C. Hope Clark

C. Hope Clark is a multi-award-winning author of seventeen mysteries in three series, with many more to come if she has her way about it. She left a career in her beloved agricultural field, which included internal investigations, to marry a federal agent she met on a bribery case and to write stories. Hope is also the founder of FundsforWriters.com, a website and newsletter that reaches 25,000 readers and has been awarded the Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers for 21 years. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina, and vacations on Edisto Beach, the setting of her largest series. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com.

Hallie Ephron

New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron, Edgar Award finalist and five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, writes books she hopes readers can’t put down. She was named the 2024 Dr. Herb Voigt Writer-inResidence for the Milton Public Library. Her newest suspense novel is Careful What You Wish For (August, 2019). Hallie teaches writing at workshops and writing conferences across the country and abroad. A REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION of her Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel (Writers Digest Books), is widely available. It was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards. Lee Child called it “the best how-to guide I have ever seen — I just wish I could have read it twenty years ago.” An award-winning crime fiction book reviewer, Hallie wrote an ON CRIME column for the Boston Globe for more than ten years. HallieEphron.com

Hank Phillippi Ryan

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN is the USA Today bestselling author of 16 psychological thrillers, winning the most prestigious awards in the genre: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, with an unprecedented 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors for her groundbreaking journalism and true crime stories.

Hank is on the board of International Thriller Writers, a sought-after teacher and keynote speaker, and host of three popular online events: THE BACK ROOM, CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze, and FIRST CHAPTER FUN. She lives in Boston with her husband, a nationally renowned criminal defense attorney. Her brand-new novel All This Could be Yours is out now from Minotaur Books. It’s an instant USA Today bestseller and the Library Journal starred review says, “a love letter to booksellers and librarians amid the suspense and twists. Ryan has written her best book to date, which should be on everyone’s reading list."

Sharon Short

Sharon Short is the author of sixteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense set in the 1930s on a Lake Erie island, and will be published by Minotaur Books in 2024. Sharon is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life)” and teaches for Writer’s Digest University. She is a frequent, in-demand speaker at libraries, book clubs, and writing groups.

Under the pen name Jess Montgomery, she is also the author of the award-winning Kinship Historical Mysteries set in 1920s Appalachia and inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff.

She is a three-time recipient of the Individual Excellence Award in Literary Arts from Ohio Arts Council, a two-time recipient of the Montgomery County (Ohio) Arts & Cultural District Individual Artist Fellowship, and has been a John E. Nance Writer in Residence at Thurber House (Columbus, Ohio).

Sharon lives in southern Ohio with her husband and their three spoiled cats. She and her husband are also the proud parents of two adult daughters. In her spare time, Sharon enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, swimming, watching good TV and films, and hiking.

Erica Wright

Erica Wright is the author of nine books, including the essay collection Snake and the crime novels Hollow Bones and The Museum of Unusual Occurrence. For more than a decade, she was the Poetry Editor at Guernica Magazine and currently teaches at Bellevue University. She holds degrees from New York University and Columbia University. She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her family.