Melodie Bowsher grew up in  Kansas, and earned a degree in journalism from Kansas State University.  After a stint as a Wall Street Journal reporter in Dallas, she moved to San Francisco and became a business/marketing writer. Melodie  is the mother of a son and daughter whose crisis-filled teenage years  provided fodder for her first novel, MY LOST AND FOUND LIFE (Bloomsbury  2006).

As an entrepreneur, Christine Comaford-Lynch has built and sold 5 of her own businesses and served as a board director/advisor to 36 startups. As a venture capitalist/angel investor, she has funded 200+ startups. Christine has consulted to the White House, 700 of the Fortune 1000, and over 100 small businesses. Christine’s book, RULES FOR RENEGADES is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Amazon bestseller. It was published by McGraw-Hill in August 2007.

Michelle Gagnon is the IMBA bestselling author of THE TUNNELS, BONEYARD, and THE GATEKEEPER. Her novels have been published in North America, France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Australia. In her spare time Michelle runs errands and indulges a weakness for Scrabulous and Hollywood blockbusters. She lives in San Francisco with her family.

Prior to writing PHARMA and THE JOURNEYMAN, Rip Gerber worked in the polymer and software industries, spied for the CIA and started some companies. His first fictional work appeared in the Virginia Literary Review and in business plans during the dot-com boom.  Rip was educated at the Univ. of Virginia and Harvard Business School.  He and his wife and their two boys live in San Francisco.

Stan Goldberg is the author of six books and a featured columnist in the Hospice Volunteer News. His latest book LESSONS FOR THE LIVING: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life is published by Shambhala Press under its Trumpeter Imprint. He has won 12 national and international writing awards for his essays, plays, poems, and short stories. He has had more than 50 articles published, is often quoted in the national media, and lectures throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. He is represented by Chris Morehouse of Dunham Literary.

Yanina Gotsulsky has a degree in Literature from York University in Toronto. Her poetry, essays, short stories and translations of Russian literati have appeared in national and international publications, most recently in STRANGER AT HOME: American Poetry with an Accent. A few philosophical  discussions with KGB officials inspired her to dedicate her latest novel  THE SPEED OF LIFE, to her love of Mother Russia.

Scott James (aka Kemble Scott) Author of the bestselling novel SoMa and editor of SoMa Literary Review and the San Francisco Bay Area Literary Arts Newsletter. An alumnus of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he has been honored with three Emmy awards for his work in television news.

Ethel Mays is from Eastern Tulare County where Sierra Nevada foothills rub shoulders and hide hollows, “criks,” and canyons.  Her writing is in Canadian and U.S. publications, including Poemata, Grand Canyon, and the San Francisco Observer.  “Moon Ride,” published in the Livermore Wine Country Literary Harvest by Livermore, California’s 4th Street Studio, is a chapter from ONLY THE HORSES, her novel in progress.

Tareq Mirza is an Afghan-American artist and writer.  His parents bought him a box of lego at the age of three and he's been creating ever since.  After a career in Visual Effects on such movies as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Matrix 2 & 3, Tareq turned to teaching and followed his creative pursuits in art and writing.  His first short story has been published in the Anthology SNAPSHOTS: This Afghan-American Life.  He is currently writing and illustrating his first graphic novel.

Joe Quirk is a bestselling author of both fiction and non-fiction. His novels are EXULT and THE ULTIMATE RUSH.  His science books are IT'S NOT YOU. IT'S BIOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF LOVE, SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS and CALL TO THE RESCUE: THE STORY OF THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER.  He is a humor columnist at H+ Magazine. His PIXAR-illustrated Powerpoint presentation, SPERM-SPREADERS VS. EGG-PROTECTORS is popular with college biology students.

Holly Shumas is the author of the novel FIVE THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT. She lives in Berkeley, where she is (mostly) hard at work on her second novel.

Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., writer, physicist and public speaker, is the author of over two hundred articles on subjects ranging from particle physics to parenting teenagers to the Future of Publishing. His first novel, The God Patent, is the story of a laid-off engineer caught between science and religion in a battle over the origin of the universe and the existence of the soul. Suspense literature that investigates the limits of faith and freewill, it concludes with a description of the soul that requires not a leap but a mere step of faith. It is available now, www.TheGodPatent.com

David Henry Sterry is the best selling author of eight books: among them CHICKEN (Regan Books, Canongate) which has been translated into 10 languages and is being made into a movie; MASTER OF CEREMONIES: a True Story of Love, Murder, Rollerskates and Chippendale's, (upcoming August, 2007); and PUTTING YOUR PASSION INTO PRINT, about how to get a book published, based on a course he teaches at Stanford. He is also a book doctor who has helped many writers get publishing contracts.

Eric Tipler grew up in rural Virginia, studied music at Harvard, then spent several years teaching high school in and around Washington, DC.  He’s currently writing a book about the struggle to provide great education to all children - to close the achievement gap.

James Warner comes from the UK. His short fiction has appeared in such places as Ninth Letter, Agni Online, and Narrative. He also writes novels. His goal for 2009 is to carry on regardless.

Olga Zilberbourg is a writer based somewhere between San Francisco, CA and St. Petersburg, Russia. Her collection of short stories, КофеInn, was published in St. Petersburg in 2006. Since then, her work has been primarily in English. In the past year, Olga’s short stories have appeared in Thema and online in Faraway Journal, The Writer's Eye, Clockwise Cat, Crossing Rivers into Twilight. She serves as a Story of the Week Editor at Narrative Magazine.