James Wade is a seasoned journalist, editor and the author of the novel All Things Left Wild. Set during the turn of the 20th century, when a botched robbery leaves a young boy dead and sets two men on conflicting journeys across untamed landscape—All Things Left Wide is a coming of age for one, a mid-life odyssey for the other, and an illustration of the violence and corruption prevalent in our fast-expanding country. All Things Left Wild is forthcoming from Blackstone Publishing.
Read MoreKenny Porter is a professional writer living in West Michigan. He's most known for content development, writing comics, copy, blogs, and fiction. He graduated from Grand Valley State University with a BA in Writing. The writing program at GVSU allowed him to create his own curriculum, which he used to focus on fiction, writing for the web, genre studies, and manuscript development. He started his career in writing during high school and has since gone on to publish short stories, write articles for online magazines, and has won the first Top Cow Talent Hunt for Writing.
Read MoreAlejandra Green and Fanny Rodriguez are casually known as "Arey and Fy." They are the authors of the popular webtoon-turned-forthcoming graphic novel Fantastic Tales of Nothing, in which a vast continent with ages of lore, traditions and conflict plays host to the adventures of an unlucky boy as he travels from the Mourning Prayers to the Courts of Power and probably gets in more trouble that he can handle. Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins will be publishing. Alejandra "Arey" Green is a concept artist and animator from northwest Mexico. Arye likes to think of herself as patience in the flesh, a lover of the sea and surfer of whales (although she'll deny that). Fanny "Fy" Rodriguez is a user interface designer and illustrator from northeast Mexico. She never sleeps, is a mountain enthusiast, and has weird taste in music (she won’t deny that).
Read MoreI got the chance to sit down with two authors who have a surprisingly optimistic view about politics and democracy. John Gastil is a professor at Penn State, and Katie Knobloch is an assistant professor at Colorado State University. They have collaborated on research for more than a decade, and Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back Into Politics, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, is their first book together.
Read MoreHolly Chisholm is the artist of Just Peachy comics, which Booklist has called "thoughtful and poignant." Her popular Instagram account for Just Peachy comics was her compromise between drawing and journaling; it helped her record how she was feeling at the time of being diagnosed with depression and work through some of the darkness. At first it was scary to put her deepest thoughts and fears out in the open, but the responses and messages of support from droves of fans made Chisholm realize how much it was needed to talk about mental health. After about six months of making these comics, she decided to quit her job and freelance part time so that she could dedicate more time to making and promoting Just Peachy. In the future, Chisholm is hoping to make another book, and would love to be able to do this full-time, while raising awareness about mental health and her personal struggle with depression.
Read MoreTina LeCount Myers is a writer, artist, independent historian, and surfer. Born in Mexico to expat-bohemian parents, she grew up on Southern California tennis courts with a prophecy hanging over her head; her parents hoped she'd one day be an author. Tina lives in San Francisco with her adventurer husband and loud Siamese cat. The Song of All is the first book of the epic fantasy trilogy The Legacy of the Heavens. Her latest book from the trilogy, Dreams of the Dark Sky, publishes February 2019 from Night Shade Books.
Read MoreAndrew Buckley is an editor for a small press, a professional copy and content writer, and a cohost for a geek movie podcast. He is the author of The Perils of Growing Up Werewolf series. His forthcoming book is The Fate of Freddy Mitchell, book one in the Dead Kid Chronicles, about when the fates of the underworld fail to capture a young soul at his scheduled time of death, and the very fabric of the universe begins to unravel—while the fates scramble to correct their mistake, he is forced to deal with a chatty crow, dark and sinister creatures hunting him through the night, a murderous gang of soul hunters, and the fact that he no longer appears to be as alive as he used to be. Andrew now lives happily in the Okanagan Valley, BC with one beautiful wife, three kids, one cat, one needy dog, and a multitude of characters that live comfortably inside of his mind.
Read MoreLogan J. Hunder is a Canadian author from Victoria, British Columbia. After graduating college with a degree in Criminal Justice, he directed his writing abilities towards novels where his insistence to crack jokes would be less frowned upon. His debut novel, Witches Be Crazy, has received praise at the Los Angeles International Book Festival. Hi latest book is Astro-Nuts, in which Mars and Earth are like a divorced couple that don't like each other but have adjusted—somewhere in between, a diplomat sits aboard the HMSS Milk, swipes a vial of weird, incredibly dangerous, consumptive goo known as "Space Jam"—while the SS Greased Lightning ship notices the derelict vessel drifting through space, and despite not picking up any mayday calls, the captain insists on checking it out anyway…unbeknownst to the crew, the only way to guarantee safety over the goo is to destroy it. In addition to penning novels, Hunder is also a proudly serving member of the Canadian Navy.
Read MoreJason Walz is an Eisner Award-nominated comic and graphic novel creator living in Minneapolis. He is the author of several comics and graphic novels, including the Last Pick trilogy and Homesick. Last Pick was a Kirkus Reviews Best YA Science Fiction of 2018 Selection and a YALSA 2019 Great Graphic Novels for Teens Nominee.
Read MoreDiane C. McPhail is an artist, writer, and minister. In addition to holding an M.F.A., an M.A., and D.Min., she has studied at the University of Iowa distance learning and the Yale Writers’ Workshop, among others. Diane is a member of North Carolina Writers' Network and the Historical Novel Society. She lives in Highlands, North Carolina, with her husband, and her dog, Pepper. She is the author of The Abolitionist’s Daughter, a personal narrative dealing with the struggles of imperfect souls to do right in a time of bitter conflict—a view of Southern Abolitionism, a deadly civilian clash, and the emerging role of women in a world depleted by the bloody conflict of men—a viewpoint far from prevailing stereotypes of the Civil War South, with themes of justice, racial relationships, and equality as timely as today's headlines.
Read MoreScott Wilson works as a translator and editor for the Japanese news-entertainment website SoraNews24. He runs ScottWritesStuff, a creative writing livestream on Twitch, and in his free time can be found playing video games and Magic: The Gathering with friends. Metl: The ANGEL Weapon is his first novel. He lives in the Japanese countryside with his wife.
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Jonathan Ashley is an author, playwright, concept artist, and filmmaker from Arizona. At fifteen, he illustrated his first book, Mathematickle, written by his grandfather. He studied filmmaking and animation at New York University. His illustrations and designs have been featured in films, commercials, comic books, and puppet shows. He lives with his wife and daughter in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side. He is also the author of Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space in which to join Kosmo's "Spacetronauts," an all-boy crew of child space cadets, aboard their floating tree house in the stars, a girl from Brooklyn must prove that she can hold her own among the galaxy's unruliest rascals…along the way, she and another will evade the clutches of merciless minions, find themselves marooned in The Murky Way nebula, and ultimately face the vilest villain of all, "His Meanness" The Mean-Man of Morgo.
Some authors know early on that they are destined to become writers. For me, it was my mom who knew that I was going to be a writer before I ever picked up a pen. But growing up, there were few indications to support her conviction.
Read MoreDante Fabiero is a Los Angeles native who has made a career working on some of TV's most popular animated shows, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of The Hill, American Dad, Disenchantment and Cosmos, seen on Netflix, TBS, and Fox. Fabiero launched Slothilda in 2014 and has garnered close to half a billion views on the website Giphy. You can see Slothilda come to life and subscribe to receive future comics for free at slothilda.com.
Read MoreJane Healey left a career in high tech to become a freelance writer. Her passion for historical fiction became her new career when her debut novel, The Saturday Evening Girls Club, was published in 2017. Based on the true story of a group of Jewish and Italian immigrant women in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century, the Amazon bestseller was hailed by Redbook as “a breathtaking ode to female empowerment and the American dream.” With the release of The Beantown Girls, she continues to fulfill her dream of writing about lesser-known stories of women in American history. She shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, running, cooking, and going to the beach.
Read MoreJames Breakwell is a comedy writer and father of four girls, best known for his humorous Twitter account @XplodingUnicorn, which has over one million followers and became a viral internet sensation. Buzzfeed dubbed him “The Funniest Dad on Twitter.” Breakwell also writes a parenting column for the IndyStar, where he antagonizes overachieving parents everywhere. His first book, Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, provides practical advice on how to raise happy, healthy children in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Breakwell followed up with Bare Minimum Parenting: The Ultimate Guide to Not Quite Ruining Your Child, a slacker's guide to raising slackers. Forthcoming from Breakwell is a duology of interactive/guided journals, Prance Like Nobody’s Watching: How to Live Like an Exploding Unicorn (Little Bee Books), containing a mix of his signature tweets and webcomics. Also forthcoming is How to Save Your Child from Ostrich Attacks, Accidental Time Travel, and Anything Else that Might Happen on an Average Tuesday (BenBella Books), moving beyond reanimated corpses to tackle roughly 100 survival challenges parents encounter in their everyday lives, an essential guide for anyone who has children, might have children someday, or is vaguely aware children exist.
Read MoreRuby Karp (pictured right with Tina Fey) is a comedian and journalist. She has spoken about feminism on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party and at TEDx. She regularly performs at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. Karp has written for Hello Giggles, Mashable, The Mindhut and Bustle. She has an advice column on SparkNotes called Ask Ruby. Karp has spoken at the United Nations as a Dove spokesperson, discussed the importance of self-esteem at the It's Our Turn: the Young Women's Conference, has been at panelist at BookCon with Tavi Gevinson, has won a MOTH Slam and was named one of the most successful teens of this generation by Seventeen and Cosmo. Karp was a speaker at StuVoice Live, an organization dedicated to students taking charge of their education. She worked with Kit-Kat to film a short on herself about how she uses her “break-time” better. She has been featured on shows like MSNBC, NBC, HuffPost Live. Karp made her viral debut at the age of four in Human Giant, and has since been a staple at UCB shows like Broad City Live, The Chris Gethard Hour, and ASSSSCAT among many others. She is also the author of Earth Hates Me: True Confessions from a Teenage Girl. The book is considered the handy Lean In for the Rookie generation, on what it's like to be inside a teen's mind, how social media impacts a teenager and what all their "angst" is really about, from an actual teenager offering life lessons.
Read MoreAward-winning author, screenwriter and media commentator Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Don’t Say A Word, filmed and starring Michael Douglas. Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. His books have been translated around the world. He was dubbed by Stephen King: “The most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich.” Klavan is a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute. His essays and op-eds on politics, religion, movies and literature have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times and elsewhere. Klavan is a frequent media guest on television and radio stations from coast to coast, where he is known for his quick wit, humor and commentary on politics and entertainment. He currently hosts the podcast The Andrew Klavan Show on the Daily Wire and his political satire videos have been viewed tens of millions of times. As a screenwriter, Andrew wrote the screenplay to 1990’s A Shock to the System, which starred Michael Caine, and to 2008’s One Missed Call, which stars Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon. He lives in Southern California. He has also written a memoir, The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.
Read MoreJonathan Shaw is the first tattoo artist to appear on The Tonight Show with David Letterman. His likeness was depicted by Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Art Spiegelman on the cover of The New Yorker. Shaw is also the son of legendary Swing-era bandleader Artie Shaw. Jonathan Shaw also played the tattooed thug opposite Clint Eastwood in the movie Tightrope (1984). He founded the magazine International Tattoo Art and his recent visual exploration of tattoo art, Vintage Tattoo Flash II has become a mainstay of collectors of tattoo art. Shaw's long-awaited memoir-style novel, Scab Vendor: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist was hailed by Jerry Stahl as "...beautiful as a dead drunk's bible..." and its sequel Homeward Bound was recently released to much acclaim. Shaw also made headline news as the infamous "tattoo artist to the stars" indicted by a New York City Grand Jury and charged with eighty-nine felony counts of illegal weapons possession. Described by Iggy Pop as, “the great nightmare anti-hero of the New Age,” Shaw's tattoo client list included names like Johnny Depp, The Cure, The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Marilyn Manson, Jim Jarmusch, Joe Coleman, Kate Moss, Orlando Bloom and Tupac Shakur. Jonathan Shaw is still one of the most respected names in the tattoo profession today for being instrumental in pioneering the tattoo industry.
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