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Kimberly Brock is the bestselling author of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Townsend Prize for Fiction, and The River Witch, recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award. She is the founder of Tinderbox Writers Workshop and has served as a guest lecturer for many regional and national writing workshops including at the Pat Conroy Literary Center. A native of North Georgia, she now lives near Atlanta. Her latest novel, The Fabled Earth, releases October 1, 2024 via Harper Muse.
Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of novels What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, The Remaking, and miss corpus, story collections nothing untoward, commencement and rest area, as well as The Tribe middlegrade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins.
His new novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, arrives on January 7, 2025. Upcoming projects include the novelette Stay On The Line (Shortwave Books), the novella Kill Your Darling (Bad Hand Books) and the creator-owned comic limited series Seance in the Asylum (Dark Horse Comics).
Quiet Part Loud, a 12-part horror podcast from Jordan Peele/Monkeypaw Productions, written by Chapman and Mac Rogers, is available on Spotify.
Shaun Hamill grew up in Arlington, Texas, surviving mainly on a steady diet of genre fiction and comic books and received his BA in English from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2008, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2016. Shaun’s debut novel, A Cosmology of Monsters, was released in hardcover by Pantheon books in September of 2019. Vintage/Anchor published the paperback in August of 2020. His fiction has appeared in Carve and Tor Nightfire’s Come Join Us By the Fire 2 and his nonfiction has appeared at Crimereads and Tor Nightfire. Shaun also co-host two podcasts: Team Hurricane Returns (with Darrel Smith, Jr.) and Fandom University (with Sergio Hernandez), and is an occasional panelist on the Lovecraft Ezine Podcast. I live in Birmingham, Alabama, where hs is finishing a new novel.
Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times, Globe and Mail, and USA Today bestselling author of seventeen novels, including The Secret Book of Flora Lea. She’s also a podcast host of original content for her novels, Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis.
She is the recipient of The Christy Award “Book of the Year”; The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for Becoming Mrs. Lewis. She is the co-host and co-creator of the popular weekly online Friends and Fiction live web show and podcast. Patti also was a contributor to the monthly life lesson essay column for Parade Magazine. She’s published in numerous anthologies, articles, and short story collections, including an Audible Original about Florence Nightingale, titled Wild Swan narrated by the Tony Award winner, Cynthia Erivo.
A full-time author, mother of three, and grandmother of two, she lives in Mountain Brook, Alabama with her husband, Pat Henry.
Piper G. Huguley’s biographical historical fiction, By Her Own Design: a novel of Ann Lowe, Fashion Designer to the Social Register (William Morrow Publishing) tells the inspiring story of the Black fashion designer of Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress. By Her Own Design was a Booklist top 100 Editor’s Choice selection for 2022 and was named one of the top 100 books of 2022 in Canada by the Globe and Mail newspaper.
She is also the author of Sweet Tea by Hallmark Publishing and the author of two historical romance series: “Migrations of the Heart”, about the Great Migration and “Home to Milford College”. Her next historical fiction book, American Daughters (2024), is the story of the decades-long interracial friendship between Alice Roosevelt and Portia Washington, the rebel teenage daughters of President Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington, respectively. She is a literature professor at Clark-Atlanta University and blogs about the history behind her novels at http://piperhuguley.com . She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and son.
Paul Jenkins has been creating, writing and building franchises for over 25 years in the graphic novel, film and video game industries. Over the last two decades Paul has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of literally hundreds of world-renowned, recognizable entertainment icons. From his employment with the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the age of 22 to his preeminent status as an IP creator, Paul has provided entertainment to the world through hundreds of print publications, films, video games, film and new media. With 6 Platinum selling video games, a Number One MTV Music Video, an Eisner Award, Five Wizard Fan Awards, and multiple Best Selling Graphic Novels, Paul Jenkins is synonymous with success. He has enjoyed recognition on the New York Times bestseller list, has been nominated for two BAFTA Awards, and has been the recipient of a government-sponsored Prism Award for his contributions in storytelling and characterization.
Among his many credits, Paul is the writer of the bestselling comic and graphic novel, Wolverine: Origin.
Kimberly Latrice Jones is an American author and filmmaker, known for the New York Times bestselling young adult novel, I’m Not Dying With You Tonight and for the viral video How Can We Win published during the George Floyd protest. The book was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in 2020. That same year, a seven-minute video featuring Kim using a Monopoly analogy to explain the history of racism and its impact on Black Americans went viral, being shared by Trevor Noah, LeBron James, Madonna, and more. The viral video was featured on shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She has subsequently signed an overall deal with Warner Brothers via her production company Push Films with her partner DeWayne “Duprano” Martin. Kim’s literary roots run deep. She served on the Selection Committee for Library of Congress’ 2016-2017 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, the 2015 Children’s Choice Illustrator Committee for The Children’s Book Council, and the advisory board that created the Creative and Innovative Education Master’s Degree program at Georgia State University. She has been featured in Ms. Magazine, Seventeen, Paste Magazine, Bustle, Hello Giggles, Book List, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, and was Book Brahmin in an issue of Shelf Awareness. She received one of the inaugural James Patterson Holiday Bookseller Bonus grants while working at the famous children’s bookstore, Little Shop of Stories. Kim’s bestselling novel, I’m Not Dying With You Tonight, co-authored with Gilly Segal, won Georgia Author Of The Year, and the Cybils Awards. I’m Not Dying With You Tonight was selected as the September 2019 book club pick for the Barnes & Noble YA book club and Overdrive’s Big Library Read. She resides in Atlanta and is the proud mother of a gifted boy. She lives for wigs and nail art, as her style icons are Dolly Parton, Chaka Khan, and Diana Ross.
Jeffrey Dale Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia, best known as the home of Roosevelt’s Little White House. He calls the nation’s capital home now and has for over three decades. During those early years of living in Washington DC, he spent many a night trodding the boards of DC’s theaters and performing arts centers, including the Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and Studio Theatre.
He even scored a few television screen appearances, including a residuals-rich Super Bowl halftime commercial, which his accountant quipped “is the finest work of your career.”
Ultimately he stepped away from acting, keen to use his stage-and-screen-performer’s deep understanding of the art of storytelling in a different way. To that end, he provided communications counsel to some of the nation’s leading landscape architects, as together they described the wonders of a garden well-planned. Next, he worked closely with military veterans, helping them tell their stories of war-torn life in service to their country. At the same time, he focused on pursuing post-graduate work, ultimately being awarded Master’s degrees in both Public Administration and Library and Information Science. Today, he is a senior advisor at the Library of Congress, surrounded by books and people who love books—in short, paradise.
Red Clay Suzie is his first novel, a fictionalized memoir written through his personal lens growing up a gay, physically misshapen outsider in a conservative family and community in the Deep South.
Red Clay Suzie was longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize.
Colleen Oakley is the USA Today bestselling author of The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too, Close Enough to Touch, Before I Go, and The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise. Colleen’s novels have been longlisted for the Southern Book Prize twice and Close Enough to Touch won the French Reader’s Prize. Her books have been translated into more than 21 languages, optioned for film and have received numerous accolades including: Indie Next List Pick Jan 2015, March 2017 and Jan 2020; Library Reads Pick 2020, 2021; Top 21 Books of 2020 by O Magazine; TODAY show Best Summer Read; People magazine Best New Book; Us Weekly “Must” Pick; Inaugural pick of the Emily Giffin book club; Romantic Times Top Pick; Library Journal Big Fiction Debut; Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Books; In Touch Weekly: Grade A; Pop Sugar’s Books We Can’t Wait to Read; Real Simple’s Best Books List; and Bookbub’s 12 New Books to Read If You Love Jodi Picoult
A former magazine editor for Marie Claire and Women’s Health & Fitness, Colleen’s articles and essays have been featured in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Women’s Health, Redbook, Parade, Woman’s Day, Fitness, Health, Marie Claire and Martha Stewart Weddings. A proud graduate of the University of Georgia’s school of journalism, Colleen currently lives in Atlanta with her husband, four kids, and a terrier mutt named Baxter.
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