Listed in alphabetical order
Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Kristin Bair writes fiercely—and humorously—about women navigating (peri)menopause, marriage, motherhood, the mental load, and identity. Her fourth novel, Clementine Crane Prefers Not To (October 2025), tells the story of a woman radicalized against the patriarchy by her first hot flash—a blazing anthem for anyone ready to rewrite the rules. She is also the author of Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything (a People magazine Best New Book), The Art of Floating, and Thirsty, as well as essays on topics ranging from China and bears to expats gone rogue. Kristin has a proven track record of helping writers find their voices and develop their strongest work. She currently teaches in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University and annually at the Yale Writers’ Workshop. She also serves as an associate fiction editor for Pangyrus literary magazine. A native Pittsburgher now based north of Boston with her husband and two kids, Kristin invites readers to visit her website at kristinbair.com and sign up for her newsletter for book news, essays, big laughs, and more.
Jenna Blum is the New York Times and # 1 internationally bestselling author of three novels and a memoir; her fifth book and first thriller, Murder Your Darlings (HarperCollins, 2026), has been praised by various reviewers as “delicious,” “wickedly twisted,” and “a captivating tale of love, death, and literature” and optioned by Rohm Feifer Entertainment. Jenna is published in over 25 countries, a 28-year veteran teacher, one of Oprah’s Top 30 Women Writers, and CEO/Co-Founder of A Mighty Blaze. She lives in Boston, where she has run writing and novel workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, and A Mighty Blaze. For more about Jenna, please visit www.jennablum.com and find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Substack, and TikTok.
Jamie Day lives in one of those picture-perfect, coastal New England towns you see in the movies. And just like the movies, Jamie has two children and an adorable dog to fawn over. When not writing or reading, Jamie enjoys yoga, the ocean, cooking, and long walks on the beach with the dog, or the kids, or sometimes both.
Juliet Faithfull is a Spanish-British-American writer who grew up in Brazil. Liar’s Dice, her first novel, was a winner of the 2024 Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair and a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She was awarded a Pauline Scheer Fellowship by GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program in Boston, and her short stories have been published in the Bellevue Literary Review and Urbanus Magazine. A graduate of Harvard University and Smith College School for Social Work, Juliet works as a trilingual psychotherapist and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two sons.
Emily Franklin is the bestselling author of twenty-five books including The Lioness of Boston, a novel based on the life of trailblazer Isabella Stewart Gardner, which is in its eleventh printing and was recently featured as a clue on Jeopardy!. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, among many other places, as well as featured and read aloud on National Public Radio, named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and long-listed for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award. She grew up half in the UK and half in Boston where she lives with her spouse and four children. Her novel Love & Other Monsters, historical fiction told from the perspective of Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s forgotten stepsister who was integral in the creation of Frankenstein, will be published in April 2026.
Timely Topics in Apocalyptic Fiction — Sunday 12 PMLori Gold is the author of the Kiss, Marry, Kill (Harper Collins, April 7, 2026) and the Zibby Media Summer Read pick and NPR Book of the Day Romantic Friction. She is also the author of an adult historical and four novels for young adults (all under Lori Goldstein). She currently lives outside of Boston, where she fosters a writing community through her creative writing classes, book coaching, and writing retreats. She can be found at www.lorigoldsteinbooks.com and on Instagram at @lorigoldsteinbooks.
Annie Hartnett is the award-winning author of three novels: Rabbit Cake, Unlikely Animals, and the national bestseller The Road to Tender Hearts, which won the 2025 New England Book Award for fiction. Annie has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. Along with the writer Tessa Fontaine, she co-runs Accountability Workshops for writers, helping writers commit to routines and embrace the long, slow, joyful, terrible process of doing the work. She lives in Massachusetts with her pretty good husband, perfect daughter, and their beloved border collie.
Gish Jen is the author of six novels, two books of stories, and two works of nonfiction. Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the Fulbright Foundation, as well as the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her stories have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She and her husband split their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Bad Bad Girl is her latest novel and was named the best reviewed work of fiction in 2025 by Lit Hub.
Jessica Brilliant Keener’s bestselling debut novel, Night Swim, was followed by her collection of award-winning stories, Women in Bed. Her second novel, Strangers in Budapest, was an Indie Next pick, a Southern Independent Bookseller Association bestseller, and a “best new book” selection by Entertainment Weekly. She has been listed in The Pushcart Prize under “outstanding writers” and been granted writing fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Brown University, Wesleyan University, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as a women’s leadership fellowship from the Omega Institute in New York. Her more than 100 features and essays have appeared in The Boston Globe, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, O, Lilith, Psychology Today, and the anthology Alone Together, winner of the 2021 Washington State Book Prize. Her newest novel, Evening Begins the Day, is an Ingram Content Top Pick selection and a DearReader.com Book Club feature selection. DearReader.com’s membership includes more than 350,000 library patrons. Jessica lives with her husband, an attorney, and their twenty-year-old cat in Brookline, Massachusetts,
Marianne Leone is a writer, actress, and screenwriter. Her essays have appeared in The Boston Globe, Lithub, Ploughshares, Post Road, The Bark magazine, Coastal Living, Solstice, and others. She is the author of Jesse (Simon & Schuster, 2010), Ma Speaks Up (Beacon Press, 2017), Five Dog Epiphany (Akashic, 2024), and Christina the Astonishing (Akashic, 2025). She had a recurring role on HBO’s The Sopranos for four seasons as Joanne Moltisanti, Christopher’s mother. She has also appeared in films by David O. Russell, Larry David, John Sayles, Nancy Savoca, and Martin Scorsese. Jesse is published in Italy by Nutrimenti.
Catherine Newman is the internationally bestselling author of the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night, the kids’ craft book Stitch Camp, the best-selling how-to books for kids How to Be a Person and What Can I Say?, the novel We All Want Impossible Things, and the novels Sandwich and Wreck, which were both instant New York Times bestsellers. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times; Real Simple; O, The Oprah Magazine; Cup of Jo; and many other publications. She writes the Crone Sandwich newsletter on Substack and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Born in Chicago, Peter Orner is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, a New Yorker Best Book of 2025. Other books include Maggie Brown & Others; Love and Shame and Love; Esther Stories, finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award; and Am I Alone Here?, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has edited three volumes of oral history for Voice of Witness and McSweeney’s. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Believer, and Best American Short Stories and has been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. A Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Orner is currently chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. He lives with his family in Norwich, Vermont, where he’s a member of the volunteer fire department.
Sarah Stewart Taylor is the author of the Sweeney St. George series, set in New England, and the Maggie D’arcy mysteries, set in Ireland and on Long Island, as well as Agony Hill and Hunter’s Heart Ridge, set in Vermont in the 1960s. Sarah is the recipient of a Nero Award and has been nominated for the Agatha Award, the Dashiell Hammett Prize, and the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. A former journalist and teacher, she writes and lives with her husband and three kids on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries. You can visit her online at www.SarahStewartTaylor.com.
August Thompson is from the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, and has lived in Los Angeles, New York City, Berlin, and Madrid. His debut novel, Anyone’s Ghost, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for the Center for Fiction Debut Novel Prize, and named a best book of the year by Amazon, Vogue, and Elle. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, and beyond.
Liza Tully is a pseudonym for Elisabeth Brink, who writes dark thrillers under the name Elisabeth Elo, as well as literary fiction under the name Elisabeth Panttaja Brink. Her novels have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. Two were Indie Next Picks, and one was a Book of the Month club selection. She earned a PhD in American literature from Brandeis University and has published scholarly essays on subjects as diverse as Walt Whitman and Cinderella. Her jobs have included editor at a children’s magazine, high-tech project manager, halfway house counselor, and adjunct professor at Harvard, Tufts, and Boston College. The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant is the first in her new series of traditional mysteries. The second, The Forty Year Grudge, will be published in June 2026. For more info, go to www.lizatully.com or follow her on Instagram at @LizaTullyWrites.
