Festival Authors
Headliners
Stephen Graham Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly thirty novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Stephen’s been an NEA recipient, has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, WLA’s Distinguished Achievement Award, ALA’s RUSA Award and Alex Award, the 2023 American Indian Festival of Words Writers Award, the Locus Award, four Bram Stoker Awards, three Shirley Jackson Awards, six This is Horror Awards, and he’s been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and the Eisner Award. He’s also made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels, and is the guy who wrote Mongrels, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw, Earthdivers, and I Was a Teenage Slasher. His most recent books are True Believers and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and Off the Reservation.
Celeste Ng is the bestselling author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Celeste grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan). Her fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and many other publications, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.
with Featured Writers
Geoff Bennett is co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS NewsHour, known for incisive reporting and sharp analysis of the political and cultural forces shaping American life. Bennett has covered six presidential elections and reported from the White House under three administrations. His exclusive interviews – spanning cultural icons, world leaders, and groundbreaking artists – have drawn wide national attention. In March 2026, Bennett published his debut book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms (HarperCollins), an instant bestseller. The book offers a deeply researched exploration of the evolution and cultural impact of Black comedy in America.
A skilled and enthusiastic generalist, Elizabeth Rusch writes both fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. She is the award-winning author of more than 25 books, which have received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Horn Book, Booklist, School Library Journal, and the BCCB, among others. Her work has won the Golden Kite Award, the Subaru Prize for science writing, the Cook Prize, the Green Earth Award, the Oregon Book Award, and the Oregon Spirit Award and has landed on many notable and best of the year lists produced by ALA, NCTE, NSTA, Bank Street College of Education, Kirkus, SLJ, NBC News and the New York and Chicago Public Libraries. Rusch also the author of more than a hundred articles in publications such as The New York Times, Smithsonian, Harper’s, Backpacker, American Craft, Mother Jones, and Portland Monthly, among many others.
Aldo Amparán is the author of Brother Sleep, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2023, and the forthcoming The House Has Teeth. They have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & CantoMundo. Born & raised in the border cities of El Paso, TX, USA, & Ciudad Juárez, CHIH, Mexico, Amparán’s work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, & elsewhere.
Ally Ang is a gaysian poet & editor based in Seattle, WA. Their work has appeared in The Rumpus, Muzzle Magazine, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Ang is a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and MacDowell fellow. Their debut poetry collection, Let the Moon Wobble, was published in 2025. Find them at allysonang.com or on Twitter and Instagram @TheOceanIsGay.
Kylie Lee Baker is the author of Japanese Gothic.
Caroline Bock’s novel, The Other Beautiful People, a workplace love story, is forthcoming on June 2, 2026 (Regal House Publishing). She is also the author of the young adult novels LIE and Before My Eyes, and of the short story collection Carry Her Home. She studied creative writing with Raymond Carver at Syracuse University and earned her MFA in Fiction from the City College of New York. Notably, she spent twenty years as a cable executive in marketing/public relations with AMC, Bravo, and IFC/IFC Films, which inspired The Other Beautiful People. She is co-president of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.
Erin Bush is the author of Under the Guise of Protection: Eugenics and Wayward Girls in Twentieth-Century Virginia.
Jordan Clark is a Baltimore based comic writer who has worked for DC Comics, Image Comics, and more. His work centers on imagining better futures for BIPOC through fiction.
Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman are award-winning folklorists, teachers, and writers with a combined 26 years in higher education and over 150 publications. Together, they founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic teaching creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales. In 2019, Carterhaugh won the Dorothy Howard Award from the American Folklore Society. You can stream their series The Real History of Dracula and Urban Legends Explained on the Great Courses Plus, and their first book, Fairylore: A Compendium of the Fae Folk, is available now.
Angie Cruz is a novelist and editor. Her most recent novel How Not To Drown in A Glass of Water was a finalist for the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, shortlisted for The Aspen Words Literary Prize, winner of the Gold Medal, Latino Book Award/The Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Book Award, longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize and chosen for The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022 and The Washington Post 50 Notable Works of Fiction. Her novel, Dominicana was the inaugural book pick for GMA book club. Cruz is the author of two other novels, Soledad and Let It Rain Coffee.
Mansi Dahal is a writer from Biratnagar, Nepal, and a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, where she received the Waletzky Fellowship. Her work has appeared in POETRY, New England Review, Southeast Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for Best New Poets and recognized as finalists for Palette Poetry’s Sappho Prize.
Asa Drake is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. A 2024 National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, the Florida Book Awards, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House, and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems have been published with The Slowdown Podcast, The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review Daily, and The Georgia Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.
Michele Evans is the author of februaries and purl, nominated for the Maya Angelou Book Award. She is a fifth-generation Washingtonian (D.C.), writer, teacher, and adviser for Unbound, an award-winning high school literary magazine. This Teaching Consultant for the Northern Virginia Writing Project and Watering Hole Fellow studied at Smith College, King’s College London, and the Graduate School at the University of Maryland. Her poems have appeared in Artemis Journal, Bellevue Literary Review, Gargoyle Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives online at www.awordsmithie.com.
Marcie Flinchum Atkins is a teacher-librarian by day and a children’s book writer in the wee hours of the morning. She holds an M.A. and M.F.A. in Children’s Literature from Hollins University. She is the author of several nonfiction books for children and is a contributor to several children’s poetry anthologies. Her debut YA novel, One Step Forward, is about the youngest suffragist imprisoned at Occoquan Workhouse. Her latest nonfiction picture book, When Twilight Comes, features crepuscular plants and animals active in summer in Virginia. You can read more about her work at www.marcieatkins.com.
Amanda Foody is the New York Times, USA Today, and indie bestselling author of the Wilderlore series, All of Us Villains and A Fate So Cold (with C.L. Herman), and more. Her work has been translated into over ten languages, and Wilderlore is a four-time state award nominee and a two-time international award winner. Amazon selected All of Us Villains as the Best Young Adult Book of 2021. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner and their two cats. When not writing, she unironically loves to cook.
Julia Flint is the author of We Were Promised: How an Appalachian Grandmother Fought a Corporate Giant.
Claire Fuller is the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; Bitter Orange; Unsettled Ground, which won the Costa Novel Award and was a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction; and The Memory of Animals. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.
Mary Lisa Gavenas, author of Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, was named a fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography and has been cited as an expert commentator on female entrepreneurship (CBS, NBC, CNN, BBC-4). A former senior editor at Glamour, department head at InStyle and Mirabella, and columnist for Elle, she has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, and other national outlets.
Shasta Grant grew up in New Hampshire and now lives in Indianapolis. An Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, Kenyon Review prize winner, and recipient of writing residencies from Hedgebrook and The Kerouac Project, she holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of the chapbook Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home, a senior editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, and co-founder of Brown Bag Lit. Her debut novel, When We Were Feral, is forthcoming from Regal House in 2026.
Donna Hemans is the author of three novels, River Woman, Tea by the Sea, and The House of Plain Truth. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, Oprah Daily, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University. She serves on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, D.C
Chas Henry served as an active duty Marine from 1976-1996, rising in rank from private to captain. He was decorated for his actions during the 1991 Gulf War. Graduated with honors from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where he studied documentary filmmaking, he went on to earn a masters degree from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. After military service he embarked on an award-winning career in international journalism, reporting on matters of global security, intelligence, and military veterans. Journalistic assignments have over the years taken him to more than 30 nations on five continents.
J.D. Ho was born by the sea, raised on a rock, schmoozed in Hollywood, drove to Austin, Texas for an MFA, and now lives among foxes and deer on a sliver of east coast green. J.D.’s work has appeared in Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals.
Steven A. Holmes is a veteran journalist whose career spans more than 40 years as a reporter and editor at such news organizations as Time Magazine, The New York Times where he won a Pulitzer Prize, and The Washington Post. For 11 years until his retirement in 2019, he was a member of CNN’s Office of Standards and Practices. He is the author of Ron Brown: An Uncommon Life, the biography of the first African American to be head of the Democratic National Committee and a former Secretary of Commerce. He is a graduate of City College of New York and is an inductee into CCNY School of Journalism’s Hall of Fame. He was a visiting professor of journalism ethics at the University of Arkansas and a fellow at the Hoover Institute.
Korena Di Roma Howley is the author of Sarang Saves the School and A Hanbok for Hana. She is also a freelance journalist primarily reporting on science news and education, and many of her children’s stories explore our connections to each other and to the natural world. In addition to picture books, she has published work in literary and children’s magazines. She lives with her family in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Cassandra James grew up in a mixed immigrant family with a penchant for storytelling, so becoming a writer was almost inevitable. She recently graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English focusing on Creative Writing. After solo-traveling the world for several months, she met her swoon-worthy husband and landed in Orlando, Florida, where she spends her time cooking Colombian food, obsessing over Broadway musicals, and occasionally swashbuckling. Her debut Young Adult fantasy novel, CAPITANA, is now available, with the sequel, LIBERTAD, to follow in June, 2026. She is represented by Andrea Morrison at Writers House.
Fady Joudah is the author of […]. He has also published seven other collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu, a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; Tethered to Stars; and Exhibit G. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. Winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, he has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, the Lenore Marshall Prize, and the American Book Award. He lives in Houston, where he practices internal medicine.
Mills Kelly is an emeritus professor of history at George Mason University, where he taught for almost 25 years, and the author of the new book A Hiker’s History of the Appalachian Trail. He is also the author of Virginia’s Lost Appalachian Trail and was the host of The Green Tunnel Podcast, a podcast on the history of the trail. You can learn more about Mills on his website at: http://millskelly.net.
Melanie McCabe’s debut novel, Road Longer Than Memory, will be published by Oceanview Publishing on June 2, 2026. Her fourth book of poems, All The Signs Were There, won the Longleaf Poetry Prize and will be out in February. Her memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams, won the 2016 University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She taught in Arlington for twenty-two years. She has an MFA in Poetry from George Mason.
Gabe Montesanti (she/they) is the author of Brace for Impact: A Memoir (The Dial Press), which chronicles her time skating for Arch Rival Roller Derby. She is also a former drag performer. She earned her bachelor’s in studio art and mathematics from Kalamazoo College and her MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. She has attended artist residencies at Sundress Academy for the Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska. Raised in Michigan, she now lives in St. Louis.
Danika Paige Myers is the author of the poetry collection Her Names, Her Wits from Finishing Line Press (2026). Her work has appeared in journals including Fairy Tale Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Harlot: a journal of the arts of persuasion. Danika earned an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from George Mason University and is an Assistant Professor of Writing (Teaching) at The George Washington University in Washington DC. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
George Oberle received his Ph.D. in History from George Mason University. He currently serves as the History Librarian at George Mason University and has held several librarian faculty appointments since 2004. He also teaches courses as an Associate (term) Professor in the Department of History and Art History at GMU. George’s scholarship is focused on the creation and dissemination of knowledge in the United States. As the Director of the Center for Mason Legacies, he collaborates with a team of scholars who explore the stories of marginalized communities in the DMV area from the colonial period to the present.
Karen E. Olson is the winner of the Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award and a Shamus Award finalist. She is the author of 14 crime novels: the Modern Tudor Mysteries as well as the Annie Seymour and Tattoo Shop mysteries and the Black Hat Thrillers. Karen is a longtime editor, both in newspapers and at Yale. She lives in Connecticut with her husband.
Lina Patton is a writer, illustrator, and teacher. She holds a BA from Elon University and an MFA from George Mason University. Her work has appeared in ELLE, The Cut, Narrative, and Driftwood Press, among others. After seven years living abroad, she and her husband now reside in Washington, DC, where she teaches Creative Writing at George Washington University and co-produces the storytelling series Generation Women DC. The Lake Club is her first novel.
Cecily Parks is the author of three poetry collections, including The Seeds, a finalist for the 2026 PEN/Voelcker Award and named one of NPR’s Books We Love. She is guest editor of Best New Poets 2025 and editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. Her poems appear in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Nation, The New Republic, several editions of The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA Program at Texas State University.
William Pierce is editor of AGNI. His short stories have appeared in Granta, Ecotone, American Literary Review, and elsewhere; his story translations in Little Star and New England Review; and his nonfiction in, among other publications, Harvard Review, World Literature Today, and Literary Hub. Pierce is also the author of Reality Hunger: On Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle (Arrowsmith Press, 2016), a monograph first serialized as a three-part essay at The Los Angeles Review of Books. His work has been cited as Notable twice in The Best American Essays and given Special Mention three times in The Pushcart Prize.
Lily Qi has served in the Maryland General Assembly since 2019, representing Montgomery County in the House of Delegates, a suburb of Washington D.C. As a champion for immigrant participation in politics and government cultural competency, Qi speaks on immigrant integration, political engagement and democracy, women in politics, and Asian American experiences.
Eman Quotah is the author of The Night Is Not for You and Bride of the Sea, winner of the Arab American Book Award for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, Literary Hub, and other publications. She’s been awarded writing fellowships from MacDowell and Hedgebrook and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. She’s also the secretary of the board for RAWI, which represents writers of Southwest Asian and North African heritage.
Diana Rojas is the author of Litany of Saints: A Triptych, the forthcoming novel, They Hold Grudges, and the forthcoming children’s book, Clara’s Big Green Coat. Her essays are featured in Grit & Gravity, The Washington Independent Review of Books, Barrelhouse, and the WWPH anthology America’s Future, among others. A member of the Board of Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, she lives taxed and unrepresented in Washington, DC
Lori Rottenberg is the author of The Enchantress Queen and The Ghost Who Made Me winner of the 2025 Changing Light novel-in-verse competition. She has been publishing her poetry, flash, and non-fiction in literary journals and anthologies for decades and served as a Visiting Poet for Arlington Public Schools for 11 years. She holds an MFA in Poetry from George Mason University, where she teaches writing to international students and poetry to Honors College students. Learn more about her work at www.lorirottenberg.com.
Adi Rule is the author of Nell and the Netherbeast, Why Would I Lie? and Hearts of Ice, as well as The Hidden Twin and Strange Sweet Song, which won the 2016 New Hampshire Writers’ Project Literary Award for Outstanding Young Adult Book and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Houghton Mifflin/Clarion Prize. Adi’s work has appeared in Hunger Mountain and NH Pulp Fiction anthologies. Adi is a member of the faculty of the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing program at Lasell University.
Daniel Simon is a poet, essayist, translator, and World Literature Today’s assistant director and editor in chief. His 2017 edited volume, Nebraska Poetry: A Sesquicentennial Anthology, won a 2018 Nebraska Book Award. His most recent edited collection, Dispatches from the Republic of Letters: 50 Years of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2020), was a Publishers Weekly starred pick.
Shubha Sunder is a 2025 Whiting Award winner and the author of Optional Practical Training, an immigrant novel in conversations that won the New American Voices Award and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her first book, Boomtown Girl, a collection of short stories set in her hometown of Bangalore, India, won the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. She currently teaches in the creative writing MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Before turning to fiction, Aggie Blum Thompson covered real-life crime as a newspaper reporter for a number of papers, including The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. Aggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers, and serves as the program director for the Montgomery County chapter of the Maryland Writers Association. She lives with her husband and two children in the suburbs of Washington DC.
Millie Tullis (she/they) is a writer, editor, and researcher. She holds an MFA from George Mason University and an MA in American Studies & Folklore from Utah State University. Their digital micro-chap, Dream With Teeth, was published by Ghost City Press in 2023 and These Saints are Stones, a full-length collection, is forthcoming from Signature Books in March 2026. Her poetry has been published in Dialogist, Sugar House Review, Stone Circle Review, Cimarron Review, Ninth Letter, SWWIM, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Raised in northern Utah, they live and work in upstate South Carolina.
Michael Joseph Walsh is the author of A Season, winner of the Georgia Poetry Prize, and Innocence, winner of the Lighthouse Poetry Series. He is the editor of APARTMENT Poetry, and his poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Guernica, Fence, jubilat, and elsewhere. He lives in Philadelphia.
Chuchu Wang is an award-winning illustrator who was raised in China and now works as a freelance illustrator in New York. She received an Illustration MFA degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and has been selected as an Asia Pacific Young Leader. She immigrated to the United States five years ago and earned a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her background includes an Architectural art design degree from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts.
Weike Wang is the author of Chemistry, Joan is Okay, and Rental House. She is the recipient of a Pen Hemingway, a Whiting award and a National Book Foundation 5 under 35. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, Best American Short Stories and has won two O. Henry Prizes. She earned her MFA from Boston University and her other degrees from Harvard. She currently lives in New York City and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Barnard College and Boston University.
Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman are award-winning folklorists, teachers, and writers with a combined 26 years in higher education and over 150 publications. Together, they founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic teaching creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales. In 2019, Carterhaugh won the Dorothy Howard Award from the American Folklore Society. You can stream their series The Real History of Dracula and Urban Legends Explained on the Great Courses Plus, and their first book, Fairylore: A Compendium of the Fae Folk, is available now.
Danielle P. Williams is the author of Chamorrita Song.
Nina Willner is the author of two critically acclaimed nonfiction books, The Boys in the Light, which was named Amazon Editors’ #3 Best Book of the Year – Top Nonfiction, and Best History Book of 2025, and Forty Autumns, named a Top 15 Nonfiction Book of 2016 by The CS Monitor. Prior to her writing career, Nina was a US Army intelligence officer who led sensitive missions behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. After a career in intelligence, Nina worked in Moscow, Minsk, Prague, Ottawa and Istanbul promoting human rights, women’s and children’s causes and the rule of law for the US government, nonprofits and a variety of charities. After years living abroad, she now writes narrative nonfiction full time from her home in Washington DC.
Writing at the intersection of ecology and culture, habitat and habitation, Tracy Zeman’s work traverses environmental crises, witnesses disappearing species, and mediates the moral and ethical implications of this age of ecological unraveling. Her poems, essays, and reviews have been published in Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Cincinnati Review, and others. Recently, she visited Isle Royale, a National Park in Lake Superior, as an artist-in-residence and in 2027 will travel to the far north with The Arctic Circle residency program. She teaches at the University of Michigan and lives outside Detroit, Michigan, with her husband, daughter, and dog.