Eileen P. Kennedy is the author of three collections of poetry. Banshees (Flutter Press, 2015) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won Second Prize in Poetry from the Wordwrite Book Awards. Touch My Head Softly (Finishing Line Press, 2021),Literary Titan described as “emotionally-charged poetry that explores life with observant poems that will appeal to anyone who loves inspired poetry.” Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth (Shanti Arts Press, 2026) was a finalist for the International Book Awards in General Poetry and a runner-up for the poetry prize from the New York Book Festival. She lives, writes, teaches and reads in Amherst, MA.

Born in Sweden in 1996 to a family with eight siblings, writing and art have always been huge parts of my life.

Theresa Janson grew up in the American Midwest and uprooted to Colorado in the mid-’90s. Writing has always been in her blood, and she has culled stories from working as a paralegal with attorneys and law enforcement—knowing everyone’s secrets. Her life and work have given her insight into a subconscious collection of experiences prevalent in the words of this novel and all her works.

Hazel Hart has been writing since she was a teenager. Her short stories and early novels have a contemporary setting. However, with her first series, the Pierce Family Saga, she returned to her childhood love for frontier fiction. All of Hazel’s stories, short or long, contemporary or historical, center on themes of faith, family, and friendship.

Will Cole is a queer, transgender man, professor, scientist, activist, a “seahorse dad” to an adult son, and proud husband to a fellow writer. In 2026, he completed an MA in Writing Nonfiction at Johns Hopkins University, received the David Everett Award for Outstanding Thesis, and attended the Yale Writers’ Workshop. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Monarch Queer Literary Award.

Born in Orsk, Russia, in 1944, weighing less than four pounds. My memory goes back to the age of two. Moved to New York at the age of six.

I immigrated from Johannesburg, South Africa, to New York in 1966. I was thirteen years old and came with my family. My father was a doctor, and we had my mother and two sisters, aged fifteen and four, with us. The move was very difficult as we were the only South Africans we knew. We felt very out of place. Our accents gave us away whenever we opened our mouths, and everyone thought we should be black and dress like Tarzan. We were white and Jewish.

Born and raised in North Idaho, Amanda taught K-12 in both private and public schools, raised three children (plus many, many more cats), and spent over a decade as a nurse in urgent care and pediatrics before renewing her childhood passion for writing.

Magnus Baikie has spent most of his career attempting to warm the planet (his home country of Canada is rather frigid). As it appears that he has not been too successful in his endeavor (Canadian summers still being more of an attitude than a season) he decided to write a book. Magnus has been an avid consumer of history and fantasy novels since the age of eight and so produced a historical fantasy.

Rebecca Day is a writer and author specializing in music journalism, arts and culture stories, and songwriting. She is a regular contributor to publications such as The Epoch Times and The Objective Standard. In 2019, she released her debut novel, Derelict, a southern mystery, while pivoting to a writing-based career after a decade spent touring and performing as an independent musician.