international photojournalist Sophie Medina and MOSCOW NIGHTS, a standalone. THE ANGELS' SHARE, her latest book, is #10 in the wine country series. Look for two more books in that series in early 2021 and 2022. Before writing fiction, Crosby--who has lived in England, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the former Soviet Union--worked as a freelance reporter for The Washington Post, an economist at the US Senate, and Moscow reporter for ABC Radio News. Visit her website at www.ellencrosby.com and follow her occasionally on Facebook at EllenCrosbyBooks, sometimes on Twitter at @ellencrosby--but mostly on Instagram at ellencrosbyauthor.

Megan Miranda

Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of ALL THE MISSING GIRLS, THE PERFECT STRANGER, and THE LAST HOUSE GUEST, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. She has also written several books for young adults, including COME FIND ME, FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST, and THE SAFEST LIES. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. THE GIRL FROM WIDOW HILLS was published on June 23rd, 2020. Follow @MeganLMiranda on Twitter and Instagram, or @AuthorMeganMiranda on Facebook.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Charles Town, West Virginia. All the rumors you've heard about her state aren't true. When she's not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her dog. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult and new adult romance under the name J. Lynn. Jennifer loves hearing from readers. Follow her on Twitter, @JLArmentrout, look for her on Facebook and Goodreads, or visit her blog at JenniferArmentrout.com.

Caleb Roehrig

Caleb Roehrig is an author of young adult thrillers, including Last Seen Leaving, White Rabbit, and Death Prefers Blondes. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, he has also lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Helsinki, Finland. As a former actor and television producer, Roehrig has experience on both sides of the camera, with a résumé that includes appearances on film and TV -- not to mention seven years in the stranger-than-fiction salt mines of reality television. In the name of earning a paycheck, he has: hung around a frozen cornfield in his underwear, partied with an actual rock star, chatted with a scandal-plagued politician, and been menaced by a disgruntled ostrich.

Tracy Wolff

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Tracy Wolff wrote her first short story―something with a rainbow and a prince―in second grade. By ten, she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore. A one-time English professor with more than fifty novels to her name, she now devotes most of her time to writing and dreaming up heroes. She also writes under the name Tracy Deebs and lives in Austin, Texas, with her family. Visit her online at tracywolffbooks.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Jen DeLuca

Jen DeLuca was born and raised in Virginia, and has recently swapped Florida for the Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband and a houseful of rescue pets. She’s worked as an ice-show dresser, a wardrobe master, a makeup consultant, and a paralegal. She likes latte-flavored lattes, Hokies football, and the Oxford comma.

Alisha Rai

Alisha Rai pens award-winning contemporary romances. Her novels have been featured on the IndieNext and the LibraryReads lists, and been named Best Books of the Year by Washington Post, NPR, New York Public Library, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Reader’s Digest, Kirkus, “O” the Oprah Magazine, and Cosmopolitan Magazine. When she’s not writing, Alisha is traveling or tweeting. To find out more about her books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit www.alisharai.com.

Alexandria Bellefleur

Alexandria Bellefleur is an author of swoony contemporary romance often featuring loveable grumps and the sunshine characters who bring them to their knees. A Pacific Northwesterner at heart, Alexandria has a weakness for good coffee, Pike IPA, and Voodoo Doughnuts. Her special skills include finding the best Pad Thai in every city she visits, remembering faces but not names, falling asleep in movie theaters, and keeping cool while reading smutty books in public. She was a 2018 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Aimee Agresti

Aimee Agresti is a novelist and entertainment journalist. A former staff writer for Us Weekly, she penned the magazine’s coffee-table book Inside Hollywood. Her work has also appeared in People, Premiere, DC magazine, Capitol File, the Washington Post, Washingtonian, the Washington City Paper, Boston magazine, Women’s Health and the New York Observer. Aimee has made countless TV and radio appearances, dishing about celebrities on the likes of Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, The Insider, Extra, VH1, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and HLN. The author of The Summer Set, Campaign Widows, and The Gilded Wings Trilogy for young adults, she graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and lives with her husband and two sons in the Washington, DC, area.

Kristyn Kusek Lewis

Kristyn Kusek Lewis is the bestselling author of Half of What You Hear, Save Me and How Lucky You Are & Perfect Happiness. Kristyn is also the Contributing Books Editor for Real Simple magazine, where she writes the monthly “What Should I Read Next?” page. She previously held editing positions at publications including Glamour and Child, and is a well-established freelance writer who has written for dozens of publications over the past twenty-five years. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Real Simple, Glamour, Self, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Parents, Allure, Good Housekeeping, Cooking Light, Health, Men’s Health, the New York Daily News, and many more. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her family.

Bryn Greenwood

Bryn Greenwood is a fourth-generation Kansan, one of seven sisters, and the daughter of a mostly reformed drug dealer. She earned a MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Reckless Oath We Made, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Last Will, and Lie Lay Lain. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

William Bernhardt

William Bernhardt is the author of forty-seven books, including the bestselling Ben Kincaid series, the historical novels Challengers of the Dust and Nemesis, two books of poetry (The White Bird and The Ocean’s Edge), and the Red Sneaker books on fiction writing. Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave. Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State). He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”

Lou Berney

Lou Berney is the author of November Road (winner of the Dagger, Hammett, Anthony, Barry, Lefty, and Macavity, and a Washington Post Best Book of 2018), The Long and Faraway Gone (winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Macavity, and ALA awards), Whiplash River, and Gutshot Straight, all from William Morrow. He’s also written a collection of stories, The Road to Bobby Joe, and his short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He teaches in the MFA program at Oklahoma City University.

David R. Slayton

David R. Slayton grew up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where finding fantasy novels was pretty challenging and finding fantasy novels with diverse characters was downright impossible. Now he lives in Denver, Colorado and writes the books he always wanted to read. Find him on the web at www.davidrslayton.com.

Michele Feltman Strider

Michele Feltman Strider originally became a writer because of her deep appreciation for near rhyme. Actually, Michele stumbled into writing in an effort to better monetize the time she spent talking to her imaginary friends. Upon publishing her first book Homecoming, Michele realized that becoming a novelist not only exempted her from real work but gave her the opportunity to write third-person biographies about herself. In 2019, Michele executed the rare Reverse Okie, moving from California to Oklahoma with her long-suffering husband and increasingly awful cats.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tochi Onyebuchi

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Beasts Made of Night, its sequel Crown of Thunder, War Girls, and his adult fiction. debut Riot Baby, published by Tor.com in January 2020. He has graduated from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and L’institut d’études politiques with a Masters degree in Global Business Law.

His short fiction has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Omenana, Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America, and elsewhere. His non-fiction has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Nowhere Magazine, Tor.com and the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. He is the winner of the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African and has appeared in Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading list.

Born in Massachusetts and raised in Connecticut, Tochi is a consummate New Englander, preferring the way the tree leaves turn the color of fire on I-84 to mosquitoes and being able to boil eggs on pavement. He has worked in criminal justice, the tech industry, and immigration law, and prays every day for a new album from System of a Down.

This segment also features a co-host, Alex Brown. Alexandria Brown is a queer Black librarian, local historian, writer, and author of two books on the history Napa County, California’s marginalized communities. Her two books of nonfiction, Hidden History of Napa Valley and Lost Restaurants of Napa Valley and Their Recipes, are on sale now. She has a BA with honors in Anthropology and Sociology, a Master’s of Library and Information Science, and aMaster’s in US History. She writes about speculative fiction and young adult literature for Tor.com and Locus Magazine, as well as on her blog. Much of her writing covers Black history, librarianship, YA, and speculative fiction. Alex is ace/aro and biracial Black.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Shakirah Bourne

Shakirah Bourne is a Barbadian author and filmmaker. Her first feature film, the comedy-drama, PAYDAY, was screened throughout the Caribbean, USA and UK.The film won several awards, including Best Drama at the National Film Awards UK, Best International Feature at the Charlotte Black Film Festival and best UK Feature at the London Independent Film Festival. Her short stories have been featured in many literary journals. She was a finalist for the BURT/CODE Award for Caribbean Literature in 2018. The Caribbean edition of her middle grade novel, MY FISHY STEPMOM, was published by Blue Banyan Books (2019) and the North American edition, JOSEPHINE AGAINST THE SEA, will be published by Scholastic in July 2021. She was a Part-time Lecturer at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, and is a Part-Time Lecturer in Screenwriting at the Barbados Community College. She currently holds Certificates in Screenwriting from the Barbados Community College and the University of Edinburgh, and an MA (Hons) in Arts and Cultural Management from Queen Margaret University.

Shakirah's book will be released in July 2021.

Dr. Malika Grayson

Dr. Malika Grayson is a speaker, STEM advocate, and engineer based in Virginia. Growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, she left the island at the age of 19 to pursue her education. She holds a bachelor's degree in Physics, and a master's degree and a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. She has shared her experiences about being a Black Women in STEM on a number of platforms including university collaborations, conferences, and special events. HOODED is her first book. Learn more at malikagrayson.com

Sarah Raughley

Sarah Raughley grew up in Southern Ontario writing stories about freakish little girls with powers because she secretly wanted to be one. She is a huge fangirl of anything from manga to sci-fi/fantasy TV to Japanese role-playing games, but she will swear up and down at book signings that she was inspired by Jane Austen. Sarah has been nominated for the Aurora Award for Best Young Adult novel and works in the community doing writing workshops for youths and adults. On top of being a YA writer, Sarah has a PhD in English, which makes her doctor, so it turns out she didn’t have to go to medical school after all.

As an academic, Sarah has taught at McMaster University and acted as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Ottawa. Her research concerns representations of race and gender in popular media culture, youth culture and postcolonialism. She has edited special issues in academic journals such Safundi, Popular Music and Society, and Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice. She’s also written freelance pieces for The Conversation, Quill & Quire and Zora Magazine.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Tracy Marchini

Tracy Marchini joined BookEnds in June 2016 as their first picture book and illustration literary agent. Prior to building a list at BookEnds, she had over ten years of experience in children’s literature, either at an agency or as a freelance editor and children’s book reviewer. She is thrilled to represent a list of debut and award-winning creators of fiction, non-fiction and illustration for children and teens.

As a children’s author, her picture book debut Chicken Wants A Nap (Creative Editions) was called “A surprising gem” in a starred Kirkus review and was nominated for the 2019 Bridge to Reading Picture Book Awards. Her sophomore picture book, Princesses Can Fix It! is forthcoming (Page Street Kids, May 2021). She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Simmons College and a BA in English, concentration in Rhetoric from Binghamton University, and as an author has won grants from the Highlights Foundation, the Puffin Foundation and La Muse Writer’s Retreat in Southern France.

Eric Smith

Eric Smith is a literary agent at P.S. Literary, with a love for young adult books, literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and non-fiction. He’s worked on award-winning and New York Times bestselling titles, and began his publishing career at Quirk Books. A frequent blogger, his ramblings about books and the publishing industry regularly appear on Book Riot, Paste Magazine, and Publishing Crawl. He also occasionally writes books when he finds the time, like his latest, Don’t Read the Comments, which was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults nominee.

His upcoming books include You Can Go Your Own Way (Summer 2021), and the anthology Battle of the Bands co-edited with Lauren Gibaldi (September 2021). He has short stories in the anthologies Color Outside the Lines by Sangu Mandanna, Body Talk by Kelly Jensen, and All Signs Point to Yes by Candice Montgomery, cara davis-araux, and Adrianne Russell. His other books include the IndieBound bestseller The Geek’s Guide to Dating (Quirk), Inked (Bloomsbury), the adoption-themed anthology Welcome Home, and The Girl and the Grove (Flux).

Lauren Spieller

Lauren Spieller is an author and literary agent at TriadaUS with a background in literary scouting and editorial consulting. She has a sharp editorial eye, and is passionate about author advocacy. Whatever the age category or genre, Lauren is passionate about finding diverse and underrepresented voices. When she isn’t working, she can be found drinking lattes, pining for every dog she sees, or visiting her native California. She is the author of Your Destination is on the Left and She’s the Worst. Follow her on Twitter @laurenspieller and Instagram @laurenspieller. You can also visit her website.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a multi-media artist, poet, and novelist. She received the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. Her literary and visual work has been widely published in journals, magazines, anthologies, and periodicals. Griffiths is the author of Miracle Arrhythmia (Willow Books 2010) and The Requited Distance (The Sheep Meadow Press 2011). Griffiths’ third collection of poetry, Mule & Pear (New Issues Poetry & Prose 2011), was selected for the 2012 Inaugural Poetry Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her most recent full-length poetry collection is Lighting the Shadow (Four Way Books 2015), which was a finalist for the 2015 Balcones Poetry Prize and the 2016 Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Poetry. Griffiths’ recent collection of poetry and photography, Seeing the Body, was published by W. W. Norton in June 2020. Her forthcoming debut novel, Promise, will be published by Random House.

Valzhyna Mort

Born in Minsk, Belarus (part of the former Soviet Union), in 1981, Valzhyna Mort has been praised as “[a] risen star of the international poetry world” by the Irish Times. When she moved to the United States in 2005, she had already published her first book, I’m as Thin as Your Eyelashes, and was known across the world as an electrifying reader of her poems. Her debut collection in America, Factory of Tears (2008), received acclaim. She composes her poems in Belarusian as attempts are being made to revitalize the traditional language, which lends her work both conventional and groundbreaking tones. Mort is the author of the poetry collection Collected Body (2011) and co-editor of Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poems and Prose (2014). Her newest book of poetry is MUSIC FOR THE DEAD AND RESURRECTED. Mort teaches at Cornell University and lives in Ithaca, New York.

Srikanth Reddy

Srikanth Reddy's latest book of poetry is Underworld Lit. His previous book, Voyager, was named one of the best books of poetry in 2011 by The New Yorker, The Believer, and National Public Radio; his first collection, Facts for Visitors, received the 2005 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry. Reddy's poetry and criticism have appeared in Harper's, The Guardian, The New York Times, Poetry, and numerous other venues; his book of criticism, Changing Subjects: Digressions in Modern American Poetry, was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. A recipient of fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, he is currently Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Matt Ortile

Matt Ortile is the managing editor of Catapult magazine. Previously, he was the global publishing lead for BuzzFeed International and the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. His writing has been published by BuzzFeed, Into, Self, and Out, among others. He lives in NYC.

Shawna Yang Ryan

Shawna Yang Ryan is a former Fulbright scholar and the author of Water Ghosts (Penguin Press 2009) and Green Island (Knopf 2016). She is the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Her writing has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Asian American Literary Review, The Rumpus, Lithub, and The Washington Post. Her work has received the Association for Asian American Studies Best Book Award in Creative Writing, the Elliot Cades Emerging Writer award, and an American Book Award.

Weike Wang

Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in literary magazines, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, and Ploughshares, which also named Chemistry the winner of its John C. Zacharis Award. A “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, Weike currently lives in New York City.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Julia Ember

Julia Ember is the author of The Seafarer’s Kiss duology and Ruinsong. Her work has been featured in USA Today, Bustle, Book Riot and Autostraddle, among many other prominent outlets. Julia has a lifelong appreciation for history and classic literature, and holds an MLitt in Medieval Literature from the University of St. Andrews. She currently lives in Seattle with her wife and two very fluffy cats.

Brigid Kemmerer

Brigid Kemmerer is the New York Times bestselling author of dark and alluring Young Adult novels like "A Curse So Dark and Lonely", "More Than We Can Tell", and "Letters to the Lost", as well as paranormal YA stories like "The Elemental Series" and "Thicker Than Water". A full time writer, Brigid lives in the Baltimore area with her husband, her boys, her dog, and her cat. When she’s not writing or being a mommy, you can usually find her with her hands wrapped around a barbell.

Jenny Elder Moke

Jenny Elder Moke writes young adult fiction in an attempt to recapture the shining infinity of youth. She worked for several years at an independent publisher in Austin, TX before realizing she would rather write the manuscripts than read them. She is a member of the Texas Writer's League and has studied children's writing with Liz Garton Scanlon. She was a finalist in the Austin Film Festival Fiction Podcast Competition in 2017 for her podcast script, Target. When she is not writing, she's gathering story ideas from her daily adventures with her two irredeemable rapscallions and honing her ninja skills as a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Jenny lives in Austin, TX with her husband and two children.

Kristina Perez

Kristina Perez is a half-Argentine, half-Norwegian native New Yorker who has spent the past two decades living in Europe and Asia. She holds a PhD in Medieval Literature from the University of Cambridge and has taught at the National University of Singapore and the University of Hong Kong.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Elizabeth Lim

Elizabeth Lim is the author of the critically-acclaimed and bestselling The Blood of Stars duology (Spin the Dawn and Unravel the Dusk), the New York Times bestseller So This is Love, and the USA Today bestseller Reflection. Forthcoming books include the Six Crimson Cranes duology, expected summer 2021 and summer 2022, respectively. Elizabeth graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in music and a secondary in East Asian Studies, and she completed her graduate degrees (MM, DMA) at The Juilliard School. She grew up in Northern California and Tokyo, Japan, and now resides in New York with her husband and two daughters.

Chloe Gong

Chloe Gong is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, studying English and International Relations. During her breaks, she’s either at home in New Zealand or visiting her many relatives in Shanghai. Chloe has been known to mysteriously appear by chanting “Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best plays and doesn’t deserve its slander in pop culture” into a mirror three times. You can find her on Twitter @thechloegong or check out her website at thechloegong.com.

ABOUT Zoraida

Zoraida Córdova is the acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels and short stories, including the "Brooklyn Brujas" series, "Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: A Crash of Fate," the "Hollow Crown" series, and "The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina." In addition to writing novels, she serves on the Board of We Need Diverse Books, and is the co-editor of the bestselling anthology "Vampires Never Get Old," as well as the cohost of the writing podcast, Deadline City. She writes romance novels as Zoey Castile. Córdova was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and calls New York City home. When she’s not working, she’s roaming the world in search of magical stories.

The world of publishing is constantly changing. The popularity of genres ebb and flow. Join best-selling author, Seanan McGuire, as she answers all of your questions on writing and the evolution of Urban Fantasy.

ABOUT THE Seanan

Seanan McGuire was born in Martinez, California, and raised in a wide variety of locations, most of which boasted some sort of dangerous native wildlife. Despite her almost magnetic attraction to anything venomous, she somehow managed to survive long enough to acquire a typewriter, a reasonable grasp of the English language, and the desire to combine the two. The fact that she wasn't killed for using her typewriter at three o'clock in the morning is probably more impressive than her lack of death by spider-bite.

Often described as a vortex of the surreal, many of Seanan's anecdotes end with things like "and then we got the anti-venom" or "but it's okay, because it turned out the water wasn't that deep." She has yet to be defeated in a game of "Who here was bitten by the strangest thing?," and can be amused for hours by almost anything. "Almost anything" includes swamps, long walks, long walks in swamps, things that live in swamps, horror movies, strange noises, musical theater, reality TV, comic books, finding pennies on the street, and venomous reptiles. Seanan may be the only person on the planet who admits to using Kenneth Muir's Horror Films of the 1980s as a checklist.

Seanan is the author of the October Daye urban fantasies, the InCryptid urban fantasies, and several other works both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. In case that wasn't enough, she also writes under the pseudonym "Mira Grant." For details on her work as Mira, check out MiraGrant.com.

In her spare time, Seanan records CDs of her original filk music (see the Albums page for details). She is also a cartoonist, and draws an irregularly posted autobiographical web comic, "With Friends Like These...", as well as generating a truly ridiculous number of art cards. Surprisingly enough, she finds time to take multi-hour walks, blog regularly, watch a sickening amount of television, maintain her website, and go to pretty much any movie with the words "blood," "night," "terror," or "attack" in the title. Most people believe she doesn't sleep.

Seanan lives in an idiosyncratically designed labyrinth in the Pacific Northwest, which she shares with her cats, Alice and Thomas, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She has strongly-held and oft-expressed beliefs about the origins of the Black Death, the X-Men, and the need for chainsaws in daily life.

Years of writing blurbs for convention program books have fixed Seanan in the habit of writing all her bios in the third person, so as to sound marginally less dorky. Stress is on the "marginally." It probably doesn't help that she has so many hobbies.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.

Join authors Dahlia Adler (COOL FOR THE SUMMER) and Shaun David Hutchinson (A COMPLICATED LOVE STORY SET IN SPACE) as we discuss anthologies on Facebook! Anthologies have become a popular choice for readers, especially in the Young Adult genre. Anthologies are collections of short stories on a similar topic written by various authors. Two authors, who have also acted as editor of and contributor to various anthologies are here to discuss the process of creating, writing, and editing these collections.

This is one of many events happening this month for LitFest 2021. For a full breakdown of other programs, visit: www.metrolibrary.org/litfest

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Dahlia Adler is an Editor of mathematics by day, LGBTQ Reads overlord and Buzzfeed book blogger by night, and an author of Young Adult and Romance at every spare moment in between. Her novels include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, the Radleigh University trilogy, and Indie Next pick Cool for the Summer; she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart (a Junior Library Guild selection), That Way Madness Lies, and At the Stroke of Midnight (Flatiron Books, 2022); and her short stories can be found in those collections as well as The Radical Element, All Out, and It's a Whole Spiel. Dahlia lives in New York with her family and an obscene number of books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @MissDahlELama.

Shaun David Hutchinson is the author of numerous books for young adults, including The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, At the Edge of the Universe, and We Are the Ants. He also edited the anthologies Violent Ends and Feral Youth and wrote the memoir Brave Face, which chronicles his struggles with depression and coming out during his teenage years. He lives in Seattle, where he enjoys drinking coffee, yelling at the TV, and eating cake. Visit him at ShaunDavidHutchinson.com or on Twitter @ShaunieDarko.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

ALAYA DAWN JOHNSON

Alaya Johnson is an award-winning author of speculative fiction for adults and young adults. Her most recent novel, Trouble the Saints, was published by Tor in July 2020. Her short story collection, Reconstruction, was published by Small Beer Press in January 2021.

Isabel Yap

Isabel Yap writes fiction and poetry, works in the tech industry, and drinks tea. Born and raised in Manila, she has also lived in California and London. She holds a BS in Marketing from Santa Clara University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2013 she attended the Clarion Writers Workshop, and since 2016 has served as Secretary for the Clarion Foundation. Her work has appeared in venues including Tor.com, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Her debut short story collection, Never Have I Ever, was recently published by Small Beer Press. She is @visyap on Twitter and her website is https://isabelyap.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Grady Hendrix – The Final Girl Support Group

New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix makes up lies and sells them to people. His novels include Horrostör about a haunted IKEA, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which is basically "Beaches" meets "The Exorcist", We Sold Our Souls, a heavy metal horror epic, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and The Final Girl Support Group. He's also the author of Paperbacks from Hell, an award-winning history of the horror paperback boom of the Seventies and Eighties. He wrote the screenplay for, Mohawk, a horror flick about the War of 1812, and Satanic Panic about a pizza delivery woman fighting rich Satanists.

Aden Polydoros - The City Beautiful

Aden Polydoros grew up in Illinois and Arizona, and has a bachelor's degree in English from Northern Arizona University. When he isn't writing, he enjoys going to antique fairs and flea markets.

Erica Waters - The River Has Teeth

Erica Waters writes YA contemporary fantasy with a Southern Gothic feel. She's originally from the pine woods of rural Florida but has made her home in Nashville, TN, where she's learned to love bluegrass and has even starting learning banjo. Her best friends are two scruffy little rescue dogs named Nutmeg and Luna. She's the author of Ghost Wood Song and her newest novel, The River Has Teeth.

Rachel Yoder -- Nightbitch

Rachel Yoder is the author of Nightbitch (Doubleday), her debut novel released in July 2021, which has also been optioned for film by Annapurna Pictures with Amy Adams set to star.
She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and also holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. Her writing has been awarded with The Editors' Prize in Fiction by The Missouri Review and with notable distinctions in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She is also a founding editor of draft: the journal of process. Rachel grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio. She now lives in Iowa City with her husband and son.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Jade Lee – Lord Scott

USA Today Bestseller, Jade Lee has been scripting love stories since she first picked up a set of paper dolls. Ball gowns and rakish lords caught her attention early (thank you Georgette Heyer), and her fascination with the Regency began. And as a Taurus, she lives to pit a headstrong woman against a tortured hero just to watch them butt heads on the way to true love. Flesh wounds are rare, but the healing and laughter are real. And don't forget Jade's other name, Kathy Lyons. That's Jade's lighter, contemporary side. She writes for Harlequin Blaze merging sexy and funny relationships into really great reads.

Randi Pink – The Angel of Greenwood

A native and resident of Birmingham, AL, Randi Pink leverages her unique experience with her southern roots when she writes. Randi is a mother, a wife, a writer, an advocate, a fighter, a friend, and so much more. Through a platform of encouragement, advice, and love, Randi loves connecting with the community around her and her loyal community of readers.

Randi Pink is a proud student of University of Alabama at Birmingham’s creative writing program. Randi’s first novel INTO WHITE was published in 2016. Her second novel, GIRLS LIKE US, was inspired by the passing of shocking policies for abortion and other threats to women’s rights in her home state as well as her nation, and wanted to humanize the faces behind abortion. ANGEL OF GREENWOOD, a historical YA novel that takes place during the Greenwood Massacre of 1921, in an area of Tulsa, OK, known as the Black Wall Street, releases in January 2021.

Randi continues to write every day, from short stories that you can find in Randi’s Room to personal writings for herself and her close network. Randi can be found promoting her next book, in her garden, and soaking up family time with her favorite people.

David L. Robbins – Isaac’s Beacon

NYT best-selling author David L. Robbins has written 15 novels, four professionally produced plays, and, in 2018, was named one of two most influential literary artists in the Commonwealth of Virginia for the past 50 years by the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Robbins lives and writes in his hometown of Richmond, VA, and teaches advanced creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. His new historical fiction novel, Isaac’s Beacon, is a sweeping tale based on the real events of Israel’s founding, bringing alive the power and complexities of the birth of the Jewish state.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Daphne Palasi Andreades

Daphne Palasi Andreades was born and raised in Queens, New York. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, where she was awarded a Henfield Prize and a Creative Writing Teaching Fellowship. She is the recipient of a 2021 O. Henry Prize, as well as scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, where she won the Voices of Color Prize, and other honors. Brown Girls is her first novel.

Marie Rutkoski

Born in Illinois, Marie Rutkoski is a graduate of the University of Iowa and Harvard University. She is a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College and a New York Times bestselling author of books for children and young adults. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. Her newest novel REAL EASY is a compulsive, tenacious, and unexpectedly hopeful thriller.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Nicole D. Collier

Nicole D. Collier, PH.D. is a Georgia native and renaissance soul. She’s a non-competitive runner and salsera, reiki master and Buddhist, and has been known to do cartwheels from time to time. After a short stint in journalism, Nicole has spent the past two decades in education. First as an elementary school teacher, and now as an executive educator. She partners with leaders to develop learning experiences that challenge old thinking and inspire lasting change.

Nicole writes contemporary MG. Her debut novel, JUST RIGHT JILLIAN will be published in 2022.

Lisa Stringfellow

Lisa Stringfellow writes middle grade fiction and has a not-so-secret fondness for fantasy with a dark twist. Her debut fantasy A COMB OF WISHES will be published on February 8, 2022. It was selected as an ABA Indies Introduce title for Winter/Spring 2022 and Lisa received the inaugural Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Manuscript Award in 2019 for the novel manuscript. Her work often reflects her West Indian and Black southern heritage. Lisa is a middle school teacher and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her children and two bossy cats.

Sonja Thomas

Sonja Thomas (she/her) writes stories for readers of all ages, often featuring brave, everyday girls doing extraordinary things. Raised in Central Florida—home of the wonderful world of Disney, humidity, and hurricanes—and a Washington, DC, transplant for eleven years (go Nats!), she’s now “keeping it weird” in the Pacific Northwest. Ruled by coffee and cats, a few of her favorite things are dancing to music blasting in the living room, traveling to new places and buying a magnet before leaving, and snuggling with her furry friend, Gabbie Lu—just don't let her roommate’s three other cats know! SIR FIG NEWTON AND THE SCIENCE OF PERSISTENCE is her debut novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Alexis Castellanos

Alexis Castellanos was born and raised in Florida where she enjoyed sunny days, dramatic thunderstorms, and delicious Cuban food. After graduating from college, she moved to New York City and worked as a scenic artist, bringing theatrical sets to life with a little bit of paint and a whole lot of ingenuity. She currently works as a graphic designer by day and spends her nights dreaming up stories. She lives in Seattle with her partner and her extremely photogenic cat, Belle. Isla to Island is her first graphic novel.

Laura Gao

Laura Gao is a comic artist and bread lover currently living in San Francisco. Laura’s art career began by doodling on Pokémon cards and has since blossomed to be featured on NPR, HuffPost, and, most notably, her parents’ fridge. She is a proud queer Asian American immigrant and strives to inspire others to live unapologetically loud. Laura’s pronouns are she/they. Say hello and send her bakery recommendations at www.lauragao.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Julie Buxbaum

Julie Buxbaum is the New York Times best selling author of Tell Me Three Things, her young adult debut, What to Say Next and most recently, Hope and Other Punchlines. She’s also the author of two critically acclaimed novels for adults: The Opposite of Love and After You. Her work has been translated into twenty-five languages. Julie’s writing has appeared in various publications, including The New York Times. She is a former lawyer and graduate of Harvard Law School and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and more books than is reasonable. Visit Julie online at www.juliebuxbaum.com and follow @juliebux on Twitter.

Sarah Henning

Laura Gao is a comic artist and bread lover currently living in San Francisco. Laura’s art career began by doodling on Pokémon cards and has since blossomed to be featured on NPR, HuffPost, and, most notably, her parents’ fridge. She is a proud queer Asian American immigrant and strives to inspire others to live unapologetically loud. Laura’s pronouns are she/they. Say hello and send her bakery recommendations at www.lauragao.com.

Julian Winters

LJulian Winters is the author of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award-winning Running With Lions; the Junior Library Guild Selections How to Be Remy Cameron and The Summer of Everything; and the forthcoming Right Where I Left You. A self-proclaimed comic book geek, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta, where he can be found reading or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Trish Doller

Trish Doller is a writer, traveler, and dog rescuer, but not necessarily in that order. She is the author of Float Plan, her women's fiction debut, and The Suite Spot. She has also written several YA novels, including the critically acclaimed Something Like Normal. When she's not writing, Trish loves sailing, camping, and avoiding housework. She lives in southwest Florida with an opinionated herding dog and an ex-pirate. Find Trish on Twitter and Instagram at @trishdoller.

Kristin Harmel

Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into 29 languages and are sold all over the world. Kristin lives in Orlando, with her husband and young son. She is also the co-founder and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction.

Shauna Robinson

Shauna Robinson’s love of books led her to try a career in publishing before deciding she’d rather write books instead. Originally from San Diego, she now lives in Virginia with her husband and their sleepy greyhound. Shauna is an introvert at heart—she spends most of her time reading, baking, and figuring out the politest way to avoid social interaction. Must Love Books is her debut novel.