Jess Zafarris

Jess Zafarris is an author and speaker whose work primarily addresses words and language, but also social media, advertising, communications, and TTRPGs. She’s the author of Once Upon a Word (2020), Words from Hell (2023), and Useless Etymology (2025). A former content director for Writer’s Digest, Adweek, and Ragan Communications, she now joyfully discusses word origins on TikTok and Instagram, cohosts the podcast Words Unravelled, and runs the blog Useless Etymology. She is an adjunct professor at Emerson College, Editor-at-Large for Ragan and PR Daily, a contributor and social media partner for Dictionarycom, a regular speaker for Writer's Digest, and a writer at Indie Agency News. She produces and hosts events including PR Daily’s Socia

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Jyoti Mukharji

Jyoti Mukharji is a chef, teacher, and retired physician. She immigrated to the US from India in the late 1970s, and she began teaching weekly Indian cooking classes out of her home in Prairie Village, KS in 2010. Jyoti has since welcomed several thousand students into her kitchen, and her writing and teaching have been celebrated in press and radio outlets across the Midwest. Jyoti's team includes her husband Jhulan (art director), her eldest son Arnob (grocery shopping deputy), her middle son Auyon (musical guest), and her youngest son Aroop (copy editor).
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Julia Riew

Julia Riew is a Korean-American composer-lyricist, librettist, and novelist from St. Louis and NYC. She is best known for her viral hit Dive, a reimagining of the Korean folktale Shimcheong, which has captivated millions online and is currently being developed for the stage at the American Repertory Theater with Tony-Award winning director Diane Paulus and GLAAD-Award winning playwright Diana Son.

Julia also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the new original musical ENDLESS (dir. by Zi Alikhan, Seoul, 2026), which features an expansive, celestial mythological universe and a cinematic pop score. Julia’s literary work includes upcoming YA fantasy novel The Last Tiger (Penguin Random House, 2025), as well as MG fantasy novel Shim Jung Takes
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Molly O'Sullivan

Molly O’Sullivan is a cybersecurity engineer turned speculative fiction writer with a love of tea, nature, and characters who, despite everything, still manage to hope. Originally from South Carolina, she has lived all over the country but now resides outside Seattle with her husband, two children, and curmudgeonly dog. Find her on Instagram at @mollyobooks, or at her website, mollyosullivan.com.
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Rebecca Danzenbaker

Rebecca Danzenbaker believes in trusting your gut and chasing your dreams. That probably explains her massive career jumps – from teaching elementary school music, to managing a team of 25 at Congressional Quarterly, to running an award-winning photography business, to writing young adult novels. When she’s not editing words or photos, she’s either reading, hiking, sending memes to her friends, volunteering, planning incredibly detailed travel itineraries, being a goofball on social media, or cheering on her husband and two children as they chase their own dreams. Soulmatch is her debut novel, the culmination of five years of blood, sweat, and tears. She did it!
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Keshe Chow

Keshe was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and migrated to Australia when she was two. She currently lives in Naarm (Melbourne) with her partner, two kids, and two cats.

She has won multiple awards for short fiction, as well as the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript.

Her second YA fantasy novel, FOR NO MORTAL CREATURE is due out in 2025 with Penguin Random House.
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Cait Jacobs

Cait grew up somewhere between the many farms and beaches of the North Fork of Long Island, NY. There, they found escape through the fictional worlds of books. Their love of literature inspired them to found BookTok and The Bookington Book Club. When they aren’t writing or scrolling on social media, they spend their time obsessing over theater, Dungeons and Dragons, and caring for their many dogs and pet snake (known professionally as Jake from Snake Farm).

You can find Cait sword fighting in the woods, or on Instagram, TikTok, and all additional platforms at @caitsbooks.
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Brian McAuley

Brian McAuley’s debut novel Curse of the Reaper was named one of the Best Horror Books of 2022 by Esquire. His holiday slasher novella Candy Cain Kills earned praise from Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. The sequel Candy Cain Kills Again: The Second Slaying will be published in Winter 2024. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Dark Matter, Nightmare, Shortwave, and Monstrous Magazines. Brian is also a WGA screenwriter who has written everything from family sitcoms (Fuller House) to psychological thriller films (Dismissed). He teaches as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at ASU’s Sidney Poitier New American Film School. Connect with him on social media @BrianMcWriter
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Christy Healy

Christy Healy is the author of the adult fantasy novel, Unbound, and its companion novels, Unseen and Undying. She has been a lifelong reader and writer, weaving stories of her own into the myths and tales of the Celtic, Indo-European, and Greco-Roman worlds that she has loved for so long. She lives in North Carolina with her children, her dog, and her husband.
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Janet Few

The Jesuits say ‘give me a child until they are seven and I will show you the man’, or woman of course. When I was seven I spent my time making up impossibly large families in ‘my famerley book’ (spelling was not a strong point). I also wrote long stories or played complicated, extended games of schools. Although I enjoyed ‘dressing up’, I hadn’t yet started donning period costume but most other aspects of my current life were there in embryonic form.

Although I have, I hope, a reputation as an academic historian, I believe good history is for everyone. As The History Interpreter, I aim to bring history alive in a variety of ways. I am passionate about encouraging young people to become interested in the past, especially through living histo
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Egor Klopenko

Books for children require absolute sincerity and purity. To create something real, you must strip away all that is superfluous, all that is artificial, all that is so common in adult prose. What remains must be only goodness, beauty, joy, light, and love—only the most valuable and important things, only the things you would want to give your children. But this is how books for adults should be written, too…And perhaps, this is just how we should live as well…

As a writer, I’ve realized
That if I’m reaching out through my books,
It should be to children.
Only with them does it make sense to speak sincerely
And of true things,
For they themselves are always sincere
And true.
And when I do write for adults,
I’m speaking only to the childlike spark sti
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Michelle Jabès Corpora

Michelle Jabès Corpora is a writer, editor, and martial artist. In addition to working in the publishing industry for more than seventeen years as an editor and concept developer, she is the author of two historical novels for middle grade readers, two horror novels for young adult readers, and author of the Throne of Khetara fantasy series for Young Adults. She has also ghostwritten five novels in a long-running middle grade mystery series. In her spare time, Michelle trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a blue belt at Crazy 88 MMA, and enjoys making home-cooked meals, doing tarot readings, and playing Dungeons & Dragons with her friends. Michelle lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, a guinea pig, and a dog named Charlie.
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Bridget Collins

Bridget Collins has works written under the name B.R Collins.
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Olivia Dade

Olivia Dade grew up an undeniable nerd, prone to ignoring the world around her as she read any book she could find. Her favorites, though, were always, always romances. As an adult, she earned an M.A. in American history and worked in a variety of jobs that required the donning of actual pants: Colonial Williamsburg interpreter, high school teacher, academic tutor, and (of course) librarian. Now, however, she has finally achieved her lifelong goal of wearing pajamas all day as a hermit-like writer and enthusiastic hag. She currently lives outside Stockholm with her delightful family and their ever-burgeoning collection of books.

*******

If you want to find me online, here’s where to go!

Website: https://oliviadade.com
Twitter: https://twitter.c
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Janet Few

The Jesuits say ‘give me a child until they are seven and I will show you the man’, or woman of course. When I was seven I spent my time making up impossibly large families in ‘my famerley book’ (spelling was not a strong point). I also wrote long stories or played complicated, extended games of schools. Although I enjoyed ‘dressing up’, I hadn’t yet started donning period costume but most other aspects of my current life were there in embryonic form.

Although I have, I hope, a reputation as an academic historian, I believe good history is for everyone. As The History Interpreter, I aim to bring history alive in a variety of ways. I am passionate about encouraging young people to become interested in the past, especially through living histo
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Amy Rose Bennett

Amy Rose Bennett is an award-winning Australian author who has a passion for penning emotion-packed historical romances and more recently, historical rom-coms with a dash of fantasy. A former speech pathologist, Amy is happily married to her very own romantic hero and has two lovely, exceedingly accomplished adult daughters. When she’s not creating stories, Amy loves to cook up a storm in the kitchen, lose herself in a good book, and when she can afford it, travel to all the places she writes about.

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Thomas Nowak

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Kiri Callaghan

Born from ink and stardust, Kiri Callaghan enthusiastically prods and catalogues the world around her. She’s driven by questions: the why’s and what if’s of life. Her peers call her fickle, seemingly unable to focus on a singular field of study. She reads, cooks, crafts, and games. Submerged in some new thing, she explores unexplained supernatural phenomena or how to make a proper cake pop. Kiri is a writer, singer, actor, and adventurer. Above all, Kiri is curious.

Kiri Callaghan currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
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Barbara Kloss

Barbara Kloss loves adventures, and finds them through reading, writing, trekking through the wilderness, and gaming—though she doesn't consider herself a gamer. She just happens to like video games. RPGs, specifically. She’s also a bit of a fitness enthusiast, a classically-trained pianist, and she believes that maintaining balance in life is a good thing (coffee excluded).

Barbara studied biochemistry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA, and worked for years as a clinical laboratory scientist. She was lured there by mental images of colorful bubbling liquids in glass beakers. She was deceived.

She currently lives in northern California, with her gorgeous husband, three babies, and pup. Author of the award-winning Gaia’s Secret Series, and SPF
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Tim Rayborn

Tim Rayborn is a historian, medievalist, and musician, with an MA and PhD from the University of Leeds in England. He is a writer on a variety of topics in history and the arts, from the academic to the amusing to the appalling. He has written nearly 50 books to date.

A professional musician with a specialty in medieval repertoire, he plays dozens of musical instruments, has appeared on more than 40 recordings, and has performed in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

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Rachel Hawkins

Rachel Hawkins is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs, Reckless Girls, The Villa, and The Heiress, as well as multiple books for young readers. Her work has been translated into over two dozen languages. She studied gender and sexuality in Victorian literature at Auburn University and currently lives in Alabama.
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Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes, author of THE FURIES (THE AMBER FURY in the UK), is a graduate of Cambridge University and an award-winning comedian, journalist, and broadcaster. She judged the Man Booker Prize in 2013 and was a judge for the final Orange Prize in 2012. Natalie was a regular panelist on BBC2’s Newsnight Review, Radio 4’s Saturday Review, and the long-running arts show, Front Row. She is a guest columnist for the The Independent and The Guardian. Her radio series, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, was first broadcast in March 2014.
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Rachel Cohn

Rachel grew up in the D.C. area and graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Political Science. She has written many YA novels, including three that she cowrote with her friend and colleague David Levithan. She lives and writes (when she's not reading other people's books, organizing her music library or looking for the best cappuccino) in New York City.
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Joe Heap

Joe Heap was born in 1986 to a biology teacher and a drama teacher, and grew up in a house that was 70% books, 25% bags of unmarked homework, 18% underpants drying on radiators, and 3% scattered Lego bricks.

He is very bad at maths.

In 2004 Joe won the Foyle Young Poet award, and his poetry has been published in several periodicals. He studied for a BA in English Literature at Stirling University and a Masters in Creative Writing at Glasgow University, during which time he ate a deep-fried Mars Bar. It was okay.

Joe is now a full-time writer, but previously worked as an editor of books for kids and young adults. He has also been a subtitler for BBC News, a face painter at a safari park and a removal man for a dental convention. Before smartpho
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Mo Fanning

A very gay man living (though not from choice) in the United Kingdom of Stuff, who dabbles in paperback writing for pleasure and profit. Easily coaxed into talking about himself and his work for cake or fame.

I write darker comedy, often with a hint of romance. HUSBANDS delves into the darkness behind the glitter and glamour of Hollywood.

RAINBOWS AND LOLLIPOPS (2025) is a story of finding your family when the one you have no longer fits.
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Tsvi Jolles

Tsvi Jolles lives with his wife and son in a cozy suburb just an hour north of Atlanta, where the cicadas provide the perfect summer soundtrack.

When he’s not writing, Tsvi finds inspiration in travel, nature, meditation, swimming, or getting lost in audiobooks (because after a day of rewriting a new chapter, it’s nice to just gaze at the horizon). He enjoys listening to his Audible library in multiple languages—Italian, Spanish, German, French, and of course, English.

He loves connecting with readers and diving into their reviews, staying in sync with the imaginations that bring his stories to life.
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