Kirsten Amann is a freelance writer, lifestyle publicist, and founding member LUPEC Boston (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails). She is the co-author of the LUPEC Boston column in the Weekly Dig and the Massachusetts Beverage Business Journal. Her writing has appeared in DailyCandy, The Second Glass, and Bachelor II Groom.com. She lives in Boston, Masachusetts. {site}

Josh Berk is the author of The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (Knopf 2010) and Guy Langman: Crime Scene Procrastinator (Knopf 2012). He has previously been a journalist, a poet, a playwright, and a guitarist (mostly in bands known for things other than fine guitar-playing). He is a librarian and lives iin Allentown, Pennsylvania. {site}

Josephine Cameron grew up writing and singing in Northern Wisconsin. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame and has recorded four CDs. Josephine currently writes, sings, and teaches in Maine, where it’s warmer than the Northwoods, but sadly lacking in cheese curds. Visit her online at Please Come Flying.{site}

Claire M. Caterer loves reading—and hence, writing—fiction about impossible things. Her stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Woman’s World, and—about those most impossible things, teen girls—Girls’ Life. Her novel The Key and the Flame is forthcoming from S&S. She lives in the Kansas City metro area with one husband, one daughter, and one impossible beagle mutt.{site}

Kurt Cyrus is a poet, writer, and the illustrator of nearly twenty books, many of which he also wrote, among them Tadpole Rex and its companion, The Voyage of Turtle Rex, Mammoths on the Move and Sixteen Cows (both written by Lisa Wheeler), and M.T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales series, beginning with Whales on Stilts! He lives near Eugene, Oregon, where he is finishing up several new picture books and a novel for middle-grade readers. {site}

Bree Despain rediscovered her childhood love for writing when she took a semester off college to write and direct plays for at-risk, inner-city teens. With a renewed passion for story, she returned to school and started writing stories for young adults. Egmont USA published her first novel, The Dark Divine, to wide acclaim in December 2009, followed a year later by the sequel, The Last Saint. The final book in the trilogy, The Savage Grace will publish in March 2012. She lives near Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, two young sons, and her beloved TiVo. {site}

Barbara Larmon Failing is a middle grade and picture book author. Her picture book, Lasso Lou and Cowboy McCoy (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2003) has been praised in the New York Times Book Review and was a finalist in Arizona’s School Literacy Project. Barbara lives in Ketchikan, Alaska. {site}

Angie Frazier is a writer, mom, freelance editor, a good cook, and a horrible housekeeper. Angie’s debut teen novel, Everlasting, was published in 2010 by Scholastic Press, who are also publishing the sequel, The Eternal Sea, as well as her middle grade debut, The Midnight Tunnel: A Suzanna Snow Mystery in 2011. She lives in southern New Hampshire with her husband and their two daughters. {site}