Kevin Kling

Kevin Kling is an author and storyteller extraordinaire who is best known for his popular commentaries on National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" and storytelling stage shows such as "Tales from the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log." Kevin has been awarded numerous arts grants and fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The McKnight Foundation, The Minnesota State Arts Board, and many more. In addition to traveling around the globe telling stories and teaching residencies, he has released a number of compact disc collections of his stories and published five books, including On Stage with Kevin Kling.

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David Corbett

David Corbett worked as a private investigator for fifteen years and played an integral role in a number of high-profile criminal litigations including the Cotton Club Murder Case and the People’s Temple Trial. In the 1990s he pivoted to writing, receiving critical acclaim for both his novels and short stories. In addition to his fiction, he has written two books on the craft of writing - The Art of Character and The Compass of Character - both of which are widely used by authors and screenwriters in shaping powerful stories and creating memorable and iconic characters. David also teaches at events nationwide, coaching authors on the subtleties of writing.

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Lisa Regan

Lisa Regan is the USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series as well as several other crime fiction titles. Her books have sold over two million copies. Lisa has a bachelor’s degree in English and a Master of Education, both from Bloomsburg University. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Crime Writers Association, and Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, daughter, and a Boston Terrier named Mr. Phillip.

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Tiffany Yates Martin

Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors as well as indie and new writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of the bestseller IntuitiveEditing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's also the author of six novels including the upcoming The Way We Weren't (Berkley).

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Margot Leitman

Margot Leitman is an award-winning storyteller, best-selling author, speaker, and teacher who has taught and performed all over the world. A leading expert in the growing field of storytelling, she has written two books on the subject and has also written for NBC, DreamWorks TV, the Hallmark Channel, the PixL Network, and a variety of print and online sources. Additionally, she is a five-time winner of The Moth StorySLAM and was the Moth GrandSLAM winner in New York City, achieving the series’ first ever score of a perfect 10. 

In her spare time, Margot is an amateur baker, avid yogi, and devoted bibliophile. A proud graduate of the Ithaca College Theatre Department, she currently resides in Los Angeles, California. 

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Angela Ruth Strong

Angela Ruth Strong is a romance writer who gave up writing romance novels after her husband left her. Ten years later, she has returned to the realm of romance and is writing books to inspire readers to find deeper meaning and purpose in their lives. Her novels have been chosen for Top Picks in Romantic Times and have won numerous awards. She started IDAhope Writers to help teach and encourage aspiring authors, and she teaches as an expert online at WRITE THAT BOOK. A movie based on her book Finding Love in Big Sky just finished filming in Montana.

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Matthew Dicks

Matthew Dicks is the internationally bestselling author of over a dozen novels, which have been translated into more than 25 languages worldwide.

In addition to his work as the humor columnist for Seasons Magazine and a columnist for Slate Magazine, Matthew is a 7-time Moth Grand SLAM Winner and 53-time Moth Story SLAM champion as well as the co-founder and artistic director of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization that produces sold-out shows throughout New England. 

When not hunched over a computer screen, Matthew fills his days as an elementary school teacher, a storyteller, a speaking coach,  a blogger, a wedding DJ, a minister, and a life coach. He has been teaching for 21 years and is a former West Hartford Teacher of the Year and a finalist for Connecticut Teacher of the Year. 

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Kerry Nietz

Kerry Nietz is an award-winning science fiction author who has over a half dozen speculative novels in print as well as a novella, several short stories, and a non-fiction book called FoxTales.

Kerry’s novel A Star Curiously Singing won the Readers Favorite Gold Medal Award for Christian Science Fiction and is notable for its dystopian, cyberpunk vibe. It is often mentioned on “Best of” lists. Among his writings, his most talked about is the genre-bending Amish Vampires in Space, which was mentioned on The Tonight Show and in the Washington Post, Library Journal, and  Publishers Weekly.  Newsweek called it “a welcome departure from the typical Amish fare.”

Kerry is a refugee of the software industry who spent more than a decade of his life flipping bits, first as one of the principal developers for the now mythical Fox Software and then at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile, and a movie buff.

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Bella Mahaya Carter

Bella Mahaya Carter is a creative writing teacher, empowerment coach, speaker, and the author of an award-winning memoir, Raw: My Journey from Anxiety to Joy as well as a collection of narrative poems. She has worked with hundreds of writers since 2008 and has degrees in literature, film, and spiritual psychology. Her poetry, essays, fiction, and interviews have appeared in Mind, Body, Green; The Sun; Lilith; Fearless Soul; Writer’s Bone; Women Writers, Women’s Books; Chic Vegan; Bad Yogi Magazine; and several anthologies, among other works.

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John Galligan

John Galligan is the author of three books in the Heidi Kick mystery series: DEAD MAN DANCING, BAD AXE COUNTY, and the newest installment, BAD MOON RISING, as well as five other novels. In addition to his fiction writing, he has also worked as an award-winning journalist, a feature-film screenwriter, a house painter, an au pair, an ESL teacher, a cab driver, and a freezer boy in a salmon cannery. He teaches writing at Madison College, where his experience is enriched by students from every corner of the world.

A native of Madison, Wisconsin, John is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an undergraduate degree in Environmental Policy and a masters in English Literature.

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