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

Amanda Flower

Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and two-time Agatha Award-winning author of over fifty mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. Her first Emily Dickinson Mystery, Because I Could Not Stop for Death, was an Agatha Award winner and Mary Higgins Clark Nominee. Her first mystery featuring the Wright Brothers, To Slip the Bonds of Earth, was an Agatha Award and Ohio Book Award winner. A former librarian, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their adorable cats.

Paula Munier

PAULA MUNIER is the Senior Agent and Director of Storytelling for Talcott Notch Literary and the  USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. 

A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search also won a Dogwise Award. The Hiding Place and The Wedding Plot both appeared on several “Best Of” lists. Home at Night, the fifth book in the series, was inspired by her volunteer work as a Natural Resources Steward of New Hampshire. The Night Woods, received a Library Journal starred review and her latest release, The Snow Lies Deep, received rave reviews from Publishers Weekly and is available at your favorite bookseller.

Along with her love of nature, Paula credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and a deep affection for New England as her series’ major influences.

She’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Happier Every Day and the memoir Fixing Freddie: The True Story of a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle. 

She lives in New England with her family and Bear the Newfoundland-retriever rescue, Bliss the Great Pyrenees-Australian cattle dog rescue, pandemic puppy Blondie, a Malinois rescue (much like Elvis in her books), and Ursula The Cat, a rescue torbie tabby who does not think much of the dogs.

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.

Zach Honey

Fine Print Literary

Zach Honey is North Carolina-born and Montana-raised with an equal love for sweet tea and waist-deep snow. He studied film production and philosophy at Montana State University and received a master’s degree from the University of Nottingham in England. Zach is primarily seeking thrillers and adult fiction, especially those set in rural places, mountainous regions, or other hard-to-reach corners of the world. His other interests include hiking, skiing, music, board games, golf, and other outdoor activities, and he is open to non-fiction pitches in these categories.

Michelle Richter

Fuse Literary

Michelle Richter joined Fuse Literary in 2014 from St. Martin’s Press, where she worked on a variety of fiction and nonfiction including MELISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL by Melissa Joan Hart. She has a Master’s degree in Publishing from Pace University, where she is an adjunct lecturer. Michelle’s clients have won or been finalists for such awards as the Edgar, Mary Higgins Clark, Strand Critics, Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, ITW Thriller, Macavity, Barry, Derringer, IPPY, and International Book Award. She is a member of Sisters in Crime.

Michelle is seeking:

• suspense
• mystery
• psychological thrillers
• domestic suspense
• women’s fiction
• book club fiction
• YA mystery/thriller
• select contemporary YA

She’s especially eager to find suspense and psychological thrillers with complex lead characters. BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled voices in fiction always welcome. Michelle loves unreliable narrators, stories of family secrets, friendships, and sibling relationships. Her favorite writers include Colson Whitehead, Celeste Ng, Ruth Ware, Laura Lippman, Megan Miranda, Lori Rader-Day, Jennifer Hillier, and Tana French. She’d love to find the next BATH HAUS, SUCH A FUN AGE, WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING, THE LADY UPSTAIRS, LONG BRIGHT RIVER, THE DUTCH HOUSE, EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU, WINTER COUNTS, BLACKTOP WASTELAND, or BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD.