Anna DeStefano is the nationally best selling author of classic romance for Harlequin and Silhouette, and contemporary paranormal romantic suspense for Dorchester publishing. She's a two-time Romantic Times Award winner, a Golden Heart winner, and she's won the Gale Wilson Award of Excellence, the Maggie Award for Excellence, and has been a finalist in numerous other awards, including the National Readers Choice awards, the Holt Medallian, and the Book Buyers Best Award.

Bobbie Christmas, an award-winning writer and editor with more than 40 years of experience, is the author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing). She owns Zebra Communications, a firm that edits manuscripts, magazines, and business materials. Because she cures ailing manuscripts, people refer to her as a book doctor. Her syndicated "Ask the Book Doctor" column appears in more than two dozen periodicals and Web sites. Her Web site is www.zebraeditor.com, and her e-mail address is Bobbie@zebraeditor.com.

Ciji Ware is a bestselling historical novelist, an Emmy-award winning television producer, reporter, writer, and host, serving as a commentator and personality for seventeen years on ABC Radio in Los Angeles. On TV, she has worked for PBS and all three major networks, covering health, consumer and lifestyle subjects.

Constance Daley, originally a New Yorker, now lives on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where, among other things, she is a regular columnist for The American Reporter producing the ever popular column "Hominy & Hash." Her articles appear in WEEKEND the newspaper of choice in the Golden Isles, and, as a lifelong diarist, Mrs. Daley frequently teaches classes in "Journaling" along with "Releasing your Creativity."

Currently, Daniel Black serves as professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University. He is the author of three novels: They Tell Me of a Home (2005), The Sacred Place (2007), and Perfect Peace (contracted, but not released). His first novel was nominated for the 2006 Townsend Award in Fiction. His favorite hobbies include mentoring African American youth, fishing for crappie, and choir directing.

David Rocklin grew up in Chicago. He graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Literature. After attending law school, he pursued a career as an in-house attorney and continues to serve as a mediator. He lives in California with his wife and children. The Luminist is his first novel.

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the award-winning, #1 NYT-bestselling Outlander novels, described by Salon magazine as "the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting "Scrooge McDuck" comics."

Dominique Raccah is CEO and publisher of Sourcebooks, the company she founded in 1987. From that small start, Raccah has directed a continuously growing entrepreneurial creative organization that morphed into a general trade house passionately producing everything from bestsellers in fiction, poetry, parenting and study aids, 14 New York Times Bestsellers and more than twenty national bestsellers. Dominique currently serves as co-chair of the Book Industry Study Group.