Listed in alphabetical order

Aimee Agresti

Summer Lovin June 20, 11:15 AM

Aimee Agresti is novelist and entertainment journalist. The author of The Summer Set, Campaign Widows, and the Gilded Wings Trilogy (for young adults), she is also a former staff writer for Us Weekly, where she penned the magazine’s coffee-table book Inside Hollywood. Her work has appeared in People, Premiere, DC magazine, Capitol File, the Washington Post, Washingtonian, the Washington City Paper, Boston magazine, Women’s Health and the New York Observer. Aimee has made countless TV and radio appearances, dishing about celebrities on the likes of Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, The Insider, Extra, VH1, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and HLN. She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and lives with her husband and two sons in the Washington, DC, area.

Elizabeth Ames

Feels Like the First Time April 25, 2:00 PM

Named for Iowa but born and raised in Wisconsin, Elizabeth Ames is a writer living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, Elizabeth has lived in Seattle, France, and Rwanda since leaving the Midwest. She currently lives in a Harvard dormitory with her husband, two children, and a few hundred undergraduates. Her debut novel, The Other’s Gold, was re-leased in 2019 by Viking Books. Visit elizabethames.com to learn more.

Sarah Blake

Changing Tides June 20, 10:00 AM

Sarah Blake is the author of the novels Grange House and the New York Times bestsellers The Postmistress, which has been translated into 14 languages and won the 2010 Boekker Prize, and, most recently, The Guest Book, a Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and her two sons. Photo Credit Liz Norton.[clearboth]

Jenna Blum

Cooking the Books: Reading and Writing in the Kitchen April 25, 1:00 PM[br]
Afternoon Delight: Sex in Fiction April 25, 4:00 PM

Jenna Blum is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us (Harcourt, 2002) and The Stormchasers (Dutton, 2010) and novella “The Lucky One” in the collection Grand Central (Berkeley/ Penguin, 2014). Jenna’s third novel, The Lost Family, was published by Harper Collins June 5, 2018. Jenna is one of Oprah’s Top 30 Women Writers. Her first novel Those Who Save Us, a New York Times bestseller, the #1 bestselling novel in Holland in 2011, and the 2005 “Winner of the Ribalow Prize, awarded by Hadassah Magazine and adjudged by Elie Wiesel. Jenna is based in Boston, where she has taught fiction and master novel workshops at Grub Street Writers since the school’s founding in 1997. From 1993-1997, Jenna interviewed Holocaust survivors for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Jenna is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to speak at universities, libraries, events, and bookclubs – for Those Who Save Us, Jenna visited over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone! Jenna has written the screenplay for Those Who Save Us, currently under option, and is working on her fourth novel.

Jamie Brenner

First Mates: The Crew We Choose June 20, 12:30 PM

Jamie Brenner grew up in suburban Philadelphia on a steady diet of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz novels. She studied literature at The George Washington University before moving to New York City where she started her career at HarperCollins Publishers, then later Barnes&Noble.com and Vogue.com before returning to books and becoming an author. Her novel The Forever Summer is a national bestseller. People Magazine calls her latest novel, Summer Longing (published May 5 by Little Brown), “a delightful escape wherever you are.” Jamie lives in New York City and spends her summers visiting the beach towns that inspire her books.

Christopher Castellani

Afternoon Delight: Sex in Fiction April 25, 4:00 PM

Christopher Castellani’s fourth novel, Leading Men — for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the MacDowell Colony — was published by Viking in February 2019. Leading Men was featured in Publishers Weekly, People, Entertainment Weekly, Interview, The Washington Post, and was an Editors’ Choice of the New York Times. His collection of essays on point of view in fiction, The Art of Perspective, was published by Graywolf in 2016. Castellani is on the fiction faculty of the Warren Wilson MFA Program and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He lives in Boston, where he is artistic director of GrubStreet, the country’s largest and leading independent center for creative writing.
Photo Credit: Michael Joseph

Bruce Robert Coffin

Make a Mystery with Sisters in Crime New England April 25, 3:00 PM

Bruce Robert Coffin is the bestselling author of the Detective Byron mystery series. A former detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement, he supervised all homicide and violent crime investigations for Maine’s largest city. Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Bruce spent four years investigating counter-terrorism cases for the FBI, earning the Director’s Award, the highest award a non-agent can receive. His most recent novel, Beyond the Truth, winner of Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award for Best Procedural, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction. His short fiction appears in several anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories, 2016. Bruce is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He is a regular contributor to the Murder Books blog. Bruce is represented by Paula Munier at Talcott Notch Literary. He lives and writes in Maine.

Alena Dillon

Mercy House: A Novel April 25, 9:00 AM

Alena Dillon’s debut novel, Mercy House, was released by William Morrow of Harper Collins in February 2020. Her work has also appeared in The Rumpus, Scary Mommy, Slice Magazine, The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, and Bustle. She earned her MFA from Fairfield University and now lives on the north shore of Boston with her husband, son, and their dog.[clearboth]

Melissa Duclos

Feels Like the First Time April 25, 2:00 PM

Newburyport native Melissa Duclos is the author of Besotted, a novel about two American women living in Shanghai. Melissa is also an essayist whose non-fiction has appeared in The Washington Post, The Offing, Bustle, and Electric Literature among other venues, and was chosen as Salon’s Best Personal Essay of 2015. She is the founder of “Magnify: Small Presses, Bigger” a monthly newsletter celebrating independent presses, and the co-founder of “Amplify: Writers’ Voices, Louder” an organization that offers classes, workshops, and networking opportunities for emerging writers looking to build their careers. She now lives in Portland, Oregon with her two children and is at work on a new novel and a collection of essays.

Monica Duncan

Feels Like the First Time April 25, 2:00 PM

Parade Magazine recommends, “If you love This Is Us, read Twine by Monica Duncan.” Duncan’s debut novel Twine was released by Crowsnest Books in September 2019, and she will appear as a featured writer at London’s ReadFest 2020. Duncan’s essays have appeared in Political Animal Magazine, Writer’s Digest and Women Writers, Women’s Books. SheReads listed Twine as one of the “Best Fall Books by Women” and Women.com lists Twine on its “15 of the Best New Fall Books by Women.” Duncan was a presenter at the 2019 Newburyport Literary Festival, and is currently at work on her second novel. Originally from Michigan, she finds herself continually drawn to the hidden richness of the places she comes from. Now living in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Duncan is still at home, by the water. She holds music degrees from Michigan State and Indiana University, and is active as a freelance musician and teacher in the Greater Boston area. She has discovered that her favorite skill as a writer she learned from her life in music: Be a good listener.

Anne Easter Smith

A Plague on Both Your Houses May 3, 3:15 PM

Anne Easter Smith is the award-winning author of six historical novels about the York family during the Wars of the Roses. Historical Novels Review wrote that her books: “…grab you, sweep you along with the story, and make you fall in love with the characters…” Her first five books, including A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, and Royal Mistress, are published by Touchstone Books at Simon & Schuster. The King’s Grace won the 2009 Romantic Times Best Historical Biography award, and Queen By Right was nominated in the same category in 2011. A native of England, Anne has lived in various states in the US for fifty years, settling in Newburyport in 2000 with husband, Scott. From her early 20s, Richard III has held a fascination and led to several decades of study of him and his period. This Son of York is the culminating book in her York series, with Richard as protagonist. Before becoming a published author, Anne wore many hats in her life: executive secretary in London, Paris, and New York; PBS auction coordinator and program guide editor; folksinger; tournament tennis player; features editor at a daily newspaper; and most recently actor and director on Newburyport community stages.

Ramin Ganeshram

Cooking the Books: Reading and Writing in the Kitchen April 25, 1:00 PM

Ramin Ganeshram is a professionally trained chef, cookbook author and food historian, specializing in writing about the foodways of people of color. A former news journalist, she is now the Executive Director of the Westport Museum for History & Culture in Westport, Connecticut. Her novel, The General’s Cook, a fictionalized account of the life of George Washington’s enslaved chef, Hercules Posey, is the result of nearly a decade of research that continues today.  Photo Credit: Jean Paul Vellotti.

Nicola Harrison

Beach Reads Bingo June 20, 2:00 PM [br] (in partnership with NovelNetwork® and Adventures by the Book®)

Originally from Hampshire, England, Nicola Harrison moved to California when she was 14. She studied Literature at UCLA and received an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook University. She is a member of The Writers Room and has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train as well as articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. Nicola was also the fashion and style staff writer for Forbes and had a weekly column at Lucky Magazine, and is the founder of a personal styling business, Harrison Style. She has spent many summers in Montauk and currently lives in Manhattan with her husband, two sons and two chihuahuas.

Emily Henry

Summer Lovin June 20, 11:15 AM

Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites. Photo credit Devyn Glista St. Blanc Studios.[clearboth]

Edwin Hill

Relative to Mystery April 25, 4:00 PM

Edwin Hill is the author of Little Comfort and The Missing Ones. He was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and spent most of his childhood obsessing over The Famous Five, Agatha Christie, and somehow finding a way into C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe. His parents were fond of taking his sister and him on month-long family camping trips across the U.S. and Canada, and one of his best memories is of finishing a copy of The Seven Dials Mystery while the rest of the family visited Mount Rushmore. After attending Wesleyan University and graduating with a B.A. in American Studies, he headed west to San Francisco for the dotcom boom. Later, he returned to Boston, earned an MFA from Emerson College, and switched gears to work in educational publishing. He served as the vice president and editorial director for Bedford/St. Martin’s, a division of Macmillan Learning for many years before turning to writing full time. He lives in Roslindale, Massachusetts with his partner Michael and his favorite reviewer, their lab Edith Ann, who likes his first drafts enough to eat them.

Chris (C.C.) Humphreys

A Plague on Both Your Houses May 3, 3:15 PM

Chris (C.C.) Humphreys has played Hamlet in Calgary, a gladiator in Tunisia, waltzed in London’s West End, conned the landlord of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street, commanded a starfleet in Andromeda, voiced Salem the cat in the original Sabrina, and is a dead immortal in Highlander. He has written eleven adult novels including The French Executioner, runner-up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers; Chasing the Wind; The Jack Absolute Trilogy; Vlad – The Last Confession; A Place Called Armageddon and Shakespeare’s Rebel – which he adapted into a play and which premiered at Bard on the Beach, Vancouver, in 2015. Plague won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in Canada in 2015. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. He is now writing epic fantasy with the Immortals’ Blood Trilogy, for Gollancz. The first book, Smoke in the Glass was published in 2019 and The Coming of the Dark is, well, coming, Summer 2020.

Marjan Kamali

The Stationary Shop April 25, 9:00 AM

Marjan Kamali is a novelist and teacher whose work has been anthologized, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and adapted for the stage. Her recent release, The Stationery Shop, hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “a moving tale of lost love” and selected as one of Newsweek’s Best Summer Books is a powerful love story set in the background of a country facing political turmoil. Her debut novel, Together Tea, which was a Massachusetts Book Award Finalist, an NPR WBUR Good Read, and a Target Emerging Author Selection, follows a mother and daughter as they embark on a return journey to Iran. A graduate of UC Berkeley with an MBA from Columbia University and an MFA from New York University, Kamali is a teacher of writing at GrubStreet and former adjunct business writing professor at Boston University. Her fiction has also been published in two anthologies and been excerpted in Solstice Literary Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her novels have been translated into German, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Turkish, Polish, Czech, and Slovak.

Stephen P. Kiernan

Afternoon Delight: Sex in Fiction April 25, 4:00 PM

As a journalist and novelist, Stephen P. Kiernan has published nearly four million words. His newspaper work garnered more than forty awards — including the George Polk Award and the Scripps Howard Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment. Stephen’s newest novel, UNIVERSE OF TWO, will be out May 5, 2020. He is also author of the novels THE CURIOSITY (now in television series development), THE BAKER’S SECRET (a regional Indie bestseller), and THE HUMMINGBIRD. He has also written two nonfiction books, LAST RIGHTS and AUTHENTIC PATRIOTISM. His work has been translated into many languages. Stephen was born in Newtonville, NY the sixth of seven children. A graduate of Middlebury College, he received a Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has chaired the board of the Young Writers Project, served on the Vermont Legislative Committee on Pain and Palliative Care, and served on the advisory board of the New Hampshire Palliative Care Initiative. He has spoken and consulted around the country about hospice, palliative care and advance directives. A performer on the guitar since he was ten years old, Stephen has recorded 3 CDs of solo instrumentals, and composed music for dance, the stage and documentary films. He lives in Vermont with his two amazing sons.

Crystal King

Cooking the Books: Reading and Writing in the Kitchen April 25, 1:00 PM

Crystal King is the author of The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at several universities including Harvard Extension School and Boston University, as well as at GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the US. A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and former co-editor of the online literary arts journal Plum Ruby Review, Crystal received her MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston, where she developed a series of exercises and writing prompts to help fiction writers in medias res. She resides in Boston. You can find her at crystalking.com.

Kerry Kletter

First Mates: The Crew We Choose June 20, 12:30 PM

Kerry Kletter holds a degree in literature and is the critically-acclaimed author of the young adult novel The First Time She Drowned. She has an extensive background in theater, having appeared in film, television, and onstage. She lives in Los Angeles and adores her friends, her partner David, dogs, neuroscience, funny people, Montauk, surfing, and French fries. East Coast Girls is her first adult novel.

Brooke Lea Foster

Changing Tides June 20, 10:00 AM

Brooke Lea Foster is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, among others, and is the author of three non-fiction books. Foster is also an alumna of The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Summer Darlings is her first novel.[clearboth]

Ken Liu

The Values of Stories; Stories of Values April 25, 1:00 PM

Ken Liu is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he wrote The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (starting with The Grace of Kings), as well as The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. He also authored the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Liu frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, the mathematics of origami, and other subjects of his expertise.

Nina MacLaughlin

The Women of Myth Speak: ‘Wake, Siren’ and retelling Ovid’s Metamorphoses April 25, 11:15 AM

Nina MacLaughlin is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, a re-telling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses told from the perspective of the female figures transformed, published by FSG/FSG Originals in November, 2019. Her first book was the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and is now a books columnist for the Boston Globe. Her work has appeared on or in The Paris Review Daily, The Believer, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo Credit: Kelly Davidson.

Catherine McKenzie

Relative to Mystery April 25, 4:00 PM

Catherine McKenzie is the bestselling author of 10 novels, including Hidden, The Good Liar and I’ll Never Tell. Her most recent novel, I’ll Never Tell was a Globe & Mail bestseller, a #1 Amazon bestseller, was shortlisted for the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was a Goodreads Nominee for the Best Thriller of 2019. She lives and writes in Montreal, Canada, where she is also a practicing lawyer.

Sarah McCoy

Beach Reads Bingo June 20, 2:00 PM [br] (in partnership with NovelNetwork® and Adventures by the Book®)

Sarah McCoy is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of Marilla of Green Gables, The Mapmaker’s Children, The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee, The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico, the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central, and Le souffle des feuilles et des promesses, a French exclusive title. Sarah’s work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post and other publications. She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso.The daughter of an Army officer, her family was stationed in Germany during her childhood. After a decade in El Paso, Texas, she now lives with her husband, an orthopedic sports surgeon at Wake Forest, and their dog, Gilbert, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Kate McQuade

Walking Around With It: A Discussion of Trauma, Restlessness, and the Art of the Short Story April 25, 2:00 PM

Kate McQuade is the author of the story collection Tell Me Who We Were (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2019) and the novel Two Harbors (Harcourt, 2005). Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Harvard Review, Shenandoah, and Verse Daily, among other publications. Her nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Lily for Washington Post, LitHub, TIME Magazine, and American Literary Review, where she was named the winner of the 2019 ALR Essay Prize. Her honors include fellowships and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Women’s International Study Center, and Yaddo. Born and raised in Minnesota, she holds degrees from Princeton University and the Bread Loaf School of English and teaches at Phillips Academy, Andover, where she lives on campus with her husband and three children.

Louise Miller

Cooking the Books: Reading and Writing in the Kitchen April 25, 1:00 PM

Louise Miller is the author of The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking/2016) and The Late Bloomers Club (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking/2018). She lives, writes and bakes in Boston, MA. [clearboth]

Meg Mitchell Moore

First Mates: The Crew We Choose June 20, 12:30 PM
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me April 25, 11:15 AM

Meg Mitchell Moore is the author of five novels. While she’s not officially a Newburyport native, she likes to pretend she is since this is the place she’s lived for the most consecutive years of her life. In fact Newburyport is the setting of her sixth novel, Two Truths and a Lie, out in May 2020 from William Morrow. Her 2019 novel, The Islanders, was named one of eight Great Summer Reads by The New York Times, and her previous books have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, People, and on the television show The View. Her third novel, The Admissions, has been optioned for television. A graduate of Providence College and New York University, she lives in Newburyport with her husband, their three teenage daughters, and a golden retriever who is a certified therapy dog, sometimes called upon to work in her own household.

Priscilla Oliveras

Summer Lovin June 20, 11:15 AM

Priscilla Oliveras is a USA Today bestselling author and 2018 RWA® RITA® double finalist who writes contemporary romance with a Latinx flavor. Proud of her Puerto Rican-Mexican heritage, she strives to bring authenticity to her novels by sharing her Latinx culture with readers. She and her work have earned praise from O, The Oprah Magazine, Washington Post, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist, amongst others. Priscilla earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and currently serves as adjunct faculty in the program and teaches the online class “Romance Writing” for ed2go. While she’s a devotee of the romance genre, Priscilla’s also a sports fan, beach lover, and Zumba aficionado, who often practices the art of napping in her backyard hammock. To follow along on her fun-filled and hectic life, visit her on the web at https://prisoliveras.com/books/, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prisoliveras, or on Twitter and Instagram via @prisoliveras.

Susie Orman Schnall

Changing Tides June 20, 10:00 AM

Susie Orman Schnall is the award-winning author of the novels We Came Here to Shine, The Subway Girls, The Balance Project and On Grace. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, HuffPost, POPSUGAR, Writer’s Digest, Harper’s Bazaar, and Glamour; and she is also a frequent speaker at women’s groups, corporations, libraries, bookstores, and book clubs. Susie grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives in New York with her husband and their three teenage sons.

Peter Orner

Walking Around With It: A Discussion of Trauma, Restlessness, and the Art of the Short Story April 25, 2:00 PM

Peter Orner is the author of six books, most recently Maggie Brown & Others, a New York Times Notable Book and an Oprah Magazine Best Book of 2019. Of the book, Dwight Garner of the New York Times wrote, “It’s been apparent since his first book, ‘Esther Stories’ (2001), that Peter Orner was a major talent.” Orner’s memoir, Am I Alone Here? (2016) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other books include the novels, Love and Shame and Love (2010) and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (2006) and the story collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge (2013), all published by Little, Brown. Esther Stories was re-issued with an introduction by Marilynne Robinson (2013). A two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, Orner’s stories and essays have been published in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Atlantic Monthly. Orner holds the Dartmouth Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, and lives with his family in Norwich, Vermont, where he’s a member of volunteer fire department.

Renee Rosen

Beach Reads Bingo June 20, 2:00 PM [br] (in partnership with NovelNetwork® and Adventures by the Book®)

Renee Rosen is the bestselling author of historical fiction. Her novels include Windy City Blues, White Collar Girl, What the Lady Wants, and Dollface, as well as the young adult novel, Every Crooked Pot. Renee is a native of Akron, Ohio, and a graduate of The American University in Washington D.C. She now lives in Chicago where she is at work on a new novel, The Social Graces, a story about Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Vanderbilt vying for control of New York society during the Gilded Age.

April Smith

The Ultimate Sacrifice: Honoring War Mothers with April Smith, Author of A Star for Mrs. Blake May 31, 12:00 PM

April Smith is a prolific novelist and TV writer/producer who lives in Santa Monica, California. Her most recent books are the suspenseful historical novels, Home Sweet Home, based on the true story of a family accused of being Communists that resulted a triple murder, and A Star for Mrs Blake, about the 1930s Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimages, which was chosen as an All-Cities Read book in three cities. She is also the author of the bestselling FBI Special Agent Ana Grey mysteries, North of Montana, JudasHorse, Good Morning Killer, and White Shotgun, as well as a standalone thriller, Be The One, about the only woman baseball scout in the major leagues. Her publishers are Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage Books. April is also a successful TV writer/producer. Her most recent credit is Consulting Producer on the critically acclaimed FX-Hulu series, Mrs. America starring Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly. She produced CAGNEY AND LACEY as well as other dramatic series, and was Executive Producer on the TV-movie adaptation of her own Ana Grey novel, GOOD MORNING, KILLER streaming on HULU. Her work in television has brought three Emmy Award and two Writer’s Guild nominations. April grew up in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of a physician and a public school teacher. She attended the Bronx High School of Science and Boston University, where she graduated Cum Laude, and With Distinction in English Literature. She received a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from the Stanford University Writing Program in 1972, and made her publishing debut with a short story in the Atlantic Monthly. She is represented by Gail Hochman at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agency. april@aprilsmith.net www.aprilsmith.net

Joanna Schaffhausen

Make a Mystery with Sisters in Crime New England April 25, 3:00 PM

Joanna Schaffhausen has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain—how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. She has worked for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. Her debut, The Vanishing Season, won the 2016 Mystery Writers of America/St. Martin’s Minotaur First Crime Novel Award. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughter.

Katherine St. John

Beach Reads Bingo June 20, 2:00 PM [br] (in partnership with NovelNetwork® and Adventures by the Book®)

Katherine St. John is a native of Mississippi and graduate of the University of Southern California. Over the years Katherine has worked as an actress, screenwriter, director, photographer, producer, singer-songwriter, legal assistant, bartender-waitress, yoga instructor, real estate agent, and travel coordinator… but finds she likes writing novels best. Katherine currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

Peter Swanson

Relative to Mystery April 25, 4:00 PM

Peter Swanson is the author of six novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year; and his most recent, Eight Perfect Murders. His books have been translated into 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine. He lives outside of Boston, where he is at work on his next novel.

Nancy Thayer

Summer Lovin June 20, 11:15 AM

Nancy Thayer is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including Let It Snow, Surfside Sisters, A Nantucket Wedding, Secrets in Summer, The Island House, The Guest Cottage, An Island Christmas, Nantucket Sisters, and Island Girls. Born in Kansas, Thayer has been a resident of Nantucket for thirty-five years, where she currently lives with her husband, Charley, and a precocious rescue cat named Callie. Photo Credit Katie Kaizer.

Richard E. Welch III

What Carries You: A Novel May 3, 9:45 AM

Richard E. Welch III has held a wide variety of jobs from rivet packer to fly-fishing guide to freelance newspaper reporter. But his career in the law was what truly put bread on the table. After clerking for a federal judge and working at a large law firm in Boston, Welch became an Assistant U.S. Attorney specializing in prosecuting white collar crime. After serving as the Chief of the Economic Crimes Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, he was appointed by then-governor William Weld to become an Associate Justice for the Massachusetts Superior Court. Welch served as an Associate Justice for 23 years and recently retired. He also is an Adjunct Professor of Law at New England Law|Boston and the Senior Advisor to Essex County District Attorney Jonathen Blodgett. He is the author of numerous professional articles, short stories, and newspaper articles. Published last year, What Carries You: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir is his first novel. Welch lives with his wife and two sons in Newburyport, Massachusetts and Tetonia, Idaho.

Karen White

Beach Reads Bingo June 20, 2:00 PM [br] (in partnership with NovelNetwork® and Adventures by the Book®)

Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 books, with almost two million books in print in fifteen different languages, including the Tradd Street series, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the co-author of All the Ways We Said Goodbye, The Glass Ocean, and The Forgotten Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. Raised in a house full of brothers, Karen’s love of books and strong female characters first began in the third grade when the local librarian issued her a library card and placed The Secret of the Old Clock, a Nancy Drew Mystery, in her hands. Karen’s roots run deep in the South where many of her novels are set. Her intricate plot lines and compelling characters charm and captivate readers with just the right mix of family drama, mystery, intrigue and romance. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband near Atlanta, Georgia.

Carolyn Marie Wilkins

Make a Mystery with Sisters in Crime New England April 25, 3:00 PM

Carolyn Marie Wilkins is a jazz pianist, a Psychic Medium and an initiated Priestess of Yemaya, the African goddess of compassion, motherhood and the ocean. Her other novels Mojo For Murder and Melody For Murder feature the crime-fighting exploits of Bertie Bigelow, a forty-something choir director and amateur sleuth living on the South Side of Chicago.