KATHLEEN ALCALÁ is the author of Spirits of the Ordinary and four other award-winning books. She teaches creative writing at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island.
MATTHEW AMSTER-BURTON is a personal finance columnist for Mint.com and co-host of the hit food-and-comedy podcast “Spilled Milk.” He is the author of Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater, and has been repeatedly featured in the Best Food Writing anthology.
KIT BAKKE spent the twentieth century as an anti-war street fighter, a pediatric nurse and a business consultant (though not at the same time). In the twenty-first, she turned to writing, which she also thinks is fun. Her books, so far, are Miss Alcott’s E-mail and Dot to Dot.
ERICA BAUERMEISTER is the author of the bestselling novels The School of Essential Ingredients and Joy For Beginners. She is also the co-author of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2–14.
SEAN BEAUDOIN is the author of the novels Going Nowhere Faster, Fade to Blue, and You Killed Wesley Payne. His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications including Narrative, The Onion, the New Orleans Review, Glimmer Train, The Rumpus, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines.
DAVE BOLING is a Northwest journalist. His first novel, Guernica, won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award for fiction in 2009, and was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection. Published in fifteen languages, it made several international bestseller lists.
DEB CALETTI is an award-winning young adult author and National Book Award finalist. Her many books include The Nature of Jade, Stay, and Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, winner of the Washington State Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Best Book Award, and a finalist for the PEN USA Award.
CAROL CASSELLA is a practicing anesthesiologist, the mother of two sets of twins, and author of two nationally bestselling novels, Healer and Oxygen.
WILLIAM DIETRICH is the author of ten novels, four non-fiction books, and was a longtime Northwest journalist who shared a Pulitzer at the Seattle Times. He has taught environmental journalism at Western Washington University, and his fiction has sold into thirty-one languages. His newest novel is Blood of the Reich.
ROBERT DUGONI is the New York Times bestselling author of the David Sloane Series: The Jury Master, Wrongful Death, Bodily Harm, and Murder One. His books have been translated into twenty-three languages.
KEVIN EMERSON has published six novels for middle-grade readers: Carlos Is Gonna Get It and the Oliver Nocturne series #1–5. His next novels, The Fellowship for Alien Detection for middle grade, and The Siren and the Skull (book 1 of a YA trilogy), will be published in 2012. A former elementary school science teacher, Kevin teaches writing to teens in Seattle, and sings in two bands.
KAREN FINNEYFROCK is a poet and novelist. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released in 2010. Her young adult novel, Celia, the Dark and Weird, is due in 2012.
CLYDE FORD is the author of many works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy award winner.
JAMIE FORD is the New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which was an IndieBound NEXT selection, a Borders Original Voices selection, and a Barnes & Noble Book Club selection. It has been translated into twenty-five languages, though Jamie is still holding out for Klingon (because that’s when you know you’ve made it).
ELIZABETH GEORGE is the awarding-winning and internationally bestselling author of many mystery novels, including the popular Inspector Lynley series. Most of her books have been filmed for television for the BBC and broadcast in the U.S. on PBS’s “MYSTERY!”.
MARY GUTERSON is the author of the novels We Are All Fine Here and Gone to the Dogs. She has written for public radio, print magazines, and blogs, and her fiction and poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies.
MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY is the author of the novel Queen of Kings, and the memoir The Year of Yes.
TERI HEIN is the Founding Executive Director of 826 Seattle, a youth writing center. Her memoir Atomic Farmgirl was a Booksense pick. She has had stories and essays published in a number of other books and magazines.
STEPHANIE KALLOS spent twenty years in the theater before turning her full attention to writing. Her first novel, Broken for You, was selected for “The Today Show” book club by Sue Monk Kidd. Her second novel, Sing Them Home, was chosen by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 10 Best Books of 2009. Stephanie is currently working on her third novel.
ERIK LARSON’s most recent book is In the Garden of Beasts. His international bestseller, The Devil in the White City, won an Edgar Award for best fact-crime writing.
DAVID LASKY is a comic artist who created the series Boom Boom and Urban Hipster (in collaboration with Greg Stump). He has drawn comics for numerous anthologies (Kramers Ergot, Hotwire) and is currently at work (with collaborator Frank Young) on a graphic novel biography of country music’s legendary Carter Family, which will debut in 2012.
STACEY LEVINE is the author of four books, including The Girl with Brown: Fur-Tales and Stories. Her fiction has appeared in Fence, Tin House, The Fairy Tale Review, Yeti, and other venues. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has also received the PEN/West Fiction Award, the Stranger Genius Award for Literature, and other honors.
FRANCES MCCUE is a poet and prose writer. From 1996–2006, she was the Founding Director of Richard Hugo House in Seattle, WA. Currently, she is the Writer in Residence at the Undergraduate Honors Program at the University of Washington.
JARRET MIDDLETON is the author of An Dantomine Eerly and other surrealist fiction. He is the editor and co-founder of Dark Coast Press, an independent literary publisher in Seattle.
PETER MOUNTFORD is the author of the novel A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism. His short fiction has recently appeared in Best New American Voices 2008, Michigan Quarterly Review, Conjunctions, Phoebe, and Boston Review.
KEVIN O’BRIEN was a railroad inspector traveling throughout the Pacific Northwest before his thrillers landed him on the New York Times bestseller list. He worked all the live long day and wrote at night. Now he writes full time. His latest thriller is Disturbed.
NANCY PEARL is a librarian and reader. She’s written four books in her acclaimed Book Lust series: Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest; and Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers.
JULIA QUINN is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over twenty novels of historical romance.
NANCY RAWLES is the author of My Jim, the 2009 selection of the Seattle Public Library’s popular program “Seattle Reads,” and a realistic picture of the bereaved family of Huck Finn’s famous companion.
SUZANNE SELFORS began her first novel a few moments after the school bus whisked away her youngest child for full-time school, and she hasn’t stopped since. She writes middle grade for Little, Brown and teen novels for Walker/Bloomsbury. She’s been published in a dozen countries with more on the way.
JENNIE SHORTRIDGE is the author of four bestselling novels, including her latest, When She Flew. Her nonfiction work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. A co-founder of Seattle7Writers and an active volunteer in the community, she is currently at work on her next novel.
ED SKOOG is the author of a collection of poems, Mister Skylight, and the forthcoming collection migratory restlessness. His poems have appeared in Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, Slate, and The New Republic.
GARTH STEIN is the author of three novels, including the New York Times and international bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain. He has also worked as a playwright and documentary filmmaker, and is a co-founder of Seattle7Writers.
GREG STUMP is a teacher and artist. He is a longtime contributor to The Stranger, the co-creator of the acclaimed comic book series Urban Hipster, and a former critic and journalist for The Comics Journal. His most recent work is the graphic novel Disillusioned Illusions.
INDU SUNDARESAN is an internationally bestselling author of five books, including the three novels of the Taj Mahal Trilogy. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
CRAIG WELCH is the author of Shell Games: A True Story of Cops, Con Men, and the Smuggling of America’s Strangest Wildlife, a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award. A journalist for two decades, Welch has been the environment reporter at The Seattle Times since 2000, and his work has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, the Washington Post, and Newsweek.
SUSAN WIGGS is a writer, a reader, a teacher, and dreamer, and #1 New York Times bestselling author.