SPEAKER and PANELIST BIOGRAPHIES

M.P. BARKER is a time traveler—well, actually an archivist and historian, which amounts to the same thing. She got a firsthand taste (sometimes literally!) of nineteenth-century New England rural life when she was a costumed historical interpreter at Old Sturbridge Village. There she milked cows, mucked out barns, and found inspiration for her historical novel, A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008). After Sturbridge, she became an archivist at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, where she gets paid to snoop through old diaries, letters and personal papers. Barker is also a historical consultant whose writing projects have included exhibit text, scripts for historical dramatizations, nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, fundraising materials, and planning studies. Barker is a member of the Class of 2k8, a marketing collaborative of 27 authors whose young-adult and middle-grade novels debuted in 2008. More information is available at her website: www.mpbarker.net

CARRIE BEBRIS is best known for her Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery series. Set in Regency England, the novels entangle some of Jane Austen’s most beloved characters in intrigue. Carrie began her writing career as a
newspaper reporter, college English teacher, and editor for fantasy publisher TSR. After publishing two
fantasy novels, she made her historical mystery debut in 2004 with Pride and Prescience, which earned a place on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list and was named one of the five best mysteries of the year by Library Journal. Other series titles include Suspense and Sensibility (2005), North by Northanger (winner of the 2007 Daphne du Maurier Award and a Reviewers Choice Award for Best Historical
Mystery of 2006), and The Matters at Mansfield (2008). Her fifth Darcy mystery releases in spring 2010. In
addition to fiction, Carrie writes magazine articles and edits nonfiction books. A national presenter and life
member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, she holds a master’s degree in English literature and speaks frequently about writing and publishing. Originally from Wisconsin, she now lives in Ohio.
www.carriebebris.com

MARGARET WHITMAN BLAIR (“Peggy”) was inspired by her two sons to create the Henry Brothers, teenaged Civil War reenactors who time travel back to the historic war and fight on opposite sides in Brothers at War, followed by the sequels House of Spies and The Sand Castle. Her sons grew up but she continues to mine the past for ideas. She now writes history books for children for The National Geographic including The Roaring 20: The First Cross-Country Air Race for Women and a black history book to be published in 2010. She recently finished a YA novel set in colonial Williamsburg. For the past decade, she has taught a workshop in Writing the Historical Novel for The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and has lectured on the subject for Smithsonian Associates. She is active in The Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C. In addition to teaching writing, Peggy teaches English language to speakers of other languages, including a stint in the Peace Corps in Thailand. In 2007, she received the Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Children's Writing.

CHRISTINE BLEVINS writes what she loves to read – historical adventure stories. Her debut novel Midwife of the Blue Ridge (August 2008) takes the reader to the wilds of 18th century colonial America, and was inspired by information unearthed while researching family history. Her second novel, The Tory Widow (April 2009) begins in New York City at the eve of rebellion, and is the result of a lifelong fascination with the foundations of American history and the revolutionary spirit. A native Chicagoan, Christine lives in Elmhurst, Illinois, along with her husband Brian, the younger two of their four children, and The Dude, a very silly golden-doodle. She is presently at work on the second novel in her Revolutionary War trilogy titled Hearts of Oak, which is due to be published in June, 2010, by Penguin/Berkley. http://www.christineblevins.com

CHRISTOPHER M. CEVASCO is the editor and publisher of Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction. His own fiction--mostly alternate history, historical fantasy and horror, mainstream historical fiction, and some science fiction--has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Black Static, The Leading Edge, Allen K's Inhuman, and A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (Two Cranes Press), among several other magazines and anthologies. He's sold poems to Dark Wisdom and Star*Line and has written reviews of historical novels for Strange Horizons. Chris is a graduate of both the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop and the Taos Toolbox writer's workshop.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY, where he is hard at work on his first novel. www.paradoxmag.com

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Ann Chamberlin also spent big blocks of time as a child in Europe where her father was visiting professor of mathematics. After flitting from school to school and major to major including theater, history and English, she finally majored in Archaeology of the Middle East at the University of Utah. She spent a summer in Israel excavating the biblical city of Beersheva, traveling throughout the Holy Land and living in the old city of Jerusalem for a month. She reads Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Akkadian as well as French and German. She has traveled across all of North Africa, Turkey, Syria
and Jordan. She has two sons and seven chickens and lives in an old farm house on nearly two acres near
Salt Lake City. Ann is the author of ten historical novels. Her trilogy set in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire was on the bestsellers list in Turkey for over six months. A nonfiction History of Women’s Seclusion in the Middle East is her most recent publication from Haworth Press. She is the author of many plays which have been produced across the country from Seattle to New York. JIHAD, produced by New Perspectives Theatre in New York City, won The Off Off Broadway Review's best new play of the year in 1996.

EILEEN CHARBONNEAU's non Western viewpoint heritage includes Huron and Shoshone relatives, including three members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Eileen has published nine novels, including historical fiction for adult as well for young readers. Eileen’s American Century Novel Series begins in Federal era Virginia in The Randolph Legacy, moving to the Trail of Tears and mid-century 19th century Manifest Destiny in Rachel LeMoyne to California’s early 20th century conservation movement in Waltzing in Ragtime.  Eileen's young adult novels The Ghosts of Stony Cove, In the Time of the Wolves, and Honor to the Hills comprise a trilogy set in the Catskill Mountains from 1809 through 1852.  Books in the series were chosen as a Best Book by the Children's Book Council for Social Studies curriculum, and have won the Golden Medallion for excellence in young adult fiction. Eileen lives in the Hudson River Valley of New York State with her family.  She enjoys visiting schools, meetings, libraries and bookstores as a guest author, and storyteller of Native American and Celtic tales. She’s a member of A CLASS ACT, a theater troupe that presents programs for families in area schools and libraries.  

GRETCHEN CRAIG's historical novel Always and Forever is a saga of Creoles and Cajuns in 1830s Louisiana.  The sequel, Ever My Love, continues the families' struggles with slavery and abolition in the months before the Civil War erupted. Gretchen's other historical novels are set in the wilds of South Florida before the railroad brought boom times and civilization; in the upper Rio Grande Vailley where the puebloans met the conquistadors; and in the Atchafalaya Basin where the Acadians fled from Nova Scotia. As with most historical writers, place is a strong stimulant.  Gretchen and her dashing husband Steve along with their yellow lab, Josie, are happy travelers in their candy-apple red diesel truck, and most everywhere they go, Gretchen finds ideas for new stories.  When she's not writing, she's fussing with her roses, reading, or doing laundry.  Her highest and best use, though, as they say in real estate, is being Granny to Alexander and Byron.  Earlier incarnations were as a homemaker, a real estate agent, and a high school English teacher.  Being a writer makes her happier than any thing else she's ever done.  www.gretchencraig.com

CATHERINE DELORS was born and raised in France. She graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne School of Law and became a member of the Bar of Paris at the age of twenty-one. She then moved to the United States and passed the California Bar. She still works as an attorney and now splits her time between Los Angeles and Paris. After writing Mistress of the Revolution, she completed her second novel (to be published in 2010) a historical thriller about a terrorist attack in 1800 Paris, at the beginning of Bonaparte's reign. She is now working on a third novel, a prequel to Mistress of the Revolution. www.catherinedelors.com

jAY DIXON is an Englishwoman, freelance editor and manuscript assessor, and independent scholar who is currently working on a history of England for historical novelists. She published The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon [Harlequin]1909-1990s (UCL Press) in 1999.

JOANNE DOBSON is the author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series from Doubleday and Poisoned Pen Press.   She won an Agatha nomination for Quieter Than Sleep, the first book in the series, the novels have been widely reviewed, including in the New York Times, and in 2001 the adult-readers division of the New York Library Association named her Noted Author of the Year, as the writer whose books they most enjoyed recommending to their patrons.  Joanne was an English Professor at Fordham University for many years, teaching literature and creative writing.  Her scholarly research and writing focused on Emily Dickinson and on the popular fiction of 19^th-century American women writers.  She now writes full-time and is available to teach and speak at libraries, colleges, and other venues.  Death Without Tenure, the forthcoming Professor Karen Pelletier novel, will be published by Poisoned Pen Press.  “A Good Cuppa Joe,” co-authored with Beverle Graves Myers, is forthcoming from Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. www.joannedobson.com

SUSANNE DUNLAP writes historical novels in which music plays a strong role. Her first two published novels were for adult readers: Emilie’s Voice and Liszt’s Kiss. In January of 2009, her first book for young adult readers was published by Bloomsbury Children’s, The Musician’s Daughter. With elements of mystery and suspense, The Musician’s Daughter takes place in the Vienna of Haydn and Mozart, and is the story of a talented young female musician who suffers tragedy and must solve a mystery in order to go on with her life.
Susanne earned her MA in musicology from Smith College, and her PhD in music history from Yale. In addition to a career as a novelist, Susanne has a day job writing advertising copy, and is the proud mother of two adult daughters and grandmother of the smartest toddler in the world.

ANNE EASTER SMITH is a native of England who has lived in the United States for 41 years. Her love of English history goes back to age 10, when the British education system mandated history as part of the curriculum through graduation. She grew up with London on her doorstep and has walked much of the countryside described in all three of her novels set during the Wars of the Roses. Anne began her writing career as a freelancer for a small monthly publication in Plattsburgh, NY in 1980 and went on to become the Features Editor of the daily newspaper there. A Rose for the Crown was published in March 2006 by Simon & Schuster and her second, Daughter of York in February 2008. The King’s Grace is her latest book and tells the story of Perkin Warbeck through the eyes of Grace, Edward IV’s bastard daughter. She is currently working on her fourth (as yet titleless) about Cecily of York. Anne is delighted to be a panelist again this year, although confesses to a little angst about reading one of her own sex scenes on Saturday night. She is also thrilled to have her editor, Trish Todd, and agent, Kirsten Manges, to hang out with at the conference!  www.anneeastersmith.com

A native of Iceland, SOLVEIG EGGERZ lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She teaches research methods and conducts writing workshops. Her debut novel, Seal Woman, won first prize for fiction from The Maryland Writers Association. Her short story, “The Volunteer,” won an award in 1998 from the Baltimore Writers Alliance. She tells stories in women’s shelters, including the folktale about the seal woman.  She holds a PhD in medieval English, German, and Scandinavian comparative literature. Her writings have appeared in The Northern Virginia Review, Palo Alto Review, Lincoln Review, Midstream, Issues, The Journal of the Baltimore Writers Alliance, The Christian Century, and Open Windows: An Anthology. www.solveigeggerz.com

ELISSA ELLIOTT is the author of Eve: A Novel of the First Woman.  She is a former high school biology teacher.  She has written for Books & Culture and Paste Magazine  and has optioned her first screenplay.  She lives in Minnesota with her husband, Daniel. www.elissaelliott.com

KATHY LYNN EMERSON is the author of How to Write Killer Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past and has written two historical mystery series. The Face Down series (Face Down O'er the Border) features sixteenth-century gentlewoman and herbalist Susanna, Lady Appleton. The Diana Spaulding Mystery Quartet (Deadlier than the Pen, Fatal as a Fallen Woman, No Mortal Reason and Lethal Legend) is set in America in 1888, where the detective is a journalist working for a scandal sheet. As Kate Emerson, Kathy writes the "Secrets of the Tudor Court" series, starting with The Pleasure Palace (March 2009). As Kaitlyn Dunnett, she pens the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (Scone Cold Dead) set in Moosetookalook, Maine. She lives on a Christmas tree farm in Maine with her husband and her cats. www.kathylynnemerson.com

KAREN ESSEX is the author of Stealing Athena, which chronicles the fantastic journey of the controversial Elgin Marbles; the national and international bestseller Leonardo’s Swans; and two acclaimed biographical novels, Kleopatra and Pharaoh.  She is also an award winning journalist and a screenwriter, and wrote Bettie Page: Life of a Pin Up Legend, the only authorized biography of the late pin-up icon.  Presently dividing her time between London and Los Angeles, she researching and writing her next book, a Victorian gothic novel.  Karen invites friends and readers to follow along with her in her travels as she chronicles her adventures, joys, and sorrows in putting together a complex work of historical fiction: www.karenessex.com/blog.

Straddling the historical and romance markets, ELISABETH FAIRCHILD's critically acclaimed, theme-driven, Jane Austen-era romances have been awarded the Golden Quill, the HOLT Medallion, the Bookseller’s Best Award, a Waldenbooks Bestseller of the Year Award and a Career Achievement Award in Regency romance. Elisabeth’s love of history is rooted in her heritage.  Her mother is a British war bride.  Her father is a descendant of a U.S. Senator, Teutonic knights, and a Cherokee chief.  As a child Elisabeth read and fell in love with Jane Austen, at sixteen she worked in a haunted 12th century castle in Denmark. She currently lives with one foot firmly fixed in the past, avidly exploring castles, country houses, Mayan pyramids and Roman ruins. Fairchild considers herself a historical mentalist with old soul insight and a phenomenal floor-to-ceiling research library. Elisabeth currently sleuths history’s surprises and the forgotten truths surrounding  a tragic, Georgian era love triangle that helped spawn the Regency. www.gimarc.com/fairchild.html

KATE FORSYTH is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and adults, including The Puzzle Ring, The Gypsy Crown, The Starthorn Tree, The Witches of Eileanan, and The Tower of Ravens. Offering an escape into worlds filled with adventure, wonder and magic, her books have sold more than 700,000 copies across ten different countries. Since her first novel was named a Best First Novel of 1998 by Locus Magazine, she has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including a CYBIL Award in the US. Kate has a BA in Literature, majoring in Children’s Literature, from Macquarie University, and a MA in Writing from UWS. Kate has taught creative writing from primary to tertiary levels for over ten years, including ‘Writing for Children’ at Sydney University. Kate lives by the sea in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and three children, a slinky black cat, a lion-hunting hound, and many thousands of books.

Though Margaret Frazer made up stories and wrote them down from a very early age, it was with Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman Britain novels that she became addicted to historical novels and realized for the first time that the way a story was told mattered as much as the story itself. When Shakespeare's Richard II and Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time were added to her reading-mix, she discovered late medieval England, settled herself and her storytelling into the 1400s, and has been happily there ever since. She is now the nationally best-selling author of the Dame Frevisse series of late medieval history mysteries, with two nominations for Edgar Awards; a second, best-selling, spin-off series centered on the medieval player Joliffe; and short stories in numerous anthologies, including "Neither Pity, Love, Nor Fear" which won the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society's Herodotus award. She lives outside of Elk River, Minnesota, with cats and a great many books. www.margaretfrazer.com

DIANA GABALDON is the author of the award-winning, NYT-bestselling Outlander novels, described by Salon magazine as "the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics," and the Lord John Grey novels, which are only slightly more describable.   Dr. Gabaldon holds several advanced degrees in science, (plus an honorary degree as Doctor of Humane Letters -- though no one has yet explained to her just what a humane letter is) and spent a dozen years as a university professor with an expertise in scientific computation before beginning to write fiction.   None of this has anything to do with her novels, but there you are. www.dianagabaldon.com

Roberta Gellis was driven to start writing her own books some forty years ago by the infuriating inaccuracies of the historical fiction she read. Since then she has worked in varied genres—romance, mystery, and fantasy—but always, even in the fantasies, keeping the historical events as near to what actually happened as possible. The dedication to historical time settings is not only a matter of intellectual interest; it is also because she is so out-of-date herself that accuracy in a contemporary novel would be impossible. In the forty-some years she has been writing Gellis has produced more than twenty-five straight historical romances. These have been the recipient of many awards, including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from the West Coast Review of Books, the Golden Certificate from Affaire de Coeur, The
Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period (several times) and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. Last but not least, Gellis was honored with the Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award.

C.W. GORTNER is the critically acclaimed author of The Last Queen, a novel about Juana the Mad of Castile, which was a Marin Independent Journal bestseller, a Vogue-Australia Top 10, and is currently being translated into eight languages, as well as The Secret Lion, a novel of suspense set in the Tudor court of Edward VI. He reviews regularly for The Historical Novels Review and runs the popular blog, Historical Boys. Half Spanish by birth, he holds an M.F.A. in Writing, with an emphasis in historical studies, and has taught university courses on women in power in the Renaissance. He loves working with book groups and is always available for author phone chats. His next novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, will be published in the spring of 2010 by Ballantine Books in the US and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. He lives in Northern California with his partner, their beloved Corgi, and a colony of five feral cats. He welcomes visitors at: www.cwgortner.com.

ELIZABETH GRAYSON saw her words in print for the first time in the fourth grade and had completed a historical novel by the time she was fifteen. Her first published book, Love, Honor, and Betray, garnered a Waldenbooks Award for the “Best-selling Romance by a New Author.” Since then she has won a “Lifetime Achievement Award for American Historical Romance” from Romantic Times Book Club, a “Write Touch Readers Award,” and the “Beacon Award of Excellence.” Grayson’s work has twice been a finalist for the prestigious Willa Cather Literary Award, presented by Women Writing the West, and her most recent historical romance Moon in the Water, was a Romance Writers of America Rita Finalist. Writing as Karyn Witmer, she has also published one contemporary novel, A Simple Gift, and is currently working on a historical novel set on the American frontier. http://www.elizabethgrayson.com

Author and rabid anglophile KAREN HARPER has been published since 1982.  Her contemporary suspense novels have been USA TODAY and New York Times bestsellers and she won the Mary Higgins Clark Award in 2006.  Her historical novels backlist is published by Random House and her current Elizabethan-era novels by Penguin.  Her research makes a great excuse to visit England, her favorite place on the planet.  She will be signing Mistress Shakespeare, The Last Boleyn and The First Princess of Wales at the conference.  Karen and her husband divide their time between Columbus, Ohio and Naples, Florida. www.karenharperauthor.com

TONY HAYS has worn a remarkable number of hats in his life. College administrator, soldier, investigative reporter, English instructor. He has visited nearly thirty countries, while living and teaching in six of them, including three and a half years in Kuwait. In the fall of 2002, during the build-up to the Gulf War, he sailed on a US Navy warship from Norfolk, VA, to the Gulf of Aden, standing the bridge during its Gibraltar, Suez, and Bab al Mendab passages. His reporting on the war on terror has been carried by a variety of outlets, including Spanish television. Tony's short fiction has been published across the United States and Japan. The author of four published novels, his first work has attracted the attention of both award panels and literary critics. As he works on the sequel to The Killing Way, the first of his new mystery series for Tor/Forge, Tony continues to teach and lecture both at home and abroad. In the spring of 2007, he was visiting author at South East European University in Tetovo, Macedonia. He has just returned from a six month research trip to England. www.tonyhays.com

PEG HERRING is a former educator from northern Lower Michigan who writes everything from drama to federal grants.  Her love of history and years of teaching Shakespeare led to Macbeth’s Niece, her first published novel (Five Star).  These days Peg speaks to groups on the writing process, reading genres, and public speaking, at the same time preparing for the publication of her historical mystery, Her Highness’ First Murder. Her Highness in this case is Elizabeth Tudor, who seems perfectly suited to sticking her nose into dangerous places. Historical novels, especially mysteries, please Peg for reading or writing. The research is fun, and she can lose herself for hours in a library studying William the Conqueror or Ivar the Boneless. Writing historical mysteries is a challenge, because an author must capture the feel of the era for her readers while providing realistic characters in an exciting plot. In historicals one can ignore police procedures and DNA samples, concentrating instead on the intelligence of the protagonist, the ingenuity of the antagonist, and the wonderful details of what life was like in a time other than our own.  www.pegherring.com

DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON is an engineer, business owner and World War Two history enthusiast. Doug has traveled extensively in Europe researching stories of the courage of common people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. His debut novel, Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two was published in 2007 by McBooks Press, and was released in paperback in 2008. Night of Flames won the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association. Doug has also published articles on Belgium’s WW2 escape organization, the Comete Line; Poland’s 1^st Armored Division; and the liberation of Antwerp. Doug, who was also a panelist at the 2007 HNS conference, has just completed his second novel set in Europe at the end of WW2. http://douglaswjacobson.blogspot.com/

SARAH JOHNSON is book review editor for the Historical Novels Review, the quarterly magazine of the Historical Novel Society. Her third book, Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre (Libraries Unlimited, 2009), serves as a guide to over 2,700 recent and classic historical novels. The previous volume, which covered historical novels published between 1995 and 2004, was named an Editors' Choice title by Booklist, who called it "an outstanding reader's advisory reference work... an essential tool for understanding the genre." Sarah has written articles and book reviews for Booklist, Bookmarks Magazine, Library Journal, CHOICE, and many other publications. She also writes regular columns for NoveList, a library reader's advisory database. In 2002, Sarah moved with her husband from the Boston area to Charleston, Illinois, where she works as a reference librarian at Eastern Illinois University. They live in a house out in the country with three cats and over 10,000 books. Visit her weblog at http://readingthepast.blogspot.com.

John Kachuba is the author of five nonfiction books, three of which cover topics in history and paranormal
research. His articles and short fiction have been widely published and his historical short story, "The Reich
Photographer's Tale" won the 2005 "Dogwood" Fiction Prize. John is currently working on a novel set on the
Pine Ridge Lakota reservation in the late nineteenth-century. John is a frequent speaker on paranormal subjects on radio, TV, and at conferences. He also teaches Creative Writing at Ohio University, the
University of Cincinnati, and through Gotham Writers Workshops. John resides in Cincinnati with his wife Mary
in a 1920 house that they are renovating and that will be featured on TV's "Desperate Landscapes" this
year. John's website is www.JohnKachuba.com.

KEN KRECKEL's historical novel, The Rommel Mission (Red Engine Press, 2007) focuses on the attempted surrender of German forces just after D-day. He has also published a geologically based mystery, Rocked By Murder, and one of his short stories was included in the anthology Foreign Ground: Travelers Tales. He has contributed articles to several magazines and newspapers, including a piece on men’s fiction in a recent edition of the Historical Novels Review. He lives in Wyoming, where he teaches at Casper College and consults for environmental organizations in the Oil and Gas field. Fascinated with some of the lesser known aspects of history, he has recently completed another novel which centers on the peace movement within Britain during the opening years of the Second World War.  http://home.bresnan.net/~kreckel11/iwp2.htm

BARBARA KYLE is the author of The Queen’s Lady (2008) and its sequel, The King’s Daughter (2009), featuring the adventures of the Thornleigh family during the reign of Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Mary. Kensington Books recently signed Barbara for two more novels in this series, following the family into the reign of the young Queen Elizabeth. Barbara previously won acclaim for her contemporary novels written under pen name ‘Stephen Kyle’, including Beyond Recall, a Literary Guild Selection; The Experiment, praised by Publishers Weekly as a “haunting thriller”; and After Shock, all from Warner Books. Barbara teaches creative writing courses for the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and her “Fiction Writer's Boot Camp” at the Haliburton School of The Arts. Her popular series of workshops on video, “Writing Fiction That Sells”, are available online or as a 4-DVD set. Before becoming an author Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the U.S. She and her husband reside in Ontario and spend the six months of summer living aboard their sailboat, a 46-foot ketch, on beautiful Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Barbara welcomes visitors to her website at www.BarbaraKyle.com

CLARE LANGLEY-HAWTHORNE was raised in England and Australia. She was an attorney in Melbourne before moving to the United States, where she began her career as a writer. The first two novels in her Edwardian mystery series, Consequences of Sin and The Serpent and The Scorpion, introduced Ursula Marlow, Oxford graduate, militant suffragette and amateur sleuth. Her first novel, Consequences of Sin, was nominated for the 2008 Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Macavity award and both Consequences of Sin and The Serpent and The Scorpion were IMBA bestsellers. Clare lives in Oakland, California with her family and is currently working on the third book in the Ursula Marlow series as well as the first in a new series set during the First World War. www.clarelangleyhawthorne.com

JADE LEE has broken new ground in multi-cultural romance.  Her China-set historical romances are a first in genre history.  Her six-book Tigress series stirred reader passions for foreign settings, and her fantasy romances continue to be ground-breaking.  Where did she get such innovative ideas?  From a mixed cultural heritage that brings unique vision to her fiction. As the daughter of a Shanghai native and a staunch Indiana Hoosier, Jade Lee struggled to find her own identity somewhere between America and China.  Her search has taken her throughout Asian and the United States.  In the end, the answer was found not only at home, but in her own head.  Her imagination allows her to explore China in her Tigress series, dragon power in her fantasy romance Dragonborn, and of course, the amazing power of love in all of them. A USA Today bestseller, Jade “Lee has made her mark with sizzling romances whose unique settings, intriguing backdrops and exotic characters lure you into worlds where heaven is reached through the highest meeting of mind and body.  It’s a world at once mysterious and erotic, secret and mind-expanding.”  (Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Cornered Tigress) www.jadeleeauthor.com

JOYCE MOORE attended the Cincinnati Conservatory, and later received her Bachelor's magna cum laude. She earned her Masters degree in Music Theory at the University of South Florida, and after a brief teaching career, she decided to write full-time. Since then, Joyce has won various contests such as Writing the Region, First Coast Writer Festival Novel Contest, and most recently, a historical novel won an award in the Mainstream Fiction category at the Florida Writers Conference. Her first book, a regional book about Florida, has sold over 10,000 copies. Joyce's newest book, released June 2009, is a medieval romance, and her next book, to be published by Five Star in 2010, is a historical novel based on the life of a thirteenth century trouvère, one of the poet-musicians in northern France. Joyce writes both fiction and non-fiction, always about history. Her work is included in publications such as USF's Sunscripts, an anthology of selected writers. She has appeared at the Times Festival of Reading and was a guest on Book Talk, a TV production. Joyce is a frequent speaker at historical and literary groups. This is her third HNS conference and she's delighted to be in the company of other historical novelists. http://www.joycemoorebooks.com

MICHELLE MORAN was born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. She took an interest in writing from an early age, purchasing Writer's Market and submitting her stories and novellas to publishers from the time she was twelve. When she was accepted into Pomona College she took as many classes as possible in British Literature, particularly Milton, Chaucer, and the Bard. Not surprisingly, she majored in English while she was there. Following a summer in Israel where she worked as a volunteer archaeologist, she earned an MA from the Claremont Graduate University. Michelle has traveled around the world, from Zimbabwe to India, and her experiences at archaeological sites were what inspired her to write historical fiction. A public high school teacher for six years, Michelle Moran is currently a full-time writer living in California with her husband. She is the author of the bestselling historical fiction novel Nefertiti and the standalone sequel The Heretic Queen. Her third novel, Cleopatra's Daughter, will be released September 15, 2009. www.michellemoran.com

Award-winning author KIM MURPHY became interested in the Civil War soon after moving to Virginia. To date, she has published three novels set during the Civil War, as well as articles on contraception of the era and the prudish myths regarding sexuality. She has given talks on these subjects as well as the more general topics of Reconstruction and the roles of women during the war. She has made presentations at bookstores, libraries, re-enactments, historical societies, and museums. Her recent releases, Whispers from the Grave and Whispers Through Time are Civil War ghost stories with a little time travel added to the mix. Kim is currently working on a story about a 17th century witch (Virginia, not New England!). www.kimmurphy.net

Barbara Corrado Pope, author of Cézanne’s Quarry, is a historian, award-winning teacher and the founding director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon. Barbara has traveled and taught history and women’s studies in many different locations, including Provence, where Cézanne’s Quarry is set. She fell in love with the art, landscapes and people of Provence and had the pleasure of leading lecture-tours throughout the region. In Aix, she followed Cézanne’s footsteps from the depths of the Bibémus Quarry to his sunny studio in Les Lauves on the outskirts of town. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Barbara currently resides in Eugene, Oregon where she is completing her second Bernard Martin mystery. The Blood of Lorraine is set in another place she has grown to love, Nancy, France.

JUDSON ROBERTS is the author of The Strongbow Saga, the story of a young man’s quest to avenge a terrible crime, set in the ninth century world of the Vikings. He uses research and investigative skills honed as a former police officer, federal agent, organized crime prosecutor, and private investigator to ferret out the historical facts that form the background of his novels.

PRISCILLA ROYAL, author of five books in the Prioress Eleanor/Brother Thomas medieval mystery series, grew up in British Columbia and got a World Literature degree from San Francisco State University, where she discovered the beauty of medieval literature. Before retiring from the Federal government in 2000, she worked in a variety of jobs, all of which provided a wonderful education in the complexity of human experience and motivation. She is a theater fan as well as a reader of history, mysteries, and fiction of lesser violence. When she isn't hiding in the thirteenth century, she lives in Northern California and is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and California Writers Club. Her most recent book is "Forsaken Soul", and she has just completed the sixth, due in August 2009 from Poisoned Pen Press. www.priscillaroyal.com

Librarian JOYCE SARICKS has concentrated on fiction collections and fiction readers throughout her career. She has written two books on Readers’ Advisory—the art of sharing books with readers—and has presented numerous workshops on the topic, designed to make librarians more comfortable working with fiction readers. Although she reads across genres, Historical Fiction has always been a favorite.

Susan Holloway Scott is the author of over forty historical novels and novellas. Writing under her own name as well as Miranda Jarrett, her books have received numerous awards and honors, and have appeared on the bestseller lists of USAToday and The New York Times. With more than three million copies of her books in print, she has been published in nineteen foreign countries around the world. Her most recent historical novels have been set in 17th century England, in the decadent, politically charged royal court of King Charles II; all have been Historical Novels Review Editors’ Choice Titles. Her next book, The French Mistress, will be released by NAL/Penguin in July, 2009. She is a graduate of Brown University, and lives with her family outside of Philadelphia, PA. For more information about Susan and her books, please visit her web site:
www.susanhollowayscott.com

MARY SHARRATT is an American writer living in Lancashire, England, near Pendle Hill, haunt of the notorious Pendle Witches of 1612. Winner of the 2005 WILLA Literary Award and a Minnesota Book Award Finalist, Sharratt is the author of the critically acclaimed historical novels Summit Avenue (Coffee House), The Real Minerva (Houghton Mifflin), and The Vanishing Point (Houghton Mifflin), and the forthcoming A Light Far-Shining: A Novel of the Pendle Witches (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Her first two novels were Book Sense picks and The Vanishing Point was a UK Guardian Readers’ Book of the Year. She is also the co-editor of the subversive UK fiction anthology, Bitch Lit (Crocus Books), a celebration of female anti-heroes which was featured in The Guardian and on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. Sharratt’s short stories have been widely published in journals and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including the recent Twin Cities Noir (Akashic Books). A former HNS Reviews Editor, Sharratt writes regular feature articles and author profiles for Solander.  Visit her website: www.marysharratt.com.

ANN WEISGARBER, raised in Kettering, Ohio, has been fascinated by the gritty spirit of pioneer homesteaders ever since her first childhood trip to the West. Inspired by a cookstove in a South Dakota sod dugout and a photograph of an unnamed woman, she spent seven years writing her debut novel, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. It was published in June 2008 by Macmillan New Writing in the United Kingdom. Ann lives in Sugar Land, Texas, and has a BA in social work from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a MA in sociology from the University of Houston. She has also lived in Boston and in Des Moines. She has been a social worker and a sociology instructor. She enjoys hiking and visits at least one national park every year. The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was selected as a must-read novel by Red magazine in the UK. In June 2009, Picador will release it in paperback in the UK, and Editions Belfond in France will release the novel in June as an Avant Premiere selection for the book club, France Loisirs.  Ann is currently working on her next novel about the 1900 Galveston flood.  www.annweisgarber.com
 

LAUREN WILLIG is the author of the Pink Carnation series, which follows the antics of flowery spies during the Napoleonic Wars.  The second in the series, The Masque of the Black Tulip, was nominated for a Quill Award in 2006.  After immersing herself in Renaissance Studies as an undergrad at Yale, Lauren went off to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in history, specializing in Early Modern England.  The dissertation is still unfinished, but along the way she spent a year living and researching in London, graded more undergrad papers than she cares to recall, wrote the first three books in the Pink Carnation series, and attended Harvard Law, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 2006.  After a brief stint as a litigator at a large New York law firm, Lauren is very happy to be a full time writer of historical fiction. www.laurenwillig.com