Teri LaFlesh is the author and illustrator of Curly
Like Me: How to Grow Your Hair Healthy, Long, and Strong, and founder
of the site www.TightlyCurly.com.
She has been writing and illustrating since childhood, creating freelance
botanical illustrations while earning a bachelor of science in botany from UCSC
(you can check out her art at www.TeriLaFlesh.com). Her inspiration for the book
and her curly hair site came from spending most of her life fighting with her
chemically damaged, short and crunchy hair—once accidentally dissolving it all
with a relaxer. Through years of trial, error, and
research, she figured out her hair and now her natural curls easily reach to her
hips. Teri is currently working on a quirky memoir of her adventures
when she believed herself to be a ferocious cat in 1st and 2nd
grade. She lives near Seattle
with her husband and two cats, does beadwork, and grows giant houseplants.
Judith Laik is a member of PNWA, Sisters in Crime, and Romance
Writers of America. She is active in the
writing community, donating her time as mentor, contest judge,
workshop presenter, online instructor, and participant in author
panel discussions at conferences. She is the author of two
Regencies, The Lady Is Mine and The Lady in Question, and has a short
story in the Blue Moon Enchantment anthology.
Corbin Lewars
is a writing instructor and mentor and author of Creating a Life: The
memoir of a writer and mom in the making, which has been nominated for
the 2011 PNBA book award. Her novel Swings is out for
submission and she is currently at work on another memoir entitled After
Glow. She is the founder of the zine Reality Mom, which has an
international following and is in its eighth year of publishing. Her
essays have been featured in Mothering, Hip Mama, Midwifery Today, A
Wild Ride, Stories with Grace, and numerous other publications. She was the
editor of Verve, a Seattle
women's magazine, and Mamaphiles 3,
an anthology of mother writers. She has taught at various Seattle
Community Colleges, Antioch University,
Richard Hugo House and in Seattle
public schools and currently offers memoir and personal essay workshops. She
lives in Seattle
with her two children.
Jan Lind-Sherman: Who on earth is she? Teacher, Writer, World Traveler,
Humanitarian, Parent, Grandparent, Book Reviewer, Giver of Teaching
Tips, "Hands on" Lesson Plans, Multiple Intelligences Activities,
Homeschooling Help, Parent SOS, and promoter of lifelong learning. View
my complete profile at www.mrslindsherman.com or simply click out her blog. You can email me directly at lindsher@aol.com
Kathleen McFall is the
co-author (along with partner Clark Hays) of The Cowboy and the Vampire: A
Darkly Romantic Mystery published in 2010 by Midnight Ink, an imprint of
Llewellyn. The book brings together the best of the new west with the worst of
the undead in a comedic collision of iconic figures. Kathleen was born and
raised in Washington, DC,
and currently works in communications for Oregon
Health & Science University in Portland,
Oregon. She holds degrees from George Washington
University and The American
University, Washington, DC.
Along with Clark, she is writing the sequel to
this first novel called The Cowboy and the Vampire: Blood and Whiskey.
Their website, which includes a vampire blog, an Ask a Cowboy advice column and
a column called The Conjoined Writing Life — describing the ups and
downs of writing with a partner (even the arguments about punctuation) — is at
www.cowboyandvampire.com.
Kathleen McNary Wood - is an environmental scientist and natural history writer. At
her ‘real’ job, Kathleen performs field studies and prepares environmental
impact assessments with an area of expertise in tropical and subtropical terrestrial
ecology. When she is not out in the field in pursuit of an elusive insect
or unique plant, Kathleen’s passion turns to writing. Her published work
is a variety of field guides, scientific reports, articles and press
releases. Her books include The Flowers of the Bahamas and the Turks
and Caicos Islands (Macmillan Caribbean, 2003) and Ambergris Cay – A
Field Guide (Turks and Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay, 2006).
Kathleen has also served as scientific proofreader for Macmillan Caribbean and
as Editor for Discover Turks and Caicos magazine (Ralston Publications,
U.K.). Kathleen is currently working on a manuscript, killing Mother,
that speaks to the modern hominid’s disconnect with the natural
environment. Once revered as the ultimate divinity and source of all
life, the Earth has been reduced to a mere resource base to be exploited for
monetary profit with catastrophic consequences. Excerpts from the
manuscript appear at www.killingmother.blogspot.com.
Maureen McQuerry is a poet, novelist and teacher. She has three novels forthcoming with
Abrams/Amulet, The Peculiars (spring2012), Beyond the Door (Fall
2012) and Time Out of Time (winter 2013). Her poetry can be found in
many literary journals and in her chapbook Relentless Light was the
winner of the Ruah poetry award. She has published two non-fiction books Nuclear
Legacy (an independent publishers award winner) and Student Inquiry.
Maureen is a teaching artist with the WA State Arts Commission, teaches writing
at Columbia Basin College, and loves to present workshops in the schools. Her
website is: www.maureenmcquerry.com
Debbie Macomber - Best-selling writer, Debbie
Macomber loves to tell the story of how she got published. Of how she
struggled for five years to find a publisher who would buy one of the
manuscripts she wrote in her kitchen on a rented typewriter. Of how the
young, dyslexic mother bargained with her four young children to give her
the quiet time to write. Of the sacrifices Debbie and her husband, Wayne,
made so she could pursue the dream that burned in her heart.
Elizabeth C. Main is an Oregon author who owes much to PNWA for
inspiring her and providing practical writing assistance over the years. Her
first mystery, Murder of the Month (A
Jane Serrano Mystery), won first prize in the Literary Contest (mystery genre) in
1998. She connected with her publisher, Five Star, at the PNWA Summer
Conference several years later. The success of her cozy bookstore mystery,
coupled with much good advice gleaned from attendance at subsequent PNWA
conferences, led to the second in the series, No Rest for the Wicked (A Jane Serrano Mystery), a finalist in the
2008 PNWA Literary Contest. It will be published by Five Star in August 2011.
She has also published a romance novel, Richer
by Far (Avalon Books, 1998), and a juvenile/young adult novel, A Star for Courage (Hard Shell Word
Factory, 2001), as well as short stories and essays.In addition to PNWA, she is a member of
Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Visit her website: www.elizabethcmain.com
Everett Maroon lives
and writes in Walla Walla, WA. A transplant from Washington, DC, he was a
founding member of the DC Trans Coalition, which helped to install the
most comprehensive protective regulations for transgender people in the
country. He has a B.A. in English from Syracuse University and went
through an English literature master’s program there. A member of the
Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association, he writes about acclimating to
the area at trans/plant/portation. He is a co-author of a blog about popular culture, I Fry Mine in Butter. Everett also will be a guest blogger for Bitch magazine this summer, focusing on popular culture and politics.
Jo Marshall- I am the author of the Twig Stories
series for young readers: Leaf &
the Sky of Fire, Leaf & the Rushing Waters, Leaf & the Long Ice, and
Leaf & Echo
Peak. My
stories take place in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. Because
I live within view of Mount Baker and Mount Rainier,
I am reminded daily of climate changes affecting our region’s
shrinking glaciers, the associated loss of critically endangered wildlife, and
the impact of vanishing forests. These worries are incorporated into
the theme of Twig Stories. The series
has received wonderful reviews from scientists and educators, not to mention
young readers! Please visit my website http://www.twigstories.com soon! Although
they are fun and adventurous fantasies, Twig
Stories also engage young readers in conversations about climate
change research, and encourage investigations of novel solutions to specific,
regional events such as destructive bark beetle infestations of
our forests, glacial floods, and shrinking glaciers. I
am a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of
Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and many environmental nonprofit
groups. In 1986 while living in West Berlin I earned a B.A. in
German Language and Literature from the European Division of the University of Maryland. I live in Snohomish, Washington
with my husband, son, daughter, and many odd but loving creatures.
Sarah Martinezserves as an editorial assistant for a local literary agent and
regularly takes classes and meets with other writers to improve her craft. She
is a member of the Whidbey Island Writer’s Association, Just Write on Whidbey
and the online networking sites SheWrites and SeattleWritergrrls. You can find
out more about Sarah on her website and blog at www.mywildskies.com.
Brian Mercer - Brian is the author of the award-winning book,
Mastering Astral Projection: 90-day Guide to Out-of-body Experience
(Llewellyn, 2004), and its sequel, The Mastering Astral Projection CD
Companion (Llewellyn, 2007). Mentioned prominently in
Publisher’s Weekly and cover story for New Worlds magazine, his
work has been featured on such international radio shows as Dreamland
with Whitley Strieber and Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. He
is currently negotiating with a well-known producer to write and
participate in Forgotten Journeys, a feature-length docudrama about
out-of-body experiences. He is board member of the Pacific Northwest
Writers Association and a staff member of and contributor to Author
magazine. His latest novel is Oversoul, Inc., for which he is
seeking representation. Mercer holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business
with a concentration in Management Information Systems. He resides
in Seattle.
R.G. Morse
graduated from the University of Oregon with degrees in political science and
painting, then embarked on an extended tour of the world, during which he at
various times has been a tutor, a translator, a diplomat, a liquor salesman, a
baker's assistant, a dishwasher, a songwriter, an academic, a climbing
instructor, an artist, a publisher, and... an author. He currently
resides in a tiny, solar-powered cabin scrunched into a crevice on the side of
a glacier-slathered peak high in the alpine wildness of southeastern British Columbia, where,
eschewing all human warmth and comfort, he hunches daily over his batted
MacBook Pro, merrily pounding away at the keys. His latest work, the
non-fiction tome MAN UP - In 10
Lessons, is due out in late 2011, nicely timed to cash in on the
upcoming ABC-TV series of the same name (coincidence, or karma?). He is
currently working feverishly on two breathtakingly brilliant novels, both of
them with strong Pacific Northwestern links.www.rgmorse.com
Jennifer D. Munro’s - essays and stories have been published nationally and internationally
in over fifty anthologies and literary journals, including North American Review, Zyzzyva, Massachusetts Review,
Harpur Palate, Boulevard, Best of Best American Erotica, and The Bigger the
Better the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty and Body Image.
Whether fiction or nonfiction, J.D. offers a candid yet often humorous
exploration of sex and the sexes, with a quirky yet earthy take on topics such
as body image, infertility, gender roles, and marriage. Her fiction is
collected in The Erotica Writer’s Husband
& Other Stories. J.D. has taught for the Hugo House
Literary Arts Center, King County Library, and Pacific Northwest Writers
Association, leading classes on subjects such as getting published and on
writing memoir, erotica, humor, and women’s essays. She is a freelance
editor and writing coach. Her writing projects have been supported by various
Washington and Oregon State arts commissions and fellowships. Author website: www.munrojd.com.
Debra Murphy is a freelance
writer, novelist, and publisher. Her first short story was published in 2003 by
Image Journal and her articles and reviews have appeared online and in
the US and UK Catholic press. Her first novel, The Mystery of Things, was a PNWA genre fiction
finalist in 2000 and was published in 2004 by Idylls Press, the small press
Debra started in 2004 with the mission of “publishing the Catholic
imagination,” particularly literary fiction and poetry. Debra lives in
beautiful Ashland, Oregon.
Richard Neumann is an Eagle Scout and retired Marine aviator who currently flies
MD11s for Fedex. Born and raised in Michigan, he currently lives in Montana.
His first novel, Jack's Last Promise, is
the story about Nick Adams. Nick lives a charmed life happily married to the
woman of his dreams and flying Marine fighter jets. "Always do your best and
always keep your promises" is the motto he learned from his Uncle Jack and it
has served him well. But now he's at a crossroad in his life with a coming child
and he realizes he has some unresolved issues and an unfulfilled promise from
his uncle. He journeys back to his Michigan hometown to attend the twenty-year
reunion of his state championship baseball team hoping to find answers. Can his
teammates inspire him once more? Can he connect with his detached father? Will
his uncle keep his last promise? Will Nick be able to provide a good life for
his wife and future child? The promise of the future depnds on the answers.
For more information about the book and author, please check out www.norsespirit.com.
Janet Oakley has published personal essays in the Cup of Comfort series
ranging from the dreams of four generations of women in her family to doing
drywall after the sudden loss of her husband. “Dry Wall in the Time of Grief”
was the top winner in non-fiction at Surrey International Writers in 2006. Her
articles on Washington State history are at Historylink.org. Her novels THE
JOSSING AFFAIR and TREE SOLDIER were finalists at the Pacific Northwest Writers
Association lit contest. An historian
and educator, she has taught everything from splitting shakes to making butter
to 3rd graders at a cabin in the woods, researched the life a 19th
century West Coast bark and hiked across Haleakula Crater on Maui twice, ignoring
the pain the next day going down 10,000 feet to the ocean below. She loves
gardening and eating the fruits of her labor. Lately, she planted flax to
figure out how to ripple, ret, scutch, and hackle it. The linen yarn may be too
rough for weaving, but it’s the journey that counts. The curator of education at a county museum,
she lives in the Pacific Northwest and writes every day. No matter what.
Kathleen O’Brien is a fiction writer, freelancer,
past president and founder of the Peninsula Writers’ Association and past
director and creator of the Gig Harbor Writers’ Conference. During her tenure
as director, she brought in literary and commercial writers including Lynn
Freed, Bret Lott, Michael Collins and Ridley Pearson.Since
1998, she has written features and a monthly personal essay column for an
award-winning regional newspaper, as well as articles for trade, national real
estate and hospitality magazines. Kathleen has attended several writers’
conferences and workshops including the prestigious Napa Valley Writers’
Conference where she attended Ron Carlson’s workshop; at Centrum she worked
with Bret Lott. In addition, she applied for, and was granted, a residency at
Jacquelyn Mitchard’s One Writers’ Place. She is a member of the Associated
Writers Program and Pacific Northwest Writers Association. Her passion for
writing fiction has led to the creation of over two-dozen short stories. Her
debut novel A Light in the Heart will be released in April 2011.
Kathleen lives in Gig Harbor,
Washington.
Nick O'Connell - The Writer's Workshop is an
on-campus and online writing program based in Seattle, Washington that
combines the best of fiction and nonfiction writing. Contact Nick
O'Connell, MFA, Ph.D. (nick@thewritersworkshop.net, 206-284-7121) for more on
classes and tutorials.
Lisa
L. Owens -
After working in various in-house editorial positions for more than a
decade, Issaquah-based author-editor Lisa L. Owens launched the freelance
editorial services business Owens
Editorial Ink in 2002. Lisa specializes in writing and editing
children's books, K-12 curriculum materials, book reviews, and articles
for various print and Web audiences. To date she has authored 60+ titles
for kids using the pen name L. L. Owens and edited more than 100 books in
a variety of genres. Lisa also teaches writing and editing classes,
coordinates the national education program for the Editorial Freelancers
Association, and writes a blog about
her experiences as a children's writer working primarily for the school
and library market.
Bernadette Pajer is a graduate of the University of Washington, Bothell, a member of PNWA,
Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. Her writing journey led her
to a place a hundred years in the past where she feels right (and write) at
home. She is now happily immersed in TheProfessor Bradshaw Mystery Series featuring
an electrical engineering sleuth at the University of Washington in Seattle at
the beginning of the twentieth century, a wondrous time when the race was on to
discover and invent—everything we take for granted today. For more information,
please visit her website at bernadettepajer.com.
Anne Leigh Parrish - My collection of short stories, All The Roads That Lead From Home, will be available this October from Press 53. My work has appeared or is forthcoming in The
Virginia Quarterly Review, Clackamas Literary Review, American Short
Fiction, The Pinch, Eclectica Magazine, Storyglossia, Knee-Jerk
Magazine, PANK, Bluestem, Prime Number Magazine, and r.kv.r.y., among other publications. I live in Seattle. www.anneleighparrish.com
Terry Persun - With twenty-five years of experience in magazine publishing, Terry owns an ad agency for high-tech companies. He has also published several novels with small independent publishers, short stories in small press magazines, and literally hundreds of poems in literary journals. Terry's novel Wolf's Rite won the Star of Washington Award in March 2003. His website covers his technical and creative writing: www.terrypersun.com
Steve Pomper has been a Seattle police officer since 1992. He has been writing since high school, and decided to get serious about a writing career a few years ago. He has written a novel (not published - yet), has another half finished, and a published nonfiction book, Is There a Problem, Officer? (The Lyons Press). He has been married to his wife Jody, a firefighter, for 27 years and they have three grown children. They live in Brier, WA. For more information, please visit Steve's personal and book websites.
Emanuele F. Portolese, author of the novels Secret Valor and The Yangtze Illusion, is a former leadership consultant, nuclear weapons electronics specialist, and director of the largest private sector technical and academic exchange between the US, the USSR, and the People's Republic of China. He has spoken many times before audiences in the White House, the Kremlin, and the Great Hall of the People and was the keynote speaker at the Brandenburg Gate for a commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
