Elizabeth Becker is a journalist and author who began her career as a war correspondent for the Washington Post in Cambodia, became the Senior Foreign Editor of National Public Radio and later a New York Times correspondent covering national security, foreign policy, agriculture and international economics. She has reported from Asia, Africa, South America and Europe while based in Phnom Penh, Paris and Washington.
Sheila Williams is the multiple Hugo-award winning editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and the editor or coeditor of more than two dozen anthologies.
Ruby is an author and former features editor of the UK’s Sunday Times Style supplement. In 2013 she created The Numinous, an online magazine that has been at the forefront of conversations about modern spirituality.
Brad Taylor was born on Okinawa, Japan, but grew up on 40-acres in rural Texas. Graduating from the University of Texas, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry. Brad served for more than 21 years, retiring as a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. During that time he held numerous Infantry and Special Forces positions, including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta where he commanded multiple troops and a squadron. He has conducted operations in support of US national interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other classified locations.
Alessandra Torre is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Torre has been featured in such publications as Elle and Elle UK, as well as guest-blogged for the Huffington Post and RT Book Reviews. She is also the Bedroom Blogger for Cosmopolitan.com. In addition to writing, Alessandra is the creator of Alessandra Torre Ink, a website, community, and online school for aspiring authors. Her annual conference is INKERS CON, and is available online or in-person.
Jared Yates Sexton is an author and political analyst whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Politico, and elsewhere. He is the author of three books of short fiction, a novel, The People Are Going To Rise Like The Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage, an examination of the 2016 Presidential Election, The Man They Wanted Me To Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making, a dissection of American masculinity, and, most recently, American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, published by Dutton/Penguin-Random House. Currently he serves as an associate professor of writing at Georgia Southern University and is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast.
J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism at Jacksonville (Fla.) University. He is the author of “Death in the Highlands: The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me,” which tells the October 1965 story of a handful of American Special Forces troopers and their Montagnard allies pushed to the brink at a remote outpost in Vietnam’s Western Highlands. As a vastly superior North Vietnamese force tightened its grip on the tiny camp, the life-and-death struggle would ultimately usher in the first major clashes between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies, culminating in the brutal Ia Drang Valley battles a few weeks later. Published by
Suzanne is the bestselling author of three novels: In an Instant, No Ordinary Life, and Hush Little Baby. Born and raised on the east coast, Suzanne moved to California when she was fifteen. She currently lives in Laguna Beach with her husband where they own two restaurants: Lumberyard and Slice Pizza & Beer. In addition to being an author, Suzanne is an architect specializing in residential and commercial design.
Jason Pinter is the bestselling author of Hide Away, the first Rachel Marin novel, as well as five novels in his Henry Parker thriller series and the standalone novel The Castle, which have over one million copies in print worldwide and have been published in over a dozen countries, the Middle Grade adventure novel Zeke Bartholomew: SuperSpy, and the children’s picture book Miracle. He has been nominated for the Thriller Award, Strand Critics Award, Barry Award, RT Reviewers Choice Award, Shamus Award and CrimeSpree Award. Two of his books—The Fury and The Darkness—were chosen as Indie Next selections, and The Mark, The Stolen and The Fury, were named to The Strand’s Best Books of the Year list. The Mark and The Stolen both appeared on the ‘Heatseekers’ bestseller list in The Bookseller (UK). The Mark was optioned to be a feature film.
Carlton F.W. Larson is a Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law and English and American legal history. He earned his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in history from Harvard University, and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of The Yale Law Journal and Executive Editor of The Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Daly Hawkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was a commercial litigator at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC.