Dawn Reno Langley

Dawn Reno Langley is a writer, theater critic, mosaic artist, and educator devoted to giving a voice to social justice issues. Her books range from nonfiction works on art and antiques to children’s books. But her heart is with her novels where she examines socially relevant issues like gender identity in Analyzing the Prescotts, or animal rights and environmental issues in The Silver Dolphin and The Mourning Parade. Whether it’s fighting for Asian elephants, spreading the word about civil rights issues, or educating collectors about the value of Native American art, she writes about the topics close to her heart.

As a Fulbright scholar, Langley lectured at various universities in Pakistan and still works closely with several as a reviewer for their academic journals and PhD programs. In her PhD and MFA studies, she researched journals and how writers use them, leading her to develop a series of journals designed for writers and readers (The Writer’s Hand Journals). Her TedX talk, “How Creatives Can Save the World,” directly resulted from her years of research.

Her new novel, The Mystic, Book One of The Art of Rivers trilogy, launches in May 2025. Set in the Boston area where Langley grew up, it is a story about how an interracial couple finds love during the turbulent 1950s-80s.

Zoë Bossiere

Zoë Bossiere is a writer from Tucson, Arizona. They are the author of Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir (Abrams Books, 2024). Bossiere is also the managing editor of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction and co-editor of the anthologies The Best of Brevity and The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins.

They can be found online at zoebossiere.com.

Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Haunting of Velkwood. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, CrimeReads, Tor Nightfire, The Lineup, and The Dark. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Premios Kelvin, Ignotus, and Dragon Awards. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts.

Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com.

Lara Buckheit

Lara Buckheit, author of Our Immortal Hearts and the War of the Four Realms saga, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Wilmington University, is a 2021 WriteMentor Mentee, an avid writer (and reader) of spice, and one time she met Taylor Swift’s dad.

She started writing at a very young age, mostly fanfiction centered around women with daggers and men with devilish grins. And she hasn’t stopped since. When not writing, Lara can be found drinking matcha, reading from her endless TBR pile, and obsessing over any and all romance.

Lara currently lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with her husband, dog, and thirteen houseplants named after fictional characters.

Katrina Kwan

Katrina Kwan is a Vancouver-based fantasy and romance author. After graduating in 2017 from Acadia University with a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in political science, she worked for six years as a professional ghostwriter, and is ecstatic to finally be releasing novels under her own name.

Caitlyn Horrocks

Caitlin Horrocks is author of the story collections Life Among the Terranauts and This Is Not Your City, both New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selections. The Wall Street Journal named her novel The Vexations one of the Ten Best Books of 2019. Her stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Paris Review, and other journals and anthologies. A former senior fiction editor of The Kenyon Review, she lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her family.

Mairead Small Staid

Mairead Small Staid is the author of The Traces: An Essay. Her work has been published by The Atlantic, The Believer, and The Paris Review, among others, and has earned support from MacDowell, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Phillips Exeter Academy, where she was the 2017-2018 George Bennett Fellow.

More information can be found at maireadsmallstaid.com.