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.

Before signing a two-book deal with MIRA, Michelle Gagnon supported herself by working as a bartender, dog walker, Russian supper club dancer, model, and personal trainer. Her first suspense thriller, THE TUNNELS is now out! In her spare time she runs errands and indulges a weakness for stale cinema popcorn 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 next book, LEANING INTO SHARP POINTS will be published by Shambhala and distributed by Random House in the Spring of 2009. 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.  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.

Elise Frances Miller has written art reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Art News, The Reader, and San Diego Magazine, for which she wrote a monthly column. She is the Communications Director for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University and Fiction Editor for the SAND HILL REVIEW. She is currently seeking a publisher for her novel, A Time to Cast Away Stones.

In high school, Joe Quirk was known for four things: getting detention for being a smart-ass, getting “A”s in biology, being horny, and having a name like Quirk. He decided to combine these four talents in his second book, SPERM ARE FROM MEN, EGGS ARE FROM WOMEN. He is also the author of the bestseller THE ULTIMATE RUSH

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., is the author of almost two hundred articles in a huge variety of periodicals. His first book, FADE TO PINK, the true story of a single father raising his adolescent daughter, is circulating among editors in New York as he writes his second, THE GOD PATENT, a novel that pits biblical literalists against particle physicists in a battle over the creation of the Universe and the existence of the soul.

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.

James Warner comes from the UK. His short fiction has been published in such places as Narrative, Identity Theory, Eclectica, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He also writes novels, which he tries to keep from getting too long. His goal for 2007 is to become more like Roald Dahl.