Jacqueline Diamond

When my brother came home from first grade in our small town in Texas, I made him teach me what he’d learned each day so I could start writing. I wrote my first story, a single sentence long, when I was four years old, and never stopped.
In the ensuing 66 years, I’ve lived in Tennessee, California and Italy, gone to college in Boston, and been a reporter and editor for two newspapers and The Associated Press. I’ve covered news and wrote a TV column for AP, taught writing, and sold more than 100 novels. Mostly I’ve written genre fiction—romance, mysteries, and some ventures into fantasy and s.f. Currently I’m self-publishing and enjoying the freedom it brings.
Many of my books have a medical setting, including my Safe Harbor Medical series (romances and a spin-off cozy mystery series). My father was a doctor and I’ve always been fascinated by medical topics. I also learned a lot about relationships while being married for 40 years (happily), and about fertility and pregnancy en route to having two sons.

You can contact me, and find out what I’m up to, at my JacquelineDiamondAuthor Facebook site, on Twitter as @jacquediamond, and via my website, Jacquelinediamond.net.

Lily Iona MacKenzie

I don’t have hayseed clinging to my trousers, but growing up on a Canadian farm gave me a unique foundation as a writer. I sprouted under cumulous clouds that bloomed everywhere in Alberta’s big sky. They were my first creative writing instructors, scudding across the heavenly blue, constantly changing shape: one minute an elephant, bruised and brooding. The next morphing into a rabbit or a castle. These billowing masses gave me a unique view of life on earth.
As a girl, I prowled the land, talking to chickens and pigs and lambs, creating scenarios for them. I also tried to make perfume from the wild Alberta roses and captured caterpillars, watching with wonder when they transformed themselves into butterflies. Everything around me seemed infused by nature spirits waiting to be released.
I soon realized that all objects are in motion, waiting for stories to illuminate them. The clouds’ shifting form also schooled me in the various possibilities open to me as a writer. So did Jack Frost’s enchanted creations that enlivened the windows in wintertime, forcing me to view my surroundings as if through a bewitching prism. These early experiences helped me to envision multi-dimensional characters. No wonder magical realism pulses at the heart of my narratives, and my work celebrates the imagination.

Poetry Collection: All This: https://www.amazon.com/All-This-Lily-Iona-…/…/1935656112/ref
Three novels:
Fling! https://www.amazon.com/Fling-Lily-Iona-Mac…/…/1942428200/ref; 
Curva Peligrosa https://www.amazon.com/Curva-Peligrosa-Lily-Iona-MacK…/…/ref; 
Freefall: A Divine Comedy https://www.amazon.com/Freefall-Divine-Lily-Iona-MacK…/…/ref
I blog weekly at https://lilyionamackenzie.com.

Pat Spencer

In addition to Story of a Stolen Girl, Dr. Pat Spencer authored a textbook, several short stories, newspaper and magazine columns, trade and scholarly articles. She is currently working on her second novel. Pat speaks at community and service organizations on the topic of human trafficking.
Pat received degrees from Riverside Community College, University of La Verne, and theUniversity of California, Riverside. She began her academic career as a community college teacher and retired as a college president. When Pat is not writing, she is golfing, reading, walking on Southern California beaches, or hanging out at book clubs or with family and friends.
She can be found online at http://patspencer.net. Story of a Stolen Girl is available on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Goodreads, Google Books, etc. CLICK HERE to see her novel and textbook on Amazon.

Connie Kinsey

Connie Kinsey is a former military brat who has put down deep roots in a converted barn on a dirt road in West Virginia. She lives with two dogs and a cat, and is pursuing happiness, one cup of coffee at a time.
Her memoir of her 4th grade year during the Vietnam War won the West Virginia Writer’s Annual Contest in 2015. It is published at Longridge Review https://longridgereview.com/connie-kinsey/. Her short story, Second Hand Smoke, also won the West Virginia Writer’s Annual Contest and is in the process of being published as a podcast by Golden Walkman.
Connie studied anthropology, philosophy, and creative writing at Marshall University. She tells folks she has a degree in trivia. She achieved her degree after a misspent youth and considers her tenure as a middle-aged student some of the best years of her life. She has one child, a son, who is a chef. She likes to say she taught him everything he knows. It’s not true, but she likes to say it. She works fulltime with a children’s charitable nonprofit.
She blogs now and again at http://wvfurandroot.com and is wild about comments.

Marlene Cheng

I ran barefoot on the Canadian prairies in the dust that settled after 2nd World War. That makes me an octogenarian, an oldie.
Thrust from the infinity of wheat fields into the warp of the Rockies, Selkirk and Purcell mountains, the light that defined a frightful, but interesting, high school life challenged me.
Our neighbours were all Italian—migrants to Canadian mining towns. With his Welsh-born farmers’ busyness, my father found strange their art of dolce far niente—that is, the sweetness of doing nothing. They practised it, “Come in. Come in. Sit down. Taste my homemade vino.” My father adapted.
And the flames of railway trestles burning and women parading nude colored life. Doukhobors (a sect that had fled persecution in Russia) settled in the Kootenays. They protested, having to send their children to public schools.
Wearing a babushka and twirling spaghetti, not only did I survive those years, but, I thrived.
Vancouver, the “big city,” where I discovered traffic lights and city buses, claimed me for medical lab training, and I worked the night shift in the blood bank to put myself through university.
I’ve worked in cancer research, taught at tech schools, become a registered massage therapist, taken up energy schooling in NY., married and raised two kids, and, at 76, published A Many Layered Skirt, a biography about a young Chinese girl trying to keep one frightening step ahead of the soldiers, during the Japanese occupation.
My husband, of 56 years, was Chinese. Our mixed marriage was intriguing, and happiness was ours. Interests in people, cultures and places took us around the world. Many of those adventures find their way into my writing. He passed away, throwing my life into chaos. Now, I’ve picked up the pen, again. I've edited and revamped the Bond Series. It is now titled: Love is Forever Series.
Book One: Temptation and Surrender: A Secret Love Child Romance Novel.
Book Two: The Fallen Sniper Tears: A Sniper Romance Novel. 
Book Three: A Mystical Embrace: A Mystical Romance Novel. 
Book Four: The Madam's Friend: Flawed, Textured, Vulnerable Soul Mates.



https://marlenecheng.com


https://authorcentral.amazon.com/author/marlenecheng 

https://www.goodreads.com/marlenecheng

marlene.cheng@telus.net   

Gertraude Roth Li

Gertraude Roth Li is a non-fiction author. Though she grew up in a tiny village in northern Germany, her passion for international living soon turned her into a global nomad. After moving to the US and earning a Ph.D. in Chinese history and Asian languages, she spent several years living in Taiwan, Switzerland, and Japan. More recently she left Hawaii – her home for 34 years -- and with her husband moved into a retirement community in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. where she enjoys walking and hiking outdoors and using her bookbinding skills to repair a ton of dilapidated books for the residents of the community. After earlier publishing an academic textbook for learning the Manchu language, Gertraude recently published “Lights & Shadows: Discoveries Away From Home. Perspectives on American, German and Chinese Cultures.” This non-fiction book, a project which took ten years to complete, is based on nearly a hundred interviews and also includes Gertraude’s own insights and experiences. It was a labor of love and seeks to share the joys and challenges that come with living as a foreigner in one of these three cultures. 

You can connect with Gertraude on Facebook under @LightsandShadowsBook.
https://www.facebook.com/LightsandShadowsBook/

Tammy Bird

Tammy Bird is a suspense/thriller author. She currently lives in Wendell, North Carolina with her wife and two cats. By day, she pours her heart into helping students fulfill their educational dreams. The best part of her job is mentoring aspiring writers and watching as each finds his or her rhythm and voice. By night she sinks into her own rhythm and voice, creating new characters and new stories that she hopes will both teach and entertain. "Storytelling with a purpose," she calls it, a way to give back to the many who gave up so much in the past to represent those in the margins.

Tammy's work is rarely defined as sweet or cozy, and she likes it that way. She is here for the beautiful swirl of psychologically hard and gritty and fantastically real.

You can connect with Tammy on FaceBook at Tammy Bird, author, Instagram @tammybirdauthor, and Twitter @Tammy_Bird. You can also visit her website at tammybird.com.

Maureen Thorpe

I had a dream – a real dream. When I woke up, I began to write ‘Tangle of Time’. Before becoming a writer, I was a nurse, a running coach, a yoga teacher and a Shakespeare addict. The dream and Shakespeare gave me my characters and setting – a midwife, a longbowman, and Yorkshire – where I was born.

https://maureenthorpe.com/

blog archive : https://maureenthorpe.com/blog/

Newsletter Archives: https://maureenthorpe.com/newsletters/

Patricia Loofbourrow

Patricia Loofbourrow was born in southern California in 1962. She began writing poetry in her teen years, and wrote her first novel during the 2005 National Novel Writing Month, going on to write well over 100 stories, mostly speculative fiction. She became a USA Today and NY Times best-selling author in February 2017 with her debut novel The Jacq of Spades as part of the Dark Humanity science fiction and fantasy box set.
Patricia Loofbourrow grew up on Heinlein, Bradbury, and Asimov, and found at an early age that she loved science. Earning a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology with a minor in Chemistry from Cal Poly Pomona then an MD from Rush University, Dr. Loofbourrow practiced family medicine for ten years before changing careers in 2000 due to disability.
After leaving medicine, Patricia Loofbourrow ran one of the first “ask a doctor” patient education websites from 2000-2004. She has been a long-time member of the Forward Motion Forums, and has worked as a freelance writer, editor, and graphic designer since 2000. She currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband and three grown children.

Author Website

Susanne Bacon

Susanne Bacon was born in Stuttgart, Germany, has a double Master's degree in literature and linguistics, and has been working as a journalist for over 20 years. She lives with her husband in the South Puget Sound region in Washington State. Apart from an early German historical novel translated into English, Susanne has created the Wycliff novels, small-town romances loosely interconnected, with a lot of Western Washington flavor and recipes of her own creation. She also writes non-fiction, such as the essays published under the Title "Home from Home". Reviewers have compared her romance writing to Debbie Macomber, Maeve Binchy, and Hallmark movies.

https://www.amazon.com/Susanne-Bacon/e/B06Y16DNPY?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1558373325&sr=8-1

https://thesubtimes.com/author/susannebacon/

https://www.facebook.com/susannebaconauthor/  

Toni Kief

Toni Kief, from a small Midwestern town and a family of high spirits and laughter. Presently lives in a small town in Washington state, she plans to stay for the view, trees, and friends. Her life story includes decades in Insurance claims as one of the first women outside casualty investigators. A longtime civil rights activist, she shares stories about lunches with politicians, leaders, and artists. Toni didn’t start writing until she was sixty years old as a challenge. She joined a writer’s group that specialized in flash fiction, presently she is writing novels. Toni prefers to write about people of “a certain age.” Finally retired she continues to gathers stories prime for embellishment in extraordinary situations. Toni is a founding director of The Writers Cooperative of the Pacific Northwest and is a driving force it the continued growth.

www.tonikief.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Toni-Kief/e/B01CR8V3RG/ref
 
https://www.facebook.com/tonikief8author/