Presenters

Abigail Drake has spent her life traveling the world, collecting stories wherever she visited. She majored in Japanese and Economics in college and worked in import/export and as an ESL teacher before she committed herself full time to writing. She is the award-winning author of over twenty novels, novellas, and short stories. She also blogs about her dog, a Labrador named Capone. Abigail is represented by Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Management.

Jess Everlee is the author of The Gentleman’s Book of Vices, the first book in the queer, Victorian Era Lucky Lovers of London series. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she studied English and Gender Studies at The Ohio State University, focusing on Victorian Literature and public health topics. She now lives in Northeast Ohio with her small family of furballs and fellow humans.

Chloe Flowers is an award-winning author and the recipient of the University of Akron, Wayne College 2018 Writer of the Year Award. She writes small-town contemporary women’s fiction, and American historical romance novels about scoundrels, pirates, and spunky, independent heroines. Chloe has a weakness for good red wine, Calvin & Hobbes comics, pie, dark chocolate and brown-eyed guys with beards, which is probably why she digs pirates, men in uniform and treasure hunters and writes about action and adventure and of course romance, which is the greatest adventure of all.

Angie Hockman is a RWA Golden Heart Award® winner. Her professional background includes stints in law, education, and eco-tourism, but these days you can find her writing romantic stories, enjoying the outdoors with her family, or dreaming of her next travel adventure. Author of Shipped and Dream On, she lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, young son, sweet old-lady cat, and an ornery golden retriever.

Michelle Levigne started writing for fanzines in college, while earning a bunch of useless degrees in theater, English, film/communication, and writing. Her first professional publication came from winning first place in the Writers of the Future contest in 1990. She has over 100 published books and novellas in SF, fantasy, and romance. A tea snob, she freelance edits for a living and terrorizes writers and readers through two small presses she co-owns: Mt. Zion Ridge Press and Ye Olde Dragon Books. Be afraid…be very afraid.

Miranda Liasson is a bestselling author who writes about the important relationships in women’s lives. Her heartwarming and humorous romances have won numerous accolades and have been praised by Entertainment Weekly for the way she “deals with so much of what makes life hard . . . without ever losing the warmth and heart that characterize her writing.” A proud native of Northeast Ohio, she lives in a neighborhood of old homes that serve as inspiration for her books.

Julie Anne Lindsey is an award-winning and bestselling author of mystery and romantic suspense. She’s published fifty novels since her debut in 2013 and currently writes series as herself, as well as under multiple pen names, for Harlequin, Kensington, Sourcebooks and Crooked Lane Books. She is the 2020 Golden Quill Award Winner for Series Romance, a double finalist (and winner) of the National Readers’ Choice Award for Romance Adventure, Winner of the Daphne Du Maurier Award for Mystery & Suspense, the Stiletto Award for Romantic Suspense and the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award for romantic suspense. When Julie’s not creating new worlds or fostering the epic love of fictional characters, she can be found in Kent, Ohio, plotting murder with her shamelessly enabling friends.

A lawyer by day, Marin McGinnis feeds the more creative part of her soul by writing historical romance and mystery. She’s spent more than half her life in a tree-lined, unabashedly liberal suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She lives with her husband and two standard poodles. While her very first completed manuscript will forever languish under the bed, Marin subsequently published four Victorian-era romances.  In a never-ending quest to ditch the day job, Marin also works as a freelance copy editor, teaches at Lawson Writer’s Academy, and lectures on various writing topics. When she’s not writing, editing, teaching, networking, or lawyering, she’s cooking for family and friends, learning how (and how not) to bake bread, and spending far too much time watching superhero movies.

Mindy McGinnis is an Edgar Award-winning novelist who writes across multiple genres, including post-apocalyptic, historical, thriller, contemporary, mystery, and fantasy. While her settings may change, you can always count on Mindy’s books to deliver grit, truth, and an unflinching look at humanity and the world around us. A graduate of Otterbein University with a BA in English literature and religion, Mindy lives in Ohio.