Rick Mendes spent thirty-five years in the technology sector before retiring early to pursue writing full-time. Rick Mendes’ debut novel, Growing Future Operators, draws on his extensive professional experience and explores the intersection of technology, education, and innovation. Set in a fictional city, the novel follows public and Catholic schools competing to become the first to teach DevOps, informed by Rick’s background in software engineering, systems engineering, and cybersecurity.

Helen Montague Foster, MD, is a poet, novelist, and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Before her retirement, she was a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. For thirty years she worked in private practice as a psychiatrist in Richmond, Virginia, specializing in the psychotherapy of adults, often writing in literary fiction in her spare time.

Holly M. Jenkins is a storyteller at heart and a caffeine enthusiast by necessity. A lifelong reader of fantasy, mystery, thrillers, sci-fi, and every shade of romance, she spends her days dreaming up new worlds – and her nights making endless to-do lists she’ll never quite finish. Based in Austin, Texas, she shares her life with her husband, two mischievous cats, and an outrageously photogenic corgi who often steals the spotlight.

I am a retired teacher and school librarian but have had a varied career. I love to be challenged, so explored different careers. I’ve been a development director in a nonprofit, a freelance journalist, a financial advisor, and for twelve years published and edited the first women’s magazine along the Lake Michigan shores. The most meaningful career was teaching and being a librarian, with owning a monthly magazine second.

A great many of the stories we write are either history or fiction, and James Gilbert has dedicated himself to both forms of expression. He began as a historian of modern American Culture, at the University of Maryland. During his tenure there, he also lived and taught in nine different countries. He has now become the author of eight novels. His published works include collections of short stories, legal dramas, social satire, and this, the most recent – Murder on the Set, the fourth book in the Amanda Pennyworth Mystery Series, located in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta.

Debora Masterson is a writer, producer, musician and Francophone. A Los Angeles native, she currently resides in Chicago’s vibrant Far North. After a successful career in musical theater, she opened Working Artists Agency, representing post-production and developed programs for film and television. Fluent in French, she has a master’s degree in French literature and continues to play bass and sing in various musical groups.

I’m a writer who enjoys exploring emotions and how they shape our everyday lives. I’ve spent the last decade working in health and social care, alongside my writing. My long-term goal is to dedicate more time to it and eventually write full-time, continuing to develop my voice and connect with readers through honest, emotion-led projects. My work has also been featured on the radio.

Lisa Dawn was brought up in New Jersey, where she fell in love with fairy tales and animated movies. She studied screenwriting at Ramapo College in the hopes that she could one day write the next great animated princess movie. After attending the DAVE School in Florida to learn computer animation, she moved to Los Angeles to work on 3D movies as a rotoscope artist. She lives in Texas with her husband, where she reviews princess content through The Princess Blog and composes original princess songs on the piano.

From high atop a mountain in Western North Carolina, Mark Charles Powers shares glimpses of grace revealed in ordinary lives. Go to MarkCharlesPowers.com to be uplifted and inspired by his weekly blog Glimpses of Grace and his book Going Full Circle: Worship That Moves Us to Discipleship and Missions.

A. Elizabeth Shaughnessy is a North American artist with a passion for Gothic horror. While most of her works are painted on canvas, she took a venture into the unknown and rekindled a hobby for writing. Sourced from both imagination and nightmares, with a paranormal nod to her New England roots, she penned a novel deeply woven by folklore and the essence of human survival.