Roan Parrish is currently wandering between Philadelphia and New Orleans. When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.
Author Archives: Courtney
May Peterson
May Peterson lives in Kansas City with two dark wizards and their dog familiars. She is rumored to be some kind of magical creature, but exactly which kind is still debated by scholars. While they sort that out, May busies herself as a romance and fantasy author, as well as a freelance editor. She gravitates toward writing and reading stories that are magical, hopeful, and distinctive, as well as those that explore identity, queerness, and connection. May, who also writes as M.A. Peterson, believes that bringing a daydream to life with its own tale to tell is always a small miracle.
Kris Ripper
Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Kris shares a converted garage with a toddler, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Kris is genderqueer and prefers the z-based pronouns because they’re freaking sweet. Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.
Crystal Schubert
Crystal Schubert is a reader, a writer, and a mother of two based in Richmond, VA. In 2019, she was awarded a spot in the inaugural class of the Unruly Retreat. Her short story “The Aviary” was published in the anthology Beware the Little White Rabbit out from Leap Books, and her other short works can be found in YARN and wicked alice.
Vicky Alvear Shecter
Vicky Alvear Shecter is the author of the young adult novels, CLEOPATRA’S MOON (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2011), based on the life of Cleopatra’s only daughter, and CURSES AND SMOKE (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2014), set in the ancient city of Pompeii. She is also the author of two award-winning biographies for kids on Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, as well as several books for middle-grade readers about mythology. She is a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta. The LA TIMES calls CLEOPATRA’S MOON, “magical” and “impressive.” PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY said it was “fascinating” and “highly memorable.” The WALL STREET JOURNAL called it “absorbing.” Visit her website at vickyalvearshecter.com.
Suleikha Snyder
Editor, writer, American desi and lifelong geek Suleikha Snyder is an author of contemporary and erotic romance. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusivity in publishing, Suleikha is frequently ranting when she should really be adding to her body of work—which includes multiple Bollywood-set romances and several shorts and novellas.
Suleikha lives in New York City, finding inspiration in genre fiction, daytime and primetime soaps, and anything that involves chocolate or bacon. Visit her at suleikhasnyder.com and follow her on Twitter @suleikhasnyder.
Brina Starler
Brina Starler writes, and reads, romance novels and romantic fiction— anything with kissing will do. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and a mix of both human and fur pups, and has finally resigned herself to a future of asking tall people to get stuff off the top shelf. Her debut romcom novel, Anne of Manhattan, a modern day, grown-up retelling of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, is out now.
Charlotte Stein
Charlotte Stein is the RT and DABWAHA nominated author of over thirty short stories, novellas and novels, including entries in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance and Best New Erotica 10. When not writing deeply emotional and intensely sexy books, she can be found eating jelly turtles, watching terrible sitcoms and occasionally lusting after hunks.
Greer Stothers
Greer Stothers is an award-winning author/illustrator based in Toronto. Their education is a patchwork of science and art, as they graduated from Sheridan College with a Bachelors of Illustration, followed by a stint at the University of Toronto studying evolutionary biology. Their love of dinosaurs led them to acquire two fat chickens named Tallgeese and Wormbecca, who live in a miniature house in their backyard and lay far too many eggs for them to eat.
Their experiences as a nonbinary individual inform their writing and art, as does their drive to find the humour in everything.
Their experiences as a nonbinary individual inform their writing and art, as does their drive to find the humour in everything.
Maren C. Tirabassi
After trouping the country in the 70s managing tours for choreographer Agnes de Mille, The National Theatre of Great Britain’s all-male ‘As You Like It’, David Suchet (prior to Poirot) in The Royal Shakespeare’s ‘Hollow Crown’, and the first Black Broadway production of ‘Guys and Dolls’, Maren changed careers, much to everyone’s surprise, to study for the ministry at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, she served as bi-vocational pastor to seven Massachusetts and New Hampshire churches, while simultaneously publishing twenty books, mostly non-fiction with The Pilgrim Press.
A former Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, NH, and LAMDA Prize nominee, she currently facilitates programs for the NH humanities Council with recent immigrants and people with cognitive disabilities, and leads poetry and memoir workshops in prisons, recovery and survivor groups, churches and synagogues, and provides justice-based content for activist groups. She blogs on wordpress as Gifts in Open Hands.
Maren loves beagles, quilting, sci-fi and fantasy conventions, and story-telling via Skype to her grandsons three thousand miles away.