Festival Authors
Hover over or click on an author’s photo to read their bio.
Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” His first novel, “Which Brings Me to You” (co-written with Julianna Baggott) was made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” is being developed for television by 20th Century Fox. He’s the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant for fiction and teaches at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. His stories and essays have been published in the Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, Best American Erotica, and the New York Times Magazine. His latest book is “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories.” He lives with his family outside Boston.
Daniel Bedrosian has been the keyboardist for George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic for the past twenty years, making him the longest tenured keyboard player in the band’s history. He is also the Music Director for the band, and has been the band Musicologist and Archivist in an official context for over a decade. In addition to performing with Clinton and company, Bedrosian has worked or performed with many musical icons such as Snoop Dogg, Chuck D and Flavor Flav, Ice Cube, Shavo Odadjian from System of a Down, Kendrick Lamar, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Erykah Badu, Queen Latifah, Mumford & Sons, RZA, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Sheila E, Wu-Tang Clan, The Roots, MonoNeon, Cory Henry, Robert Glasper, Drake, and many more.
Jennifer Brice is the author of The Last Settlers, a work of documentary journalism, and Unlearning to Fly, a memoir. Another North is her first collection of essays. Born in Fairbanks, Alaska, she teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at Colgate University in upstate New York.
TJ Butler is a writer from Alexandria, Virginia. She writes fiction and essays that are not all fun and games, teaches workshops, and coaches writers. Her work has appeared in media outlets such as Huffington Post, Insider, and various literary journals. She has a degree in a field she’ll never return to, and she was one of those kids who wanted to be a writer when they grew up. BUST Magazine calls her short story collection, Dating Silky Maxwell “gritty, realistic, often unnerving, and far from glamorous.” Connect with her at TJButlerAuthor.com.
Sally Chaffin Brooks is a writer, stand-up comedian, and podcaster. A reformed lawyer, Sally has released two chart-topping comedy albums (Brooks Was Here, Street Bird) and co-hosts the comedy podcasts The Ridiculist and Dumb Love. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and son, and heads to the mountains as often as possible. Going to Maine is her first book.
Wendy Chen is the author of the novel Their Divine Fires (Algonquin) and the poetry collection Unearthings (Tavern Books). She is the editor of Figure 1, associate editor-in-chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and prose editor of Tupelo Press. Her poetry translations of Song-dynasty woman writer Li Qingzhao are forthcoming in a collection titled The Magpie at Night from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2025. She earned her MFA in poetry from Syracuse University and her PhD in English from the University of Denver. Currently, she is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech. He’s the author of 2 academic books, has edited several volumes of essays on the European Middle Ages, and has published scholarly articles on medieval Europe and the memory of the Middle Ages more generally. His public writing has appeared in numerous prominent outlets, such as The Washington Post and CNN, and interviews with him have aired locally, nationally, and internationally. He is the co-author, together with David M. Perry, of both The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (Harper Books, 2021) and now Oathbreakers.
Mark Hendricks is an award winning natural history author and photographer. His first book, Natural Wonders of Assateague Island, was a FOREword Reviews award winner. His images and essays have been featured in many publications including National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Audubon. Mark is a faculty member at Towson University where he serves as lecturer in the Department of Psychology, adjunct in the Department of Biological Sciences, and co-directs the Animal Behavior Program. He is a fellow in the International League of Conservation Writers and member of the ethics committee for the North American Nature Photography Association.
A. Ashley Hoff is the author of Match Game 101: A Backstage History of Match Game and My Huckleberry Friend: Holly Golightly and the Untold History of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He previously worked for talent agencies in Chicago and Los Angeles and has written articles on Hollywood for The Advocate and Films in Review. He has been interviewed on numerous pop culture subjects on The Nick Digilio Show on WGN Radio, The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius XM, Feast of Fun on iTunes, in magazines such as Closer Weekly, and on various local talk shows and podcasts.
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. He has received numerous residences and fellowships for his writing, which has appeared in several literary publications. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Rhodes University, an MFA in Writing and Publishing from Vermont College, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University. He teaches fiction writing as an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Adam Nimoy is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Loyola Law School. After seven years in entertainment law, he left to pursue a directing career. Nimoy has directed over forty-five hours of network television, as well as directing the critically acclaimed documentary film about his father. For the Love of Spock (2016) was the Official Selection at the Tribeca Film Festival. He is the author of My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life and has been in 12-step recovery for twenty years. Adam has three children, a step-son, a dog and two cats. He lives in Los Angeles.
Jen Soriano (she~they) is a Filipinx-American writer, independent scholar, and performer who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. They are the author of the chapbook Making the Tongue Dry, and the lyric essay collection Nervous, which won the 2024 Memoir Prize, the Housatonic Book Award, and the American Book Fest prize for books about mental health and psychology. Jen is a grateful recipient of fellowships from Artist Trust, Hugo House, the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat, and Vermont Studio Center. They received a BA in History and Science from Harvard and an MFA in fiction and nonfiction from the Rainier Writing Workshop. Jen is also a co-founder and former board chair of the cultural democracy institutions, MediaJustice and ReFrame, and is a leader in the field of narrative justice. Originally from a landlocked part of the Chicago area, Jen has spent the past decade living with her family in Seattle, near the Duwamish River and the Salish Sea.
Bernardine (Dine) Watson is a nonfiction writer and poet, originally from Philadelphia, but who now lives in Washington, DC. She has written on social policy issues for numerous major foundations, nonprofit organizations, and for The Washington Post Health and Science section and She the People blog. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Rising Voices/ University Professors Press, Sanctuary/ Darkhouse Books, and The Great World of Days/ Day Eight Arts. Dine is a member of the 2015 class of the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities Poet in Progress Program and was selected to participate in the 2017 and 2018 classes of the Hurston Wright Foundation’s Summer Writers’ Workshop for Poetry. She is a member of Day Eight Art’s Board of Directors.
Fellow at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, an evidence-based account of his turning to psychedelic plants and endangered coral reefs to heal from complex PTSD, and Centaur, which was awarded the Brittingham Prize. His work has appeared in The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he weaves climate change science into literary studies. He lives in the Shenandoah Valley with his husband and their growing family of trees.