Lynne Griffin
Life Without Summer (St Martin’s Press)
Lynne Griffin is a nationally recognized expert on family life. She is the author of Life Without Summer which Publishers Weekly calls, “...a spellbinding tale of loss and hard-won redemption.” (Starred Review)  And Booklist says, “...this stirringly believable epistolary novel... [will be a] strong addition to women’s fiction.”  Lynne is also the author of Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment (Penguin 2007).  As the parenting contributor for Boston’s Fox 25 Morning News, she appears regularly in the segment Family Works.  Lynne teaches in the graduate program of Social Work and Family Studies at Wheelock College, and at Grub Street Writers.  She lives outside Boston with her family. 

To learn more about Lynne, visit www.LynneGriffin.com

Rae Meadows
Calling Out (MacAdam Cage )
After getting dumped by her boyfriend, Jane quits her copywriting job in New York City and ends up answering phones at a Salt Lake City escort agency. As she descends into the strange, lonely word of sexual commerce in the heart of Mormon country, she must come to terms with a life she hadn't planned. Rae Meadows was named one of Poets & Writers "Five Debut Writers to Watch" and Calling Out was chosen as one of the Chicago Tribune's "Best Books of 2006." She is at work on her next novel, No One Tells Everything.  She lives in Madison, WI.

Martha Moody
Sometimes Mine (Riverhead)
From the best-selling author of Best Friends comes Sometimes Mine a novel of midlife romance, and opening your heart to the people in your life. Genie Toledo is a divorced cardiologist consumed with her practice; Mick Crabbe is a college basketball coach, married with children, who counts "loyalty" as one of his virtues.  For ten years they've been meeting every Thursday night at a hotel in a city between them.  Then Mick gets sick, and everything changes.

To read more about her and her work, go to www.marthamoody.net

Allison Winn Scotch
Time of my Life (Shaye Areheart Books)
Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times best selling author of Time of My Life and The Department of Lost and Found.  Her next novel, The Happiest Days of My Life, will be published by Random House in 2010.  Previously freelance journalist, she now focuses on celebrity interviews and profiles for a wide variety of national magazines.

To read more about her and her work, go to www.allisonwinn.com

Therese Walsh
The Last Will of Moira Leahy (Shaye Areheart Books)
When Maeve Leahy lost her twin sister, Moira, to tragedy nearly a decade ago, she buried her adventurous spirit to become a workaholic professor of languages instead. Until one night at an auction when she wins something that reminds her of her carefree, piratical youth: a Javanese dagger called a keris. Days later, a book is nailed to her office door, followed by anonymous notes, one inviting her to Rome to learn more about the blade. Soon, she’ll learn that nothing can be taken at face value—including the face she’s been presenting to the world—and that the keris might play a role in slicing away her many self-protective layers, once and for all. Therese Walsh lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children, where she is hard at work on her second novel.

You can learn more about Therese at her website, www.ThereseWalsh.com, or her blog, www.WriterUnboxed.com.

Aaron Starmer
Dweeb: Burgers, Beasts and Brainwashed Bullies
(Random House)
Strange things are happening at Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High.  The cafeteria is covered in a sea of burger wrappers. Bullies aren’t bullying anymore.  And there’s an eerie growling coming from the walls.  If anyone can get to the bottom of these mysteries, it’s Denton, Wendell, Eddie, Elijah and Bijay.  They may be misfits, but they’re also the smartest kids in the eighth grade.  Aaron Starmer’s writing has appeared in guidebooks and a variety of humor magazines including McSweeney’s.  He lives with his wife in New Jersey.

Julie Kraut
Slept Away (Random House)
Laney Parker is a city girl through and through. But this summer Laney’s mother has other plans for her sophisticated daughter. It’s called Camp Timber Trails and rustic doesn’t even begin to describe the un-air-conditioned log cabin nightmare. Laney is way out of her element—the in-crowd is anything but cool, popularity seems to be determined by swimming skills, and the activities seem more like boot camp than summer camp. Splattered with tie dye fall out, stripped of her cell, and going through Diet Coke withdrawal, Laney is barely hanging on. Being declared the biggest loser of the bunk is one thing, but when she realizes her summer crush is untouchably uncrushable in the real world, she starts to wonder, can camp cool possibly translate to cool cool? Summer camp might just turn this city girl’s world upside down!

Julie Kraut is the co-author of Hot Mess and author of Slept Away.  She’s enthusiastic about a wide variety of cheese, the Internet, and free samples but definitely not about parallel parking or goatees. A self-declared phenom at karaoke, she’s available for freelance writing assignments, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, and first dates. For more, check out JulieKraut.com.

Megan Kelley Hall
Hall's first novel, SISTERS OF MISERY (Kensington, 2008) is a modern-day gothic, teen saga, complete with witchcraft and runic mythology, set in the fictional town of Hawthorne, MA. Romantic Times said “There’s no doubt Hall knows how to write one heck of a creepy gothic novel. She pushes the limits in this scary, fast-paced story.” Hall has written for Elle, Glamour, Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe, Parenting, American Baby, and Working Mother. She contributed essays to former CNN anchor  Daryn Kagan's anthology WHAT'S POSSIBLE! and New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkin's anthology, FLIRTIN' WITH THE MONSTER. Hall studied creative writing at Skidmore College under the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Steven Millhauser. Her second novel, THE LOST SISTER, will be published by Kensington in August 2009.

Sara Barron
People Are Unappealing (Three Rivers Press)
Sara's collection of comic essays was published by Three Rivers Press in Spring 2009. Her work has also appeared on Showtime's "This American Life" NPR's Weekend Edition, The Today Show and at the HBO Comedy Festival. She hosts of The Moth: Stories Told and teaches Humor Writing at Gotham Writer's Workshop.

Dara Chadwick
You'd Be So Pretty If: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies-Even When We Don't Love Our Own
(DaCapo Press)
who wrote a Weight Loss Diary column for Shape, lost 26 pounds over the course of one year. During the process, the mother of two worried about how her weight-loss project would affect her 13-year-old daughter, and she began to explore her own feelings about how her mother had negatively influenced her body image. Through interviews with experts, mothers and daughters, and personal reflection, Chadwick concludes that moms hold a crucial key to how girls will feel about themselves for years to come. (read article)

Lennard Davis
DNA and Dad: One Man's Obsession to Find Himself, His Origins, and the Meaning of Life Through Genetic Testing
(Bantam)
Davis’s science-memoir follows the author from a phone call that casts doubts on his paternity through his detective adventure to find out who his father really is. Lennard Davis, director of Project Biocultures, is a professor of English, medical education, and disability studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago; he is also an NPR commentator, journalist, op-ed writer, and novelist.

You can learn more at his website: www.lennarddavis.com 
 

For more about Stephan, go to www.stephanfaris.com  
 

Jessica Grose
LOVE MOM: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home (Hyperion)
Grose (along with Doree Shafir) is the creator of the online sensation PostcardsFromYoMomma.com the basis of the book, LOVE MOM a collection of laugh­out­loud emails, text messages, and instant messages from technologically inept mothers to their adult children. Grose is Managing Editor for Double X, Slate’s site for women, and was formerly an editor at Jezebel.com. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and Salon.com, among other places. Both women live in Brooklyn, New York.

Dani Klein Modisett
Afterbirth: Stories you Won’t Read in Parenting Magazines (St. Martin’s Press)
Chocked full of wildly courageous, funny and heartwarming stories about how becoming a parent changed the lives of these writers unexpectedly and forever is based on the author’s hit show.  Modisett spent ten years as a stand up comic and when the going got rough for her as a new mother she turned to her community of witty friends to help her laugh her way out of parental paralysis.   "Afterbirth..." the show caught on with audiences quickly and garnering great reviews from The LA Times, The LA Weekly and NPR.  "Afterbirth..." was equally well received in New York City where it started running last year.  The NY Post called it, "...the vagina monologues for the stroller set.” Contributors include:  Matthew Weiner (creator, Emmy winner, "Mad Men"), Cindy Chupack (Emmy winner "Sex And The City"), Moon Zappa, Dana Gould (comedian and Emmy winner, "The Simpsons,"), Modisett, and 32 others. 

For more information about Jodyne go to www.JodyneSpeyer.com

Hannah Seligson
A LITTLE BIT MARRIED: How to know when it’s time to walk down the aisle or out the door (DeCapo Press)
She is also the author of New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches is a workplace primer for young women about how to navigate the ins and outs of the workplace, based on over 100 interviews with young women.  Hannah’s writing has appeared in, among others, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, and The Village Voice. She has been featured in news outlets such as The Today Show, Fox News, USA Today, and Glamour.  Hannah graduated from Brown University in 2004. Please visit www.hannahseligson.com to learn more.