WRITERS

Terry McMillan

Aurthor

Terry McMillan (born October 18, 1951) is an American author. Her work is characterized by relatable female protagonists. McMillan’s first book, Mama, was published in 1987. She achieved national attention in 1992 with her third novel,Waiting to Exhale. The book remained on The New York Times bestseller list for many months and by 1995 it had sold over three million copies. The novel contributed to a shift in Black popular cultural consciousness and the visibility of a female Black middle-class identity in popular culture. McMillan was credited with having introduced the interior world of Black women professionals in their thirties who are successful, alone, available, and unhappy. (Source: Wikipedia) Read More

Marc Acito

Playwright and humorist

Marc Acito (born January 11, 1966 in Bayonne, New Jersey) is an award winning American playwright, novelist, and humorist. Before becoming a playwright, Acito was a novelist and journalist. His comic novel How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater won the Oregon Book Awards’ 2005 Ken Kesey Award for Best Novel, and was voted a 2005 “Teens Top Ten for favorite young adult book” of the American Library Association. In April 2008, Acito published Attack of the Theater People, a sequel to How I Paid for College. (Source: Wikipedia) Read More

Jean Kwok

Chinsee-American Author

Jean Kwok is a contemporary Chinese American writer and the award-winning, bestselling author of two novels: Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Kwok’s family immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong when she was only five years old. She spent much of her childhood working in a clothing factory located in Chinatown, close to Brooklyn, NY. While at Harvard, Kwok learned that she loved to dance and worked as a professional ballroom dancer for three years after graduation. This experience helped form the basis of her second novel, Mambo in Chinatown. Kwok then decided to go back to school to pursue her MFA in fiction at Columbia University.(Source: Wikipedia – Photo of Jean Kwok by photographer, Chris Macke) Read More

Thrity Umrigar

Indian-American novelist

Thrity Umrigar is an Indian-American journalist, critic, and novelist. Umrigar received a Bachelor of Science from Bombay University, an M.A. From Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in English from Kent State University. She has written for the Washington Post and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and regularly writes for The Boston Globe ‘s book pages. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University. She is active on the national lecture circuit. Born and raised in Bombay, India, she lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She practices Zoroastrianism and belongs to the Parsi community of India. (Source: Wikipedia) Read More

Wendy MacLeod

Scottish-American Playwright

Wendy A. MacLeod is an American playwright. MacLeod received a BA from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where she now teaches and is a playwright-in-residence. She received a MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Her works include the plays Sin and Schoolgirl Figure, both of which premiered at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and were directed by David Petrarca. The House of Yes, which premiered in San Francisco at the Magic Theatre and was the theatre’s second-longest running show, became an award-winning film by the same name starring Parker Posey and earned a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Other works include The Water Children, Things Being What They Are, and Juvenilia. (Source: Wikipedia) Read More

Kim Fupz Aakeson

Danish Aurthor

Kim Fupz Aakeson is a Danish Author and has also worked in many other similar professions. He debuted in 1984 with the children’s book Who dares to awaken the gods, but has since written both short stories and novels in addition to children’s books, often in collaboration with illustrator Cato Thau-Jensen. Previously, in 1982 he made his debut as a cartoonist with the album Go loose on life. He graduated from Tha National Filmschool in 1996 and has since written both short stories and feature films. Earlier, Kim Fupz Aakeson been a freelance illustrator for various newspapers. He has also been a playwright to include Aalborg Theatre and Radio Theatre.

Christina Hoag

Novelist / journalist Latin America

Christina Hoag is the author of two novels, Skin of Tattoos, a literary crime thriller set in L.A.’s gang underworld published by Martin Brown Publishers, and Girl on the Brink, a YA romantic thriller about an abusive relationship published by Fire and Ice YA, an imprint of Melange Books. Christina worked as a reporter and editor for the Miami Herald and The Associated Press, among other news outlets, and won two writing awards from the New Jersey Press Association. She also worked in Latin America nearly a decade, reporting from 14 countries for major media including Time, Business Week, The Financial Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the New York Times. (Source: www.christinahoag.com) Read More

Joe Giordano

Italian-American Author

Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. His father and grandparents immigrated to New York from Naples. Joe and his wife, Jane, have lived in Brazil, Greece, Belgium and the Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their shih tzu Sophia. Joe’s stories have appeared in more than eighty magazines including Bartleby Snopes,The Monarch Review, decomP, andShenandoah. His novel, Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Story, was published by Harvard Square Editions October 2015. “Birds of Passage is not a biography about my family, but I’m old enough to have known people who were born in the nineteenth-century. In the novel I tried to capture how Italian immigrants of past generations thought and acted”.
(Source: www.joe-giordano.com) Read More

Alexandra Kostoulas

Greek-American Writer

Alexandra Kostoulas is an award-winning writer of poetry, fiction and journalism. She is the founder of the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute and publisher of the Mid-Market News. She has performed her work on stage locally and nationally at Santa Barbara Book & Author festival, Los Angeles Festival of Books, UC Berkeley, Beyond Baroque Bookstore in Venice, CA, Mills College, the Lit Symposium at UC Santa Barbara, June Jordan’s Poetry for the People in Berkeley, Books and Books in Miami, and the Bowery Poetry Club in New York and more. She teaches people to find their voice and unblock themselves creatively every day as an instructor in The Jack Grapes METHOD WRITING Program and at the SF Creative Writing Institute.
(Source: www.alexandrakostoulas.com) Read More

Cindy Thomson

Author

Cindy Thomson is an American Author. The Ellis Island historical fiction series was released beginning in 2013 by Tyndale House Publishers. Set at the turn of the 20th century in New York City, the Ellis Island Series follows the lives of new immigrants as they struggle to find their place in America. The first book, GRACE’S PICTURES, will involve the Brownie camera, which opened photography to the masses. The second, ANNIE’S STORIES, will focus on the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which changed children’s literature. The third book is SOFIA’S TUNE, and features the theme of the advertising icon, His Master’s Voice. Another historical series is set in ancient Ireland, Brigid of Ireland and Pages of Ireland. (Source: www.cindyswriting.com) Read More

Christine Otten

Dutch Author

Christine Otten (born 1961) debuted in 1995 with Blue Metal, which was nominated for the Dutch Debutant Prize. In 2004 she broke through to a wider audience with her novel The Last Poets, which was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize and was adapted for the stage. The English translation rights of The Last Poets have been sold to World Editions. Like Casablanca was published in 2008, followed in January 2010 by the controversial novel In Wonderland. In 2011 Otten wrote the Dutch Book Week Essay together with photo artist Erik Kessels. Her subsequent novel (2013), So I Can Breathe, received great acclaim. Raphael, a compelling love story between Dutch Winny and Tunisian Nizar, came out in 2014. (Source: http://www.sharedstories.nl) Read More