Celeste Anton has been designing and marketing websites for over 20 years. As owner of Dandelion Web Marketing in Madison, she develops and manages digital marketing projects for businesses large and small. She especially enjoys helping writers get their platforms up and running so they can start connecting with their readers. 

Dandelion Web Marketing and Consulting specializes in helping writers create and maintain an online digital presence. Through website design, email campaigns, traffic building, social media guidance, blog editing, e-book publishing assistance or digital advertising, we offer the personalized marketing strategies to promote your writing, grow your audience and connect with your readers.

A wet-behind-the-ears 26-year-old, John created Bachner Communications, Inc., a fledging “organization” that within 15 years employed 40 and ranked eighth among Washington, DC’s top-ten PR firms. Fifty-one years later, Bachner Communications is once again a one-person firm, John serving principally as a writer, lecturer, and consultant to private-sector and nonprofit organizations. While in college (Harvard), he helped create Operation Match, the nation’s first computer-dating company and, at the invitation of Warner Brothers/Seven Arts, he wrote a full-length movie and television series based on his experience; neither was produced. He also penned two books, neither of which was published. But he kept on writing, completing more than 300 books, texts, manuals, and guides published by a variety of organizations, as well as John Wiley & Son, van Nostrand-Reinhold, McGraw-Hill, and Charles C. Thomas. John also has to his credit some 2,500 published magazine articles and columns, plus literally thousands of newsletters, case histories, brochures, and flyers. He has had more than a dozen movies produced. He has written, directed, and produced hundreds of successful television and radio ads. He lectures and leads seminars throughout the United States and beyond, earning a reputation for keeping his audiences’ attention with a fast-paced, often-irreverent presentation style. He is no longer wet behind the ears.

Keri-Rae Barnum is the Executive Director of New Shelves Books. She is a publishing and book marketing expert experienced with both traditional and indie press. Her focus and strengths are helping publishers and authors skip the “learning curve” and become truly successful at advertising, review acquisition and book sales online, in libraries, and in stores. She can be found at www.NewShelves.com

Catherine Baldau is Executive Director of the Harpers Ferry Park Association, where in her previous position as Publications Specialist, she edited several publications including the award-winning Harpers Ferry Under Fire. Her essays are published in the Harpers Ferry Anthology and “To Emancipate the Mind and Soul,” and her short fiction has appeared in SNReview. Her freelance writing has been featured in Fluent Magazine and other local publications. Thoughts & Prayers is her first novel.

Tara Bell writes of a tween who saves her family from a haunting in the Middle Grade novel The Shell Ghost of San Cristobal. A contributing writer and editor for a local publication The Good Shepherds, Good Town, Good News Paper, Tara graduated from Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, with a BS degree in Recreational Therapy. In the early ‘80s she was on the staff for the autistic unit at Grafton School in Virginia. For over fifteen years she has participated as a multimedia artist in The Over the Mountain Studio Tour in Jefferson County, West Virginia. She is a long-time member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

The website for the book is https://www.thenovelthoughtsandprayers.com/

Dave Borchard is the author of many textbooks and articles on career choices, creativity, and lifestyle. His Pro Energy Profiler interest assessment is a key feature of leadership development programs for federal government managers. But Dave’s real passion is writing funny stuff—maybe because he’s a bit funny himself? He specializes in midwestern humor that sprouts from Minnesota cornfield roots. You can check out his latest short story in the soon-to-be-released Volume 2 of The Ghost Stories of Shepherdstown, available through Four Seasons Books.

Pam Clark grew up in a tiny hometown—population, 300. Books convinced her that the world was a wide, wide place. And it beckoned. She became an English professor and lover of travel, roaming through the U.S. national parks as well as Stonehenge, Aztec ruins, Machu Picchu, the oracle at Delphi, the Hermitage, and the Louvre. She is now the author of SHOOT IF YOU MUST, a traditional mystery introducing Lieutenant Tall, Dark, and Handcuffs. She is still conjuring up and solving mysteries, and running off on the occasional adventure.

Visit her at: https://www.facebook.com/pamclarkmysteries.

Pat Donohoe’s work life has always involved finding the storyline in a body of material. As a certified life coach, she enjoys helping others find the narrative arc in their own lives. Her experience includes teaching English and journalism on secondary and college levels, editing an award-winning alumni magazine, leading a public relations team at a large, urban community college, and serving as the associate pastor at a mid-sized, progressive church. Her nonfiction book, The Printer’s Kiss: The Life and Letters of a Civil War Newspaperman and His Family, was published by Kent State University Press as part of their Civil War in the North Series. Pat’s fiction and nonfiction have been published in a wide range of publications, from Modern Romance to the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and has won awards from Wyoming Writers, Inc.; West Virginia Writers, Inc.; and the West Virginia Fiction Competition. Her academic credentials include a B.A. in English from North Carolina State University, an M.A. in English literature from the University of Colorado Boulder, and an M.Div. from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.

Lee W. Doty is the author of Tidal Kin and Last Casualty, novels in the Norma Bergen mystery series published by Headline Books, Inc. She is working on the third novel in her series. Her short stories appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including most recently in Ghost Town Stories Vol. I, a publication of Four Seasons Books. Lee runs the semiannual Wild Writers Retreat for Shepherd University’s Lifelong Learning Program and is Co-Director of the 2022 Manuscript to Marketplace Writers Conference at Shepherd University. Lee received her undergraduate degree from Duke University, her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont School of Graduate Studies.

Pushcart-nominated, Ginny Fite is the author of six traditionally published novels: Cromwell's Folly; No Good Deed Left Undone; Lying, Cheating, and Occasionally Murder; No End of Bad; Blue Girl on a Night Dream Sea, and Possession. Her collection of linked short stories, Stronger in Heaven, was shortlisted for the 2019 SFWP prize and a finalist for the 2020 Bakwin Prize. Her short stories have been published in numerous journals such as The Delmarva Review, SFWP Quarterly, and the Anthology of Appalachian Writers. A graduate of Rutgers University and Johns Hopkins University, her communications career included posts in journalism, higher education, government, and industry. She also studied at the School for Women Healers and the Maryland Poetry Therapy Institute. Two more novels, The Physics of Things and Sanctuary, are set for publication from Sunbury in 2022 and TouchPoint Press in 2023.

With over four decades in the advertising business, Alan has written and produced television, radio, print, and digital commercials and built his reputation as one of the most creative players in entertainment advertising. 
 

Not content with writing in thirty and sixty-second formats, he took to novel writing in 2015 and has since published three best-selling thrillers, The Dead of Winter, High Voltage, and Tracked to Kill; two urban fantasies, Summer Thunder and Summer Lightning; one short story, "Killing Time," under the pen name of A.B. Gibson. He also edited Ghost Stories of Shepherdstown, Volume 1.

Kendra Goldborough, an independent bookstore owner with two decades of experience and has the inside scoop on how emerging authors can get their books on the shelves. She and the staff at Four Seasons Books support and encourage community, creativity, and literacy in Shepherdstown, WV and beyond.

D.W. Gregory is a playwright who frequently explores political issues through a personal lens. The New York Times called her “a playwright with a talent to enlighten and provoke” for her most produced work, RADIUM GIRLS, about the famous case of industrial poisoning. Other plays include MEMOIRS OF A FORGOTTEN MAN, a National New Play Network rolling world premiere (Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Shadowland Stages, New Jersey Rep); MOLUMBY’S MILLION (Iron Age Theatre), nominated for a Barrymore Award by Philadelphia Theatre Alliance; THE GOOD DAUGHTER and OCTOBER 1962 (New Jersey Rep). Gregory also writes for youth theatre and makes occasional appearances as a teaching artist. For four years in a row, Dramatics Magazine listed RADIUM GIRLS among the 10 Most Produced Plays in American High School Theatre. Recently she has turned her energies to writing short fiction. In 2021, her story “Mr. Kindness” was the first prize winner of the West Virginia Fiction Competition and is published in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Vol. XIV.

Melanie S. Hatter is an award-winning author of two novels and one short story collection. Her most recent novel, Malawi’s Sisters, was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and was published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015. Melanie received a 2019 Maryland State Arts Council grant for her writing. She received a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University and a master’s in writing from Johns Hopkins University. She is a participating author with the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program and serves on the board of the Washington Writers' Publishing House.

Donna Hemans is the author River Woman, Tea by the Sea, and Tree of a Thousand Feet (forthcoming from Zibby Books). Her writing has appeared in Slice, Shenandoah, Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Donna has received grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Prince George's County Arts Council, as well as residential fellowships from Hedgebrook, Millay Colony for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Maryland and operates the DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers.

Award-winning, best-selling, Scottish author, wendy H. Jones is represented by Amy Collins of Talcott Notch Literary Agency. She writes crime thrillers, cozy mysteries, and children’s picture books. She is also writing the first in a new series of historical fiction books based on the life of an eighteenth-century Scottish Naval Surgeon. Research for this has taken her to the South of England, Antigua, and the USA. Wendy is a highly sought after speaker and workshop leader, delivering talks internationally. She is also the CEO of Authorpreneur Accelerator Academy, hosts The Writing and Marketing Show Podcast, and is the President of the Scottish Association of Writers. 

Stacey Kondla is a literary agent with The Rights Factory. She has a variety of clients with works that include adult literary fiction, science fiction & fantasy, rom-com, historical, nonfiction science, children's picture books, middle grade, and young adult titles. Her background includes working as a Field Representative for Scholastic Book Fairs, managing at two different big box book stores, freelance editing, and serving on the organizing committee of When Words Collide (A Festival for Readers and Writers).

Han Nolan is the author of nine young adult novels, including the National Book Award winning Dancing on the Edge. Awards and honors for her other works include, National Book Award finalist, People’s choice award, New York Public Library best books for YA, ALA best books, Library guild Best books, Alabama Library Assoc. best YA novel of the year. Her novel Crazy was performed at the Kennedy Center under the title of Jason Invisible. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her latest novel, Running Past Dark (Simon & Schuster) is due out in Fall 2023. 

Karen Outen’s short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, The North American Review, Essence magazine, and the anthologies Where Love is Found and Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood (both from Washington Square Press). Her essay “Fear Will Not Save Us” appeared in the June 17, 2020 issue of Scoundrel Times, and her essay “On Typing and Salvation” appeared in the anthology From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines (Michigan State Press, 2016). She is a 2018 recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award and has been a fellow at both the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts. She received an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded Hopwood Awards for her fiction. She has taught writing at the University of Michigan and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and has been a visiting writer at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She is publishing her first novel: Dixon, Descending, following two brothers who leave their lives behind seeking to be the first Black American men on Mount Everest—and how their futures, and the futures of their family and community, are irrevocably changed; exploring ambition, survival, masculinity, grief, and our responsibility toward one another. This novel will be out in spring 2024 to coincide with the Everest climbing season!

James Pate has taught at Shepherd University since 2010. He has been published at Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, storySouth, Occulum, Superstition Review and Berkeley Fiction Review, among other places. His collection of essays on contemporary Gothic poetry, entitled Flowers Among the Carrion, was published by Actions Books in 2016. His novel Speed of Life was published by Fahrenheit Press in 2017.

Lee Anne Post is the pen name for co-authors Catherine Baldau, Tara Bell, Ginny Fite, and K.P. Robbins. Stories by these award-winning authors have appeared in numerous journals and individually they have published nine novels. They have worked as reporters and editors, in politics and philanthropy, and in advertising and educational institutions. Having met in a writer’s critique group for over five years, they were spurred by their collective grief and then admiration as they watched Parkland students deal with the aftermath of that shooting.

Lisa V. Proulx is an award-winning and international best-selling author, an award-winning speaker and storyteller, an editor, and a publishing consultant with Indie Author Consulting. Throughout the year she’s been involved in writing workshops, book and speaking events, and is a core speaker for the annual Reader’s Favorite Book Awards in Miami. She also spent 20 years as a feature writer and columnist for a Maryland newspaper. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and two national magazines, Woman’s World and The Barefoot Review. In 2019, she was appointed as the first president of the Maryland Writers Association, Frederick Chapter. Lisa feels life is too short to write in just one genre, so her books span from horror to memoir to inspirational. She also writes rock and roll romance under the pen name Veronica Moreau and is writing her 15th book under her real name.

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Learn more about Lisa on her website: www.lisavproulx.com

K.P. Robbins creates strong female characters in her two traditionally published novels, PMS: The Power & Money Sisters and The Stonehenge Scrolls. Her short stories have been published on WashingtonPost.com and in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Virginia Writers Centennial Anthology, and Art Prize Anthology, among others. A former Washington, D.C., advertising executive, she holds a degree in journalism from West Virginia University.

Ray Sibley is a teacher, a poet, and an avid gardener. He has a Doctorate in Performance Studies from LSU. His doctoral dissertation focused on contemporary American spoken-word poetry. He has been teaching Creative Writing, Literature
Interpretation/Performance, and Theater for the last thirty-five years. He moved to Shepherdstown, West Virginia 2016.

Sadie Shorr-Parks teaches writing at Shepherd University. Her nonfiction has recently appeared in Sierra Nevada Review, Appalachian Heritage, and Witness Magazine, where her essay “Attic Bats, Modern Love” received a nomination for the Pushcart Prize. She has published book reviews with The Iowa Review and Southern Literary Review. Her poetry collection, Honey Month, is out now.

Jessica Spotswood is the author of the fantasy trilogy The Cahill Witch Chronicles and the contemporary novels Wild Swans and The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls. She is the editor of the feminist anthologies A Tyranny of Petticoats and The Radical Element and co-editor of Toil & Trouble. Her most recent novel is Great or Nothing, a World War II-era reimagining of Little Women, co-written with Joy McCullough, Tess Sharpe, and Caroline Tung Richmond. Jess lives in Washington, DC, where she works for the DC Public Library.