Kristine Anderson
Mercer University Press
Moderator
Kristine F. Anderson earned at Ph.D. in Communicative Arts from Georgia State University. She has worked as a freelance writer for national newspapers and magazines and taught high school English. She has also taught courses at Southern Polytechnic State University, now part of Kennesaw State University, and Shorter College.
Crooked Truth, published by Mercer University Press, is her debut novel. The manuscript received the Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction, and the book was nominated for the Willie Morris 2021 Southern Fiction Award. Kristine was also nominated for 2021 Georgia Writer of the Year, in the category of “Debut Novels.”
She lives with her husband and a house full of books and magazines in the Atlanta area.
Matt Smith
Book Contracts
When Matt Smith entered college, he intended to be a writer. A two-decade detour into the legal profession intervened, but better late than never, he figures. He still has to pay the bills, but for the past four years, he has put his spare time to different use. His first short story was a Daily Fiction selection for Mystery Tribune. Other stories have appeared in and are forthcoming from Mystery Weekly, Close to the Bone, and Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir Vol. 3 (Down & Out Books).
Matt’s debut crime novel, Twentymile, set in and around Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is out now from Latah Books. It has garnered praise from respected publications such as Foreword Reviews, which called it a “disturbing, potent thriller.” Edgar Award winner James A. McLaughlin (Bearskin) said Twentymile is “an accomplished first novel from a talented and fully-formed writer,” and bestselling author Diane Les Becquets (Breaking Wild and The Last Woman in the Forest) called it “a beautiful and brutal and extraordinary debut.”
Matt graduated from Davidson College with a degree in English and from the University of Georgia School of Law. He lives in Newnan, Georgia—just south of Atlanta—with his wife, son, and father-in-law. He is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club and Sisters in Crime.
Milton Davis
MVmedia, LLC
a small publishing company specializing in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Sword and Soul.
I’m a Black Speculative fiction writer and owner of MVmedia, LLC, a small publishing company specializing in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Sword and Soul. MVmedia’s mission is to provide speculative fiction books that represent people of color in a positive manner.
I’m the author of twenty-one novels and short story collections; my most recent the Sword and Soul adventure Eda Blessed II. I’m also a contributing author to Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, published by Marvel and Titan Books and coauthor of Hadithi and the State of Black Speculative Fiction with Eugen Bacon. I’m editor and co-editor of eleven anthologies; Spyfunk!; Terminus: Tales of the Black Fantastic from the ATL; Cyberfunk!; The City, Dark Universe and Dark Universe: The Bright Empire with Gene Peterson; Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology and Griot: Sisters of the Spear, with Charles R. Saunders; The Ki Khanga Anthology, Steamfunk!, and Dieselfunk! with Balogun Ojetade.
My work had also been featured in Black Power: The Superhero Anthology and Rococoa published by Roaring Lions Productions; Skelos 2: The Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy, Steampunk Writers Around the World published by Luna Press; Heroika: Dragoneaters published by First Perseid Press, Bass Reeves Frontier Marshal Volume Two, and Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire.
Balogun Ojetade and I won the 2014 Urban Action Showcase Award for Best Script for our screenplay, Ngolo. My story ‘The Swarm’ was nominated for the 2017 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction and my story, Carnival, was nominated for the 2020 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction.
Kathy Manos Penn
Self-Published
Kathy Manos Penn lives in Dunwoody with her husband and her four-legged office assistants. A corporate escapee, she went from crafting change communications to plotting page-turners. Adhering to the adage to “write what you know,” Kathy populates her Dickens & Christie cozy mystery series with well-read, witty senior women, a sassy cat, and a loyal dog. The murders and talking pets, however, exist only in her imagination.
Years ago, when she stumbled onto a side job as a columnist for a local paper, she saw the opportunity as an entertaining diversion from the corporate grind. Little did she know that her chance foray into writing would lead to a mystery series—much less a Readers’ Favorite Gold Award for “Bells, Tails & Murder,” Book I in her series.
How does she describe her life? “I’m living a dream I never knew I had.”
Mimi Herman
Regal House Publishing,
Independent Press
Mimi Herman is the author of The Kudzu Queen, Logophilia and A Field Guide to Human Emotions. Her writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review, The Hollins Critic, The Healing Muse, Prime Number, and other journals. She has performed at Why There are Words, Symphony Space, and Raleigh Memorial Auditorium. Mimi is a member of the AWP Board of Directors, a Warren Wilson MFA alumna, a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. She co-directs Writeaways writing workshops in France, Italy, Ireland, New Mexico and online.
