Aleta Barthell: Aleta Barthell is a playwright/screenwriter/teacher. Her play, NIGHT WITCHES: FLIGHT INTO FANTASY, was a part of the New Village Arts Theatre’s “2019 Final Draft Festival.” Aleta's play, WINDOW OF SHAME, is a finalist at the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center for 2020-2021. The same play was also a finalist for the 2016 HUMANITAS/CTG Playwriting Prize. Aleta is a teaching artist with Playwrights Project and founder of the youth theater education program, Kids Act, at New Village Arts Theatre. She holds a Bachelor in Science from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and has trained at British American Drama Academy (Oxford, England); and Shakespeare and Company (Lenox, MA). She studied playwriting and screenwriting at UCSD. Currently, Aleta is the recipient of a grant from California Humanities for a project called SAVING STORIES: A Toolkit in the Age of Covid-19. The project pairs individuals isolated in assisted and skilled nursing facilities with San Diego dramatists who will write dramatic monologues based on their lives to be shared with the community through New Village Arts Theatre. Aleta also serves as an Ambassador for the Dramatists Guild in San Diego.
Cecil Castellucci: Cecil Castellucci is the award winning and New York Times Bestselling author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Shade, The Changing Girl, Boy Proof, Soupy Leaves Home, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, The Female Furies and Odd Duck. In 2015 she co-authored Star Wars Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure. She is currently writing Batgirl for DC Comics and The Little Mermaid for Dark Horse Comics. Her two newest graphic novels are Girl on Film (Boom!) and The Plain Janes (Little Brown). Her short stories and short comics have been published in Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Womanthology, Star Trek: Waypoint, Vertigo SFX: Slam! and many other anthologies. In a former life, she was known as Cecil Seaskull in the ‘90s indie band Nerdy Girl. She has written two opera librettos Les Aventures de Madame Merveille (World Premiere in 2010) and Hockey Noir: The Opera (World Premiere 2018). She is the former Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus, a two-time MacDowell Fellow, and the founding YA Editor at the LA Review of Books. She lives in Los Angeles.
Stephanie Diaz: Stephanie Diaz lives in San Diego, CA with her husband and rescue dog Jack, editing books for other authors by day and writing her own stories by night. She graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in film production. She is the author of EXTRACTION, REBELLION, and EVOLUTION, a series of YA sci-fi books published by Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press. She loves many a quirky and dramatic TV show, any combination of chocolate and peanut butter, and adventures in faraway places. Learn more about her work online at www.stephaniediazbooks.com and follow her on Twitter/Instagram at @StephanieEDiaz.
Tammy Greenwood: T. Greenwood is the author of thirteen award-winning novels including Keeping Lucy, Rust & Stardust, and Where I Lost Her. She teaches for San Diego Writers, Ink and The Writer's Center.
Christopher Hamilton: Christopher Hamilton’s second-grade teacher called home to verify his reading log because, “No one could be reading that many books.” In high school he kept his obsessive reading a secret from his friends on the soccer team, discussing Jane Eyre discreetly after school with his favorite teacher, Mrs. Teegarden. This love of Literature led to graduate degrees in English Literature at UCLA, specializing in 18th and 19th century British Literature and Critical Theory. Christopher Hamilton taught hundreds of college students at UCLA in courses ranging from Introduction to Literature to seminars on Crime Fiction, and earned awards for his scholarship and his teaching. Christopher jumped ship from academia to commercial magazine writing, eventually becoming Editorial Director of a magazine focused on food, wine, and cooking. After gaining a few pounds but missing the energy and atmosphere of the classroom, Christopher became a partner in an international college consulting and test-prep company, and eventually went on to create additional companies devoted to helping ambitious student find a path to great colleges. In 2014 he founded Hamilton College Consulting, helping local and international students apply to selective colleges. Christopher Hamilton has helped literally hundreds of students gain access to Ivy-level universities, and thousands find a path to colleges of all descriptions.
Nancy Holder: Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author (The Wicked Saga, co-written with Debbie Viguié) of over 80 novels, 200 short stories, essays, and articles, an online computer game, and comic books and graphic novels. She has received 5 Bram Stoker Awards for her supernatural fiction; a Pioneer in Young Adult Literature Award from RT Booksellers; and a Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, who named her their 2019 Grand Master. She is the writer on Mary Shelley Presents, a comic book series collected into graphic novel form by Kymera Press. She is a Baker Street Irregular (“Beryl Garcia”), with many fiction and nonfiction works based on the immortal detective Sherlock Holmes. She has written novels, short fiction, and episode guides for such universes as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Teen Wolf. She also novelized the movies Crime Peak, Wonder Woman, and Ghostbusters. A former San Diegan, she now lives in Washington state. @nancyholder, FB: holder/nancy and nancyholderfans. www.nancyholder.com.
Maureen Johnson: Maureen Johnson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of several YA novels, including 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Suite Scarlett, The Name of the Star, and Truly Devious. She has also done collaborative works, such as Let It Snow with John Green and Lauren Myracle (now on Netflix), and several works in the Shadowhunter universe with Cassandra Clare. Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Buzzfeed, and The Guardian, and she has also served as a scriptwriter for EA Games.
Natalie Lakosil:
Natalie is a literary agent at Bradford Literary Agency. Since 2009 she has represented many award-winning and bestselling authors. Her specialties are all ages (PB, chapter book, MG, YA) of children’s literature, both fiction and nonfiction, adult cozy mystery/crime, female-driven thrillers, and upmarket women’s/general fiction. She also represents illustrators and select adult nonfiction. You can find her online @natalie_lakosil, www.adventuresinagentland.com, or www.bradfordlit.com.
Natalie is a literary agent at Bradford Literary Agency. Since 2009 she has represented many award-winning and bestselling authors. Her specialties are all ages (PB, chapter book, MG, YA) of children’s literature, both fiction and nonfiction, adult cozy mystery/crime, female-driven thrillers, and upmarket women’s/general fiction. She also represents illustrators and select adult nonfiction. You can find her online @natalie_lakosil, www.adventuresinagentland.com, or www.bradfordlit.com.
Jonathan Maberry: JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, produced as a Netflix original series in 2019, starred Ian Somerhalder (LOST, VAMPIRE DIARIES). He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Glimpse, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, Glimpse, The Wolfman, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, Mars One, and many others. Several of his works are in development for film and TV. He is the editor of high-profile anthologies including The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, New Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, and others. His comics include Black Panther: DoomWar, The Punisher: Naked Kills and Bad Blood. His Rot & Ruin books are being produced as webcomics. He is a board member of the Horror Writers Association and the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He lives in San Diego, California.
Gretchen McNeil: Gretchen McNeil is the author of several young adult novels for Balzer + Bray including POSSESS, 3:59, RELIC, I’M NOT YOUR MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL, GET EVEN, GET DIRTY, and TEN, as well as the horror/comedy novels #MURDERTRENDING, #MURDERFUNDING, and #NOESCAPE for Disney/Freeform. Her next novel DIG TWO GRAVES, pitched as a YA Strangers on a Train, hits shelves in March 2022. Ten: Murder Island, the film adaptation of TEN starring China Anne McClain premiered on Lifetime in 2017, and GET EVEN and GET DIRTY have been adapted as the series Get Even for BBC and Netflix. Series 1 premiered in 2020.
Catriona McPherson: Catriona (kuh-TREE-nuh) McPherson was born in Scotland and lived there until immigrating to the US in 2010. She writes historical detective stories set in the old country in the 1930s, as well as a strand of contemporary psychological thrillers.
After eight years in the new country, Catriona kicked off the comic Last Ditch Motel series, which takes a wry but affectionate look at California life. Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime, a national organisation working for equity and representation for all crime-fiction writers. www.catrionamcpherson.com
Abdi Nazemian: Abdi Nazemian is the author of three novels. His first, The Walk-In Closet, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction. His most recent, Like a Love Story, an Indie Next Pick, Walden Award finalist and Junior Library Guild selection, was awarded a Stonewall Honor, and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Audible, Buzzfeed, the New York Public Library and more. His screenwriting credits include the films The Artist's Wife, The Quiet, and Menendez: Blood Brothers, and the television series The Village and Almost Family. He has been an executive producer and associate producer on numerous films, including Call Me By Your Name, Little Woods, and Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband and two children.
Alonso Nunez: Alonso Nunez is founder and Executive Director of Little Fish Comic Book Studio, a nonprofit comic art studio and advocacy group, and is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts, majoring in Comic Illustration. A third generation San Diegan, Alonso has always had a passion for the comic art form in all its various styles, genres, and applications; he channels that now as a comic professional and an advocate for the comic medium.
Laura Preble: Laura Preble, author of the new novel Anna Incognito, is the award-winning author of the young adult series, Queen Geek Social Club (Penguin/Berkley Jam), which includes the novels Queen Geeks in Love and Prom Queen Geeks. Her novel, Out, dealt with the concept of LGBTQ rights within a young adult dystopia; Alex Sanchez, author of Rainbow Boys, says "Out explores an intriguing, mind-bending, and challenging portrait of an upside-down world that turns the tables on homophobia, acceptance, and love.” She has won a Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize, and has been published in North American Review, Writer’s Digest, Hysteria, and NEA Today.
James Matlack Raney: James Matlack Raney is a multiple award-winning author and screenwriter from Los Angeles, CA. In his free time he enjoys anything and everything about the beach, books, music, and film. He most recently won the 2019 Tracking B TV Pilot Competition for his supernatural thriller HECHICERA.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz: Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a poet, a writer of fiction (young adult and adult) and children’s books. He is also a respected painter. His work has won him wide acclaim and an international audience. He has authored ten novels and two collections of short stories, the latest of which—Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club—won a Lambda Literary Award and the PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2013 (the first Latino to have won the award). He has published seven books of poetry, and has been awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, an American Book Award, and a Lannan Poetry Fellowship. His acclaimed young adult novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Simon & Schuster) has been translated into 24 languages and was awarded The Stonewall Award, The Pura Belpre Award, a Prinz Honor Book Award, a Lambda Literary Award, the Prix des Incorruptibles (France, 2017) and the Catalan Book Seller’s Award (Spain, 2020).
Gill Sotu: Gill Sotu is a navy veteran, a multi-faceted poet, playwright, musician, DJ, and performing artist. He is a two time Grand Slam Poetry Champion, two time Raw Performing artist of the year, and a three time TEDx San Diego presenter. Currently, he is a teaching artist and a commissioned playwright with The Old Globe Theatre, a program director and teaching artist with Intrepid Theatre, CREATIVE DIRECTOR for TEDx San Diego, 2020 Artist in Residence for the Gainesville Creative Forces Art Summit, as well as the former Artist In Residence for The Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation and Makers Church. He has been commissioned to produce original pieces for leading arts and community organizations such as: The San Diego Symphony, The Unity Way of San Diego County, Feeding America, SD Fringe Fest, and the San Diego Opera to name a few.
Amy Spalding: Amy Spalding grew up in St. Louis, but now lives in the better weather of Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in Advertising & Marketing Communications from Webster University, and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School. Amy studied longform improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
She is the author of several novels, including the bestselling We Used to Be Friends and The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), which was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Kirkus, and more. She lives in Los Angeles.
She is the author of several novels, including the bestselling We Used to Be Friends and The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), which was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Kirkus, and more. She lives in Los Angeles.
Greg van Eekhout: Greg van Eekhout is the author of eight novels and about fifty short stories. His work has been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult and Middle-Grade Science Fiction, and his most recent novel, COG, was selected as one of the New York Public Library's Best Books of 2019. He lives in Pacific Beach with his wife and their two dogs.
Kiersten White: Kiersten White is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning, and critically acclaimed author of many books, including the And I Darken trilogy, the Slayer series, the Camelot Rising trilogy, and her upcoming adult debut, Hide. Her books have been published in over twenty territories, and her novel The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein is currently in development with Sony Pictures Television. Kiersten lives with her family in San Diego, where she can regularly be found pressing her hands against the glass of her back door, furtively whispering I love you to her deeply ambivalent tortoise, Kimberly.
Nick Zayas: Nick Zayas is a writer for both film and television. A graduate of Florida State University's film school, Nick spent years working for legendary film producer Scott Rudin before transitioning to TV. He spent 3 seasons as a writer on the TNT drama MAJOR CRIMES, and served as a Writer and Co-Producer on STAR TREK: PICARD. He sold his feature screenplay TIME CENTRAL to Netflix in 2018, and is currently writing a pilot at AMC produced by Steve Conrad's Elephant Pictures.