Yelena lives in London with her husband, two kids, a dog and a cat. A few years ago she left her career in financial consulting to do what she has always loved--write. She writes book reviews on her blog and for UK magazines, works in a school of creative writing, and in her spare time enjoys pottery.

Deborah Norkin is Editorial Director of Santé, an online publication to the up-market restaurant trade (isantemagazine.com). She is wholly responsible for all editorial content for the magazine. Her features, essays and fiction have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including The Boston Globe. She holds a BS in Nutrition from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a Professional Chef’s Diploma from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and an MBA in Marketing from Rutgers Business School.

Cynthia Bargar’s poems have appeared in many journals including LUMINA, Comstock Review, Gargoyle, Driftwood Press, Sonic Boom, Stoneboat Literary Journal, and Poems2Go. Her forthcoming debut collection, Sleeping in the Dead Girl’s Room, will be published by The Lily Poetry Review Press in 2022. She lives and writes in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Susannah Borysthen-Tkacz is a librarian at Cambridge Public Library, where she leads several book groups, coordinates writing classes, and purchases books (with much relish) for the collection. She writes creative nonfiction and dabbles in fiction. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, New Limestone Review, and Five Minutes.

Aime Card is author of And Beneath it all Was Love, a memoir about her experience with breast cancer. Her current work in progress is an historical nonfiction narrative about a women's track team in 1960 and their journey to the Olympics from her hometown in Nashville. On the best days you can find her walking a beach on the North Shore of Boston with her sidekicks, Serendipity and Moose, baking with her daughter, listening to her son bang on the drums, or with a glass of wine in her hand by the firepit with her husband.

Darya (Dasha) is a recent journalism and psychology graduate. In her spare time, she likes to read, customize clothes, and write short stories. She has lived in Bulgaria and Nantucket, but calls Kazakhstan her home.

Amy Glynn has been working in public health for over the past decade, focusing on health disparities research and evaluation to improve care for complex needs populations. In her spare time, she writes a newsletter, Outtakes, about bloopers from her life. She was recently accepted into the Pioneer Valley Writing Workshop year-long revision program where she is finishing her first novel. When not writing or working, she is usually out hiking with her partner or drinking cold brew on the couch with her two cats.

Matthew Koentjoro is a Boston-based marketing expert and writer of fantasy fiction, children’s books, and roleplay games. He specializes in helping game developers, authors, and similar creators build brands and leverage social media for platform growth and sales. You can see him in action on his DungeonGlitch and Gemmed Firefly brands on Twitter and gaming on Twitch.

Esther Weeks has a BA in Studio Art from St. Olaf College and a MFA in Visual Information and Instructional Design from Harvard Extension School. She leads a semi-nomadic life working as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, usually in the Western United States. She enjoys hiking, photography, videography, and travel.

Rachel is a biologist, writer, editor, and educator from New Hampshire who loves exploring the outdoors (on foot and in her kayak) and sharing her passion for nature with others. She has published in the Boston Globe and numerous scientific journals, and has written radio spots for the Montshire Museum of Science (VT) describing some of the wonders of the natural world to listeners of all ages. She has taught Environmental Science at a community college and led dozens of hands-on natural science workshops in elementary schools (with the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and the Four Winds Nature Institute). She holds multiple science degrees, and has studied writing in several genres at the University of New Hampshire, Grub Street, and Creative NonFiction. She continues to expand her skills through MFA coursework and by volunteering with Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate

Whitney Scharer is the author of The Age of Light, a Boston Globe and IndieNext bestseller that was named one of the best books of 2019 by Parade, Glamour Magazine, Real Simple, Refinery 29, Booklist and Yahoo. Internationally, The Age of Light won Le prix Rive Gauche à Paris, was a coups de couer selection from the American Library in Paris, and has been published in over a dozen other countries. Whitney is the recipient of a 2020 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Fellowship in Fiction, and has been awarded residencies at the Mount, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Ragdale. She grew up in Denver, Colorado and now lives with her husband and daughter in Arlington, MA, where she is at work on her second novel.

Kristin Bair is the author of the novels Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything, The Art of Floating, and Thirsty—with her fourth, Clementine Crane Prefers Not To, due out in 2025. Her essays about Facebook mom groups (gah!), literary citizenship, China, bears, and more have appeared in a variety of publications, everything from Scary Mommy to the Gettysburg Review. Kristin received an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, teaches for the Yale Writers’ Workshop, and leads writing workshops in classrooms and conferences around the globe. Visit her at kristinbair.com, and follow her on the socials (@kbairokeeffe).