Diana G. Gallagher was an American author who wrote books for children and young adults. She also wrote the space opera The Alien Dark (1990), but was best known for her tie-in work for television properties including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, Star Trek and The Secret World of Alex Mack, among others. She was also a prolific filk creator, winning Pegasus Awards in 1986 and ’94. Gallagher won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist in 1988 under the name Diana Gallagher Wu. She sometimes also wrote under the name Diana Burke. Born in 1946, in Paterson, New Jersey, she lived in Florida with her husband, the writer Martin R. Burke, who predeceased her in 2011. Gallagher was married four times; her third marriage was to author William F. Wu (divorced 1990). Gallagher died December 2, 2021 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at 75 years of age.

Micol Ostow has been writing professionally since 2004, and in that time has written and/or ghostwritten over 40 published works for young readers. She started her reign of terror with Egmont with her novel FAMILY, which Elizabeth Burns named a favorite of 2012 on her School Library Journal-syndicated blog, A Chair, a Fireplace, a Tea Cozy. Micol's graphic novel, SO PUNK ROCK (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother), was named a 2009 Booklist Top Ten Arts Books for Youth Selection, a Booklist Top Ten Religion Books for Youth Selection, and a Sydney Taylor Notable Book for Teens. She received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her young adult horror novel, AMITY, will release from Egmont in August 2014, and her first chapter book series, LOUISE TRAPEZE, will debut in Spring 2015 from Random House. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, alongside her Emmy Award-winning husband, their daughter, and a finicky French bulldog. Visit her at www.micolostow.com.

New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than ninety novels, best known for the single title psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Those books and the women’s fiction written under the pseudonym Wendy Markham have also appeared on the USA Today, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookscan bestseller lists. Her current standalone suspense novel, THE OTHER FAMILY, is about a picture-perfect family that that moves into a picture-perfect house. But not everything is as it seems, and the page-turner concludes “with a wallop of a twist,” according to #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben. Her critically acclaimed Lily Dale traditional mystery series centers around a widowed single mom—and skeptic—who moves to a town populated by spiritualists who talk to the dead. Titles include NINE LIVES; SOMETHING BURIED, SOMETHING BLUE; DEAD OF WINTER; and PROSE AND CONS, with a fifth book under contract. Wendy has written five suspense trilogies for HarperCollins/William Morrow. The most recent, The Foundlings (LITTLE GIRL LOST, DEAD SILENCE, and THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER), spans fifty years in the life of a woman left as a newborn in a Harlem church, now an investigative genealogist helping others uncover their biological roots while still searching for her own. Written as Wendy Markham, Wendy’s novel HELLO, IT’S ME was a recent Hallmark television movie starring Kellie Martin. Her short story “Cat Got Your Tongue” appeared in R.L. Stine’s MWA middle grade anthology SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN and her short story “The Elephant in the Room” is included in the Anthony Award-nominated inaugural anthology SHATTERING GLASS. A three-time finalist for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, she’s won an RWA Rita Award, an RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction. She previously published a dozen adult suspense novels with Kensington Books and the critically-acclaimed young adult paranormal series “Lily Dale” (Walker/Bloomsbury). Earlier in her career, she published a broad range of genres under her own name and pseudonyms, and was a co-author/ghostwriter for several celebrities. Raised in Dunkirk, NY, Wendy graduated from SUNY Fredonia and launched a publishing career in New York City. She was Associate Editor at Silhouette Books before selling her first novel in 1992. Married with two sons, she lives in the NYC suburbs. An active supporter of the American Cancer Society, she was a featured speaker at Northern Westchester’s 2015 Relay for Life and 2012 National Spokesperson for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. She has fostered for various animal rescue organizations.

Also writes as Jeff Mariotte Jeffrey J. Mariotte is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than 70 novels, including the Cody Cavanaugh western series, historical western epic Blood and Gold: The Legend of Joaquin Murrieta (with Peter Murrieta), thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil's Bait, supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, and the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet. With wife and writing partner Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell, he wrote the sf/horror/thriller 7 SYKOS and Mafia III: Plain of Jars, the authorized prequel to the bestselling video game. His most recent release is the short story collection Byrd's Luck & Other Stories, comprising five "traditional" Western tales and five horror-Western stories, two of them brand-new for this edition. He also writes occasional nonfiction, short fiction (some of which is collected in Nine Frights), and comic books, including the long-running horror/Western comic book series Desperadoes and graphic novels Fade to Black and Zombie Cop. With Marsheila Rockwell, he has published several short stories and is working on more. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book business, as a writer, editor, marketing executive, and bookseller. Learn more at www.jeffmariotte.com, and follow him at https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMari... and @JeffMariotte on Twitter. Also writes as Jeff Mariotte

Carla Jablonski is the author and editor of dozens of best-selling books for teenage and middle-grade readers. She grew up in New York City, where she attended public schools and the Bronx High School of Science. She has a BA in anthropology from Vassar College and an MA from NYU's Gallatin School, an interdisciplinary program for which she combined playwriting, the history of gender issues in 19th Century Circus, and arts administration. "I wanted to write the play, contextualize the play, and learn how to produce the play for my degree," she explains. "I think I may have been the happiest graduate student at NYU—I SO loved working toward my thesis." While still in graduate school she supported herself as the editor of The Hardy Boys Mysteries. "When I interviewed for the job they asked me if I'd ever read the Hardy Boys as a kid. 'No way,' I scoffed. 'Those are BOY books! It was Nancy Drew for me!' Luckily my future boss had a sense of humor. She hired me after I promised I'd read the books if I got the job." She has participated in the renowned Breadloaf Writers' Conference as well as Zoetrope's All-Story highly competitive writing workshop held at Francis Ford Coppella's resort in Belize. She has taught writing for the children's market, as well as "cold-reading" skills for teachers as part of Project:Read. Several of her books have been selected as part of the Accelerated Reader's program. She continues to work freelance as an editor for publishers and for private clients, even as she writes novels and creates new series. She also has another career (and identity!) as a playwright, an actress, and a trapeze performer. "I try to keep the worlds separate," she explains about her multiple identities. "The different work I do has different audiences, so I want to keep them apart. But they're all me—they're all ways of expressing what I'm thinking and feeling—just in different mediums."

Scott Ciencin was a New York Times best-selling novelist of 90+ books. He wrote adult and children's fiction and worked in a variety of mediums including comic books. He created programs for Scholastic Books, designed trading cards, consulted on video games, directed and produced audio programs & TV commercials, and wrote in the medical field about neurosurgery and neurology. He first worked in TV production as a writer, producer and director. He lived in Sarasota, Florida with his wife (and sometimes co-author) Denise. (Also wrote under the pseudonyms Nick Baron and L.J. Oliver)

Hi! Bobbi here. I specialize in media creative writing: developing/writing online games and MMORPGs, books, comics, animation, and other products that tie into film and television shows, as well as the development and creation of new tie-in products. I've written everything from Nickelodeon’s RIDE novelizations and Disney's PIXIE HOLLOW MMO to interactive ebooks based on the Mooshka doll line and an original non-fiction text published by Heinemann entitled WRITING IS ACTING: HOW TO IMPROVE THE WRITER’S ONPAGE PERFORMANCE. I've also self-published—an original horror novel that involves the Peter Pan mythos entitled HOOKED (Publishers Weekly gave it a great review!). You can find my entire resume and cover gallery at http://www.BobbiJGWeiss.com. I also post Facebook, tumblr, twitter and other social media sites. Find links to my social profiles on my website.

Laura J. Burns has written more than thirty books for kids and teens, touching on topics from imaginary lake monsters to out-of-control Hollywood starlets. (Those two things have more in common than you'd think.) With Melinda Metz, she has also written for the TV shows ROSWELL, 1-800-MISSING, and THE DEAD ZONE. Their next book is THE LOST MAP OF CHAOS, coming in 2018! Laura lives in New York with her husband, her kids, and her exceptionally silly dogs.

ROSALIND NOONAN grew up in suburban Maryland and enjoyed being part of a large family. "With my four siblings, Saturday mornings were a blast," she says. "There was festival seating on the living room floor as we devoured cartoons and passed the Sugar Pops." She caught the writing bug in second grade when she won first place in a poetry contest. "The prize was twenty dollars," she recalls. "That was big bucks for a second grader. I thought I was going to Disneyland." Wooed by the taste of fame and fortune, she kept writing. After attending Wagner College in Staten Island, she remained in New York City where she worked as an editor for various book publishers. Noonan currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, a retired cop from the NYPD, and two children. Although she sometimes misses the rapid pulse of New York, she enjoys writing in the shade of towering two-hundred year old Douglas fir trees.