WordLink Authors A-F

ROBIN ACTON

The author has enjoyed a journalism career spanning three decades that took her from crime scenes and courtrooms in western Pennsylvania to the marbled halls of Congress in Washington, D.C. Robin is the recipient of over 100 awards from state and regional professional journalism organizations for her work, including such prestigious awards as the 1995 Public Service Award from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation for an investigative series on the courts; News Writer of the Year in 2001 and 2008 by the Pennsylvania Women’s Press Association; five Golden Quill Awards and more than a dozen additional Golden Quill nominations from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania. She received four Matrix awards from the Association for Women in Communications in Pennsylvania, including numerous honors in the Pennsylvania Keystone Press Association, the Society for Professional Journalists, and the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors competitions.

EMPTY BOXES (Blank Slate Press, 2025) - While investigating the shocking murder of a prominent funeral director, crack Pittsburgh crime reporter Rita Locke discovers that the victim has been burying empty coffins. As she peels back the layers of this puzzling development, she uncovers secrets that embroil her in a sinister plot of international proportions. As her dogged investigation exposes troubling facts involving the victim and his ties to an offshore medical school, Rita soon discovers she is in a fight for survival when her trail of clues leads her from her native state to the Caribbean where she becomes entangled in a web of deception and murder. It’s only after she ends up in a box herself that she finally discovers the truth behind the murder.

THE LAST OBITUARY - Crime reporter Rita Locke’s life is upended when she receives a chilling death threat shortly after the birth of her daughter. What begins as an anonymous poem and a menacing phone call quickly escalates into a series of targeted attacks. As Rita and her colleagues become hostages in their own newspaper, they are forced to write humiliating, confessional obituaries about themselves under threat of deadly violence. Despite the chaos around her, Rita’s investigation exposes the hidden traumas and secrets of her colleagues, while she races against time to uncover who is orchestrating the terror and why she has been singled out for such vengeance.

Contact - Dean Krystek

ELLA ALEXANDER

After graduating from Bard College in 2018 with a degree in creative writing Ella Alexander has studied under Porochista Khakpour, Neil Gaiman, Rivka Galchen, and Wyatt Mason, and completed her senior thesis (a novella) under advisor Mary Caponegro. An LA native, she currently resides in Berlin. Her writing has been featured in publications including LongReads and HuffPost. The Sleeping Land is her debut novel.

THE SLEEPING LAND (The Unnamed Press, 2025) - Less than two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, three junior archeologists and their glory hound advisor arrive at a remote cave in the heart of the Siberian wilderness to carry out the first extensive Western dig on Russian soil since the execution of the Czar. The excavation yields fascinating discoveries, and excitement grows among the team. As each member of the party grapples with the complexities and the challenges of the dig, going deeper into the cave, a strange feeling sets in. Are they really alone out there?

Contact - Zeynep Sen

MICHAEL AMEDEO

A high school dropout, Michael later earned his BA at the University of Illinois and an MA at the University of Chicago. His pre-fiction work was in creative marketing, journalism, and public relations. He earned awards for copywriting at the Chicago area’s Stevens and Tate agency. In journalism, he reviewed film and theatre as a freelancer for Chicago’s New City newspaper and wrote film feature stories as a freelancer for the Chicago Sun-Times, including articles on film noir and on the movies of noir icon Robert Mitchum. His background in noir inspired the Matt Moulton series.

PAST TENSE - Matt Moulton #1 (Level Best Books, 2024) - The author’s salute to the hard-boiled detectives of the 40’s and 50’s. Matt Moulton, PI escapes San Francisco after a tragic ending to a case, to settle in LA where he becomes embroiled in murder, corruption, and betrayal that expose the glitter capital’s sinister underbelly. It’s pure “black & white” noir reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

FADE TO BLACK - Matt Moulton #2 (Level Best Books, May 2025) - Mouton’s high-risk, high-reward client is a black woman who leads her dead white husband’s mob in Chicago. Her daughter disappeared without a trace after moving to LA to pursue the nearly impossible dream of becoming a movie star. The mob lady believes that no one is better suited to find out what happened to her girl than the tough, cynical, but racially sensitive Moulton. The story turns pure noir when Moulton discovers that the daughter is held captive by a corporate movie studio operating a black-sex slave ring.

Contact - Dean Krystek

CHRIS BERG

Chris Berg and Paul James Smith have a combined half-century of boots-on-the-ground law enforcement that gives an unparalleled raw intensity to their narratives. Their careers, spanning undercover operations, SWAT, and high-level state and federal task forces, provide a deep well of firsthand knowledge, and their meticulous attention to detail provides readers with a gripping, authentic portrayal of the criminal underworld. The first draft of Blood Brothers won the Best Investigator Claymore Award at Killer Nashville. and was a Page Turner Award finalist.

BLOOD BROTHERS (Crime Fiction) - Detective Vince Driftwood’s world shatters when his Vietnam brother and patrol partner, Sugarcane Flood, is brutally executed. A line is crossed, and Vince’s badge is no longer enough. Suspended and haunted, he becomes a rogue force hunting killers who thought they were untouchable. Armed with just one clue—a brown Camaro—and everything to lose, Vince plunges into a dark underworld where justice comes at a deadly price. Pursued by the relentless Internal Affairs Sergeant Grace Kiddo and battling his own demons, Vince navigates a treacherous landscape where loyalty is currency and revenge is the only language spoken. As the body count rises and the truth unravels, Vince must decide how much he's willing to sacrifice in his quest for justice. Blood Brothers explores the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood and the consuming nature of vengeance, hurtling towards a conclusion that leaves no one unscathed.

Contact - Dean Krystek

ESTER BLOOM

Ester Bloom is an award-winning writer who served as the Deputy Manager Editor of the money website Grow (CNBC + Acorns). Formerly, she was a Senior Editor at CNBC Make It, an editor at The Billfold (an Awl network site), a Contributing Editor at the Barnes & Noble blog, and a Contributing Writer for The Atlantic. Her awards include the Lois Morrell Poetry Prize and the Dogwood Literary Creative Nonfiction Prize. One of her essays was the Creative Nonfiction Magazine Editor’s Top Pick for the True Crime issue, 2012; another was recognized in the “Notable” section of The Best American Essays 2015. Her work has appeared in Slate, Salon, Creative Nonfiction magazine, New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, Flavorwire, Quartz, the Daily Dot, and the Toast, for which she wrote the advice column Aunt Acid. She has been interviewed on MSNBC, MTV.com, HuffPost Live, WPIX 11 Morning News, the Geraldo Rivera Show, Bitch Magazine’s Popaganda podcast, Vice’s The Business of Life, and Slate’s United States of Debt.

A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME (Speculative Fiction) - 21-year-old Lyddie once had big dreams of graduating from college and becoming a robotics engineer. Now she's a single mom, stymied and stuck, living in a trailer on her parents' lawn, working in IT to troubleshoot problems with bots she isn't considered qualified to design. To distract herself, she relies on a bio-hacking app that, once a day, lets you borrow an hour from the end of your life and use it now. While using the app one evening, Lyddie unexpectedly links with a young man in worse shape than she is. When she agrees to help him, she is drawn into the shadowy, deadly world where sinister forces controlling unimaginable AI surrogates try to prevent Lyddie from exposing a parallel society bent on reimaging mankind. The novel is upmarket, speculative fiction appealing readers of the genre, Emily St. John Mandel, Naomi Alderman, Kazuo Ishiguro, or Connie Willis.

APPLEBAUM, AGENT OF GOD (General Fiction) - In a turbulent Presidential election year, Jay Applebaum, a successful talent agent in New York City, is unexpectedly approached by Angel Michael, who informs Jay that God has decided to reveal His presence on Earth and has chosen Jay to represent Him. Although Jay believes in God, the appearance of Angel Michael shakes his world to its core. Jay is reluctant to get involved, but much like Jonah in the Bible, he discovers that those who are called upon are not given a choice. Jay is instructed to appear on television to deliver four edicts. The last of these, a direct challenge to the American way of life, divides the country and pits Jay against his family.

Contact - Dean Krystek

ALLISON BOWEN

Allison Bowen is an inspiring and talented writer and illustrator. She graduated from American University with a B.A. in Graphic Design and later pursued her M.S. in Integrated Business, Design and Technology at USC, which is where she met Michelle Melamed. It was here that the two women’s dream of “Centered Storyline” was born, as a Capstone Project for their Master’s Program. Allison works at 2U, an educational technology company, where she creates designs and illustrations inspired by literature that prioritize storytelling. She currently lives in Washington D.C.

REMY’S ATTIC OF AWE (Eifrig Publishing, 2026) - First in a new series of chapter books in the “Centered Storyline.” In which Theodore Turner loves turning the dials, pulling the levers, and snapping photos with his Nana’s 1967 film camera. Curious to see more pictures of his family, Theodore asks Nana about the photo albums, and she points him the attic. That night Theodore tiptoes upstairs and discovers something extraordinary: Remy, the Turner Macaw of Awe. Together, they journey through photographs that come alive with the stories of musicians, scientists, activists, dreamers, and doers in his family’s past. Through these awe-filled tales, Theodore realizes his Black-American heritage is rich with courage and creativity—and that he can grow up to be anything he imagines.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

KATHERINE BRYANT

As the mother of a non-binary gay child, the author became increasingly interested in LGBTQ history, and in particular, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and The Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin. Tillie, Ruth, James, and Ernesto came to life as she studied the Nazi destruction of The Institute of Sexual Science and their burning of all of Dr. Hirschfeld’s research on the LGBTQ community members of Berlin and the surrounding areas. This is her debut novel.

GIVE MY LOVE TO BERLIN (Amphorae Publishing, 2025) - In 1927, Berlin is the gay capital of the world. Ruth, a performer at one of the nightclubs in the city, and her girlfriend, Tillie, are enjoying the freedom of the Weimer Republic. As the ’20s come to a close, Tillie’s father, a prominent lawyer, becomes more entrenched with the Nazi Party. As his secretary, Tillie meets prominent figures in the Nazi Party, including Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring, and soon discovers there is much more at stake than just her gay relationship with Ruth, who is also Jewish.

In the early 1990s, a young woman named Thea dealing with trying to cope with her grandmother’s dementia, and his shocked to learn of secrets her grandmother never intended to reveal. Alternating between Tillie’s perspective during the waning days of the Weimar Republic and Thea’s perspective in the ’90s the novel follows the lives of two gay couples—Tillie and Ruth, and their best friends, James and Ernesto—trying to navigate falling in love, thriving in their gay community, and coming to terms with the danger they are in just by being who they are. Fans of The Alice Network (Kate Quinn) and The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah) will find Give My Love to Berlin an intense and emotional experience that not only captures the epic panorama of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany but illuminates a part of history seldom seen: the war on the LGBTQ community.

Contact - Mira Perrizo

ANDREW BURMON

Andrew Burmon is a multiple Webby-winning editor, Peabody-nominated producer, adept marketer, serial entrepreneur, newly minted GQ columnist and staunch member of the upper-middle class. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of SPY, Fatherly, and Inverse. Earlier in his career he worked as staffer at Men’s Journal, Maxim, The Huffington Post, and an anti-authoritarian newspaper (now shuttered) in Cambodia. Andrew’s Upper Middle, a newsletter about privileged peoples’ anxieties currently has over 100,000 readers.

‍HOW TO BE UPPER MIDDLE CLASS (Advice/Humor) - Serves as a tongue-in-cheek handbook for white-collar “doomscrollers” desperate to have status, taste, and money, but uneducated about how class actually works in America (and embarrassed to talk about it). The book is a mash-up of Kyla Scanlon’s In This Economy, Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money and The Preppy Handbook and targeted for browsers at Barnes & Noble and Urban Outfitter.

Contact - Zeynep Sen‍ ‍

MICHAEL CAHLIN

Michael started his career as a newspaper reporter but contributed to developing a vast array of software whose DNA can be found in today’s desktop publishers, word processors, spell checkers, file managers, backup programs, and system utilities. He co-created The Official XTree MS-DOS & Hard Disk Companion, one of the blueprints for the successful “Dummies” Series. He has contributed articles to Basketball Weekly, Family Circle, PC World, Tom’s Guide and The Writer. His fiction appears in Mystery Weekly, Black Cat’s Mystery Megapack, and Down & Out Mystery Magazine. Michael has a Master of Education from Pepperdine University, is a member of The League of Vermont Writers, and currently working on his next book.

WICKED PROBLEMS (Historical Thriller) - The author weaves his narrative around the US Government’s WWII top secret program Operation Paperclip where the US, in the twilight of World War II, kidnapped and smuggled Nazi scientists into the United States to continue their work for our government. The clandestine operation was eventually exposed; however, for many years, the American public was unaware of these men who were hiding in plain sight. Cahlin explores this hidden world, where a young mother discovers her employer’s link to a despicable former enemy of her nation, and the destructive consequences when she decides to expose him.

Jonathan Lerner, a one-time hotshot reporter, grew up with nagging guilt that he could not prevent the murder-suicide that took the lives of his mother and younger sister. Now, decades later, when he receives information that suicide was not involved in their deaths, he must shake off his reporter’s rust and investigate the bizarre lead given him. Returning to his boyhood hometown, Lerner’s quest for the truth exposes startling facts. Though sinister government agents move in to stop his investigation, Lerner’s crusade to seek justice sets him upon a trail of subterfuge and deceit that leads to the White House.

Contact - Dean Krystek

BONNIE CALLAHAN

Tucson native Bonnie Callahan majored in classics and Italian at the University of Arizona and studied seven years abroad in Italy. She lives with her family in the Sonoran Desert, where she writes inclusive love stories in multiple genres. Bonnie has four novels to her credit, one of which is being considered for film, and her short stories have appeared in various anthologies.

REMY vs ROME (Contemporary Romance) - Art history grad Remy’s long-awaited return to Rome—the site of her first kiss—should be the perfect fresh start, until an impulsive date on her first day leaves her implicated in the theft of an ancient amulet. Placed under house arrest, she’s assigned to Lorenzo, the infuriatingly attractive detective running the investigation. To clear her name, they chase a trail of clues from ruins to chapels across the Eternal City. With her ex tugging her toward the life she planned and Rome tempting her with the one she didn’t, Remy must outrun the thieves who framed her—and get honest about what she’s really looking for.

Contact - Chip Rice

AYA CHEBBI

Aya Chebbi is a Pan-African feminist who rose to prominence as a voice for democracy during Tunisia’s Revolution in 2010/2011, which toppled a 23-year dictatorship. She then served as the first ever African Union Special Envoy on Youth and became the youngest diplomat at the Chairperson’s Cabinet (2018–2021). In 2024, she was appointed United Nations Global Champion on Conflict Related Sexual Violence and Youth Liaison to the Office of Special Representative and Under Secretary General. She received the 2019 Bill and Melinda Gates Campaign Award, 2024 Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices and was named in Forbes Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women. Aya is also a podcaster and hosts a popular podcast called “I AM NALA”. She also runs her own brand Chebbi House which provides coaching, advisory and online leadership courses and sells Afro Clothing in Tunisia and Kenya.

YOUR POWER IS YOUR RADICAL SELF. FIND IT (Inspirational) - The author dismantles the narratives that have disempowered women and provides a roadmap for reclaiming our voice, body, and spirit. A book of self-ownership at its core, is both a manifesto and a guide, giving women the permission, and the tools, to take up space, use their voices, and shape their futures, written by a woman who has had to do so herself. Each chapter explores a different form of power, from the political strength of our voices to the sacred wisdom of our feminine energy. Each is backed by Aya’s personal and often, turbulent experiences, as well as with cultural analysis, and practical steps for self-empowerment.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

DONALD LAZLO CONHAIM

Born in Minneapolis, USA, Conhaim is a national award-winning author whose historical fiction is known for exploring themes of racial and social justice, identity, and moral struggle in the American West. His earlier novels include All Man’s Land, a Spur Award finalist and Will Rogers Medallion “Maverick” winner, and The Unredeemed, Best Novel winner in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards.

MEMOIRS OF SPURIUS (Historical Fiction) - A political whodunit set in Ancient Rome and based on a real but little-known battle that took place in 186 BCE. The novel purports to be the “found” memoirs of Spurius Postumius Albinus, Consul of Rome. Investigating a series of crimes attributed to the Cult of Bacchus that, he argues, “threaten the very heart of the State,” Spurius perhaps doesn’t intend to start a witch hunt, at least not one that results in the deaths of some 3,500 Romans. Yet that is precisely what happens as Rome’s war on terror takes her legions as far as Asia to bring a relentless scourge to justice—the exiled Carthaginian Hannibal.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

KATIE CUNNINGHAM

Katie is a queer Scottish writer, who loves horror, long distance running and cold-water swimming. Primarily published in comics, Katie’s first graphic novel, Rotten Under the Snow, came out in 2021 at Time Bomb Comics. She currently writes an ongoing series, Space Banshee Exorcist, for Time Bomb’s bi-monthly annual, Quantum, and has also featured in several of their other books. She was part of the Eisner winning Sensory anthology in 2022. Her debut prose novel, Something to Live For, will debut from Dead Sky Publishing in early 2026.

BONES (YA Fantasy/Horror) - Set in an alternative version of 1800s London, it’s a story about personhood, bodily autonomy, and academic cannibals. Drawing on the real life Victorian and Renaissance belief that consuming mummies would cure diseases, Bones creates a world where Historians control access to Necromancy- the ability to use the dead to heal the living and extend lives into near-immortality. This has led to even more social stratification, with the rich living forever by exploiting the poor. We follow Uan Bones, a loyal Museum employee with a mysterious past, and Maricar, the desperate illegitimate daughter of the world's foremost Historian, as they try to untangle their lives from what they believe they owe their toxic father figure.

Contact - Macey Howell

ELORA DODD

Elora Dodd is a social media influencer, who goes by the handle @online1roomschoolhouse. Having established a solid presence on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and X, Dodd creates autism-related, humorous content for her channels. In creating this content, she seeks to provide autistic people like her with a sense of community, connection and meaning that might be difficult to come by in the world that we live in. She has over 575K followers on social media at present.

GOD MADE MY BRAIN AN OCTOPUS (Children’s Picture Book) Growing up Southern Baptist set Elora in a world of high harsh expectations. Having undiagnosed autistic rendered her incapable of meeting those expectations. Often, she felt like a failure, and recommitted herself over and over and over to “take God more seriously.” But no amount of willpower that would make her brain function in the same way as other people. God Made My Brain An Octopus is a love letter to the small child Elora once was, looking to God in loneliness and shame. Every child deserves to be adored for who they are, not who the people around them wish they were.

POEMS FOR UNUSUAL WOMEN (Poetry) - The book explores the complex relationship women have with their bodies, their men, children, and more Poems for Unusual Women is a work for unusual readers. Yet at the same time, it’s a work that speaks to all women, be they neurotypical or neurodivergent, young or old, American or of a whole other nationality entirely. Envisioned as a poetry and puzzle book, Poems for Unusual Women narrates the unique experience of womanhood and resonate deep within them.

THE ACTUALLY AUTISTIC GUIDE (Coming Spring of 2026 from Apollo Publishing) - with co-author C. R. R. Hillin, the book has been carefully crafted by autistics for autistics in order to enable community members to conquer daily challenges heads on. Authors Elora Dodd, whose social media account buzzing with anecdotes from her experiences as a neurodivergent has acquired more than seven hundred thousand followers, and her fellow activist C. R. R. Hillin, use their signature humor, creativity, and relatability to provide guidance acquired from their own experiences as well as from members of the #actuallyautistic online community.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

REPRESENTATIVE MICKEY DOLLENS

Oklahoma House Minority Whip Mickey Dollens is a former high school teacher who entered politics in 2016 and won his seat with 60% of the vote. His passion for direct democracy comes from his deep belief that citizens—not just politicians—should have a say in shaping their government.

A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO POLITICAL CHANGE (Current Affairs) - Author Mickey Dollens, lays out a step-by-step blueprint for launching, organizing, and winning citizen-led ballot initiatives. This book isn't just about ballot initiatives, though. Packed with personal stories, historical context, and hands-on advice, it is a call to action and a challenge issued to readers to harness the tools of direct democracy to create a government that is responsive, just, and accountable—a government that works for the people.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

RACHEL DuBRUELER

Rachel DuBrueler has been spellbound by the macabre since childhood, when her wonderfully unconventional parents indulged her with as many age-inappropriate scary movies as she could get her hands on, fueling a permanent fascination with all things creepy, namely the storytelling she loves today. Rachel proudly earned four degrees from West Virginia University, her home state’s flagship institution, and considers herself a perpetual student even though she stopped paying Mensa dues years ago. While her days are spent in corporate strategy and finance, her late nights and weekends are spoken for by the twisty psychological thrillers she can’t keep herself from writing.

THE TANGLED WEBS WE WEAVE (Psychological Thriller) - The women’s reckoning you’ve been waiting for. It is not your mother’s domestic suspense novel, as it pushes the boundaries of everything from race and sexuality to social status and loyalty in relationships, and you should ask yourself: when you’ve got secrets of your own to keep, how far would you be willing to go to find the truth?

SKELETONS FOR FURNITURE (Psychological Thriller) - The author lets loose an intriguing, disturbing narrative that serves up both sizzle and steak, weaving an insidious tale of paranoia wrapped in fear and resentment of what happens when hysteria guides good intentions straight into the gutter, as three neighboring families wage wars with themselves and each other. Suspicion, meet obsession.

Contact - Mira Perrizo

JAHA DUKUREH

Jaha Dukureh is the founder of Safe Hands for Girls, a nonprofit organization working to protect young women and girls who are at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). For her outstanding work on women's rights and advocating against FGM, she was named TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People for 2016, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, and called one of the 100 most influential Africans of 2017 by New African magazine. Herself a survivor of FGFM and forced into marriage at 15, Jaha successfully contributed to President Obama’s administration investigating the profile of FGM in the United States and the subsequent Summit to End FGM at the United States Institute of Peace.  Alongside women’s organizations and civil society, Jaha has also contributed to the Gambian Government announcing a ban on FGM through youth mobilization and campaigning in Gambia. 

I WILL SCREAM TO THE WORLD (Dafina, 2024) - On the wedding night of her first arranged marriage, fifteen-year-old Jaha learned that she had undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as an infant. That painful discovery, coupled with her experiences with a second arranged marriage, set Jaha on her path as an activist—a courageous mission that would require her to brave hostility in her community and family, and even attempts on her life. Despite the challenges, and with ever-growing determination, Jaha founded Safe Hands for Girls, an organization that succeeded in having FGM banned in Gambia. She is now working to eradicate FGM and forced child marriage worldwide by 2030. Above all, Jaha’s unflinchingly honest memoir is a story of resilience and extraordinary fearlessness, of the strength that comes with learning to love oneself, and of the power within everyone to create meaningful and lasting change. 

Contact - Zeynep Sen

ERIK EDSTROM

After graduating from West Point in 2007, the author completed the US Army Rangers School - where he won the Rippetoe Trophy during The Best Ranger Competition - was selected into the US Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry platoon leader. He received the Bronze Star for his service in Operation Enduring Freedom. Erik spent the remainder of his service as the Presidential Escort Platoon Leader during the Obama administration. After the military, Erik went on to earn both an MBA and a Master of Science, studying climate change, from Oxford University. After graduate school, Erik moved to Australia for five years, where he worked as a management consultant.

UN-AMERICAN: A SOLDIERL’S RECKONING WITH OUR LONGEST WAR (Bloomsbury, 2020) - A soldier’s explosive memoir of the War on Terror that exposes the dark side of war from which he drew the conclusion that the War on Terror was not only a tragedy, but a crime. The deeper tragedy is that our country lacks the courage and conviction to say so. The book is not just a memoir, it is a revolutionary act, offering a blueprint for redressing America’s relationship with patriotism, the military, and military spending

Contact - Zeynep Sen

KRISTY ENSOR

Kristy Ensor is an award-winning writer weaving stories of hope with threads of Southern charm. Known as the “Back Road Diva” due to her love of traveling off the beaten path, she aspires to offer hope, comfort, and encouragement through her writing and in everyday life. Kristy co-wrote the devotional Hope is... (Bold Vision Books, 2022) regularly contributes to Lifeway’s Journey magazine, and also writes articles, essays, and devotions for other publications. Kristy lives in Tennessee with her husband. You can find her online (@thebackroaddiva) where she shares about life, local travel experiences, inspiration, and Monday Motivations

ALL KINDS OF KIND (Children’s Picture Book) - The author draws from her experience in special education to create a picture book about how children can show kindness to children with autism, disability, or learning differences. The book is a wonderful classroom tool to assist teachers and administrators in developing classroom instruction that creates a healthy, inclusive experience for children with disabilities and children who interact with peers with special needs.

Contact - Macey Howell

CHARLES B. FANCHER

Charles B. Fancher is a former journalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Detroit Free-Press and a former senior executive at Knight-Ridder's Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. and at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has also been a Howard University faculty member and an adjunct instructor at Temple University. Charles is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Journalists at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He began his career as a local TV news reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and as an ABC-TV publicist in New York.

MY NAME EDNA MAE (Coming Feb. 2027 from Blackstone Publishing) - In this powerful companion to his debut, Red Clay, Charles B. Fancher grips hearts with ease, only to bend and break them as beloved characters lean on each other through joyous highs and unspeakable lows in a Deep South town still haunted by ghosts from its dark past and deep passions of its complex present.

RED CLAY (Blackstone Publishing, 2025) - A multigenerational saga that follows the interwoven lives of an enslaved Black family and their white owners as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins. With a vivid sense of place and a cast of memorable characters, Fancher draws upon personal family history to weave a riveting tale of love, betrayal, and redemption, set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus that reverberates in contemporary America.

Contact - Chip Rice

GEORGE FARAG

Dr. George Farag is a United States diplomat, consul, political anthropologist, and the CEO of Silverline Strategies, where he provides expert analysis on U.S. immigration policy and processes. A member of America’s “expeditionary diplomats,” he served with an elite group of foreign service officers that specialized in high-risk missions; diplomacy's equivalent of the military's special forces. George was among the first diplomats to enter Iraq in 2003 and helped evacuate 15,000 Americans during the 2006 war in Lebanon. He has also worked in consular services with U.S. embassies in the Middle East for over a decade and decided on thousands of visa applications. George holds a U.S. government security clearance and is the recipient of the Department of State’s Superior Honor Award, the Meritorious Honor Award, and the George P. Schultz Consular Certificate. He has written on immigration policy, including op-eds in the New York Daily News and the National Law Review as well as white paper titled Pro-American Immigration: Common Ground in our Immigration Strategy.

THE CONSUL (Memoir) - In 2003, George Farag was among the first U.S. State Department diplomats to enter Iraq to “promote civilian governance.” He was a 28-year-old Egyptian immigrant and a foreign service officer for only eight weeks when he landed in the Iran-controlled province of Najaf, less prepared than a kid arriving at summer camp. Five months later, with a murdering warlord in close pursuit, he laid bloody and begging for an American ambassador’s life. This memoir is a braided narrative, weaving the story of his hardscrabble childhood and seeking redemption in America’s failed invasion of Iraq. Ultimately, it’s a political thriller that illustrates the resilience of the human spirit and resonates with the universal experiences of love and loss.

RADICAL INFLUENCE: BUSINESS LESSONS I LEARNED FROM THE WARLORDS (Business) - George Farag never intended to study Iraqi warlords. These men had American and Arab blood on their hands, some of it belonging to his friends. But as one of the first U.S. diplomats to enter Iraq in 2003, he quickly realized that understanding them could be a matter of life or death. He saw these radicals leverage chaos and demand loyalty to build militias that challenged the strongest military and diplomatic forces on earth. Years later, while building his own business, he relied more on their lessons than on the training I received for my diplomatic career. This book distills twelve warlord tactics for business success. It challenges conventional leadership wisdom while grappling with the ethical dilemmas of applying insights rooted in dark experiences from the Middle East.

Contact - Zeynep Sen