A California native, Chelley Kitzmiller lives and breathes the Wild West. She travels the West doing research, decorates her home with everything from a cowhide ottoman to a window valance of antique spurs and frames her own Western photography. She’s known and loved a host of Western movie stars such as Jack Palance, Harry Carey, Ronda Fleming and others. She says, “I’ve had quite a ride and the saddle ain’t even broke in yet.” As a teen, she hated history. The teacher was only interested in students memorizing names and dates; nothing about what motivated the people to do the things they did. Her favorite historical romance is Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers. When she read it, she didn’t know that the historical detail was factual and only later discovered the truth and realized that she’d gotten a painless dose of history. SSL was her life-changing experience; it made her want to pen her own historical romance and give to others what Rosemary had given her: history wrapped in an emotional action-packed story. In her pre-published years, Chelley founded the Orange County RWA Chapter, finaled in RWA’s Golden Heart Contest, organized the Amtrak Love Train (Google the film documentary Where The Heart Roams), organized writers’ conferences, wrote book reviews for Publishers Weekly and had her own book review columns in two major newspapers. After publishing four books with NAL and Harlequin, Chelley took a long break to help in her husband’s business, open two bookstores, work as an editorial assistant on nine books for Fern Michaels and one for Lauraine Snellng, learn photography and start a pet rescue. Through it all she wrote and still writes magazine and newspaper articles and grants for the pet rescue. These days she splits her time between writing, RVing and rescuing pets with her daughter, Gina (www.Haveahearthumanesociety.org ). Interact with Chelley on Facebook, Twitter @chelleykitzmlr and sign up for her newsletter at www.chelleykitzmiller.com.

Fern Michaels isn’t a person. I’m not sure she’s an entity either since an entity is something with separate existence. Fern Michaels® is what I DO. Me, Mary Ruth Kuczkir. Growing up in Hastings, Pennsylvania, I was called Ruth. I became Mary when I entered the business world where first names were the order of the day. To this day, family and friends call me Dink, a name my father gave me when I was born because according to him I was ‘a dinky little thing’ weighing in at four and a half pounds. However, I answer to Fern since people are more comfortable with a name they can pronounce. As they say, the past is prologue. I grew up, got a job, got married, had five kids. When my youngest went off to Kindergarten, my husband told me to get off my ass and get a job. Those were his exact words. I didn’t know how to do anything except be a wife and mother. I was also a voracious reader having cut my teeth on The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames and the like. The library was a magical place for me. It still is to this day. Rather than face the outside world with no skills, I decided to write a book. For some reason that didn’t intimidate me. As my husband said at the time, stupid is as stupid does. Guess what, I don’t have that husband any more. Guess what else! I wrote 99 books, most of them New York Times Best Sellers. Moving right along here . . . Several years ago I left Ballantine Books, parted company with my agent, sold my house in New Jersey that I had lived in all my married life and in 1993 moved to South Carolina. I figured if I was going to go through trauma let it be all at one time. It was a breeze. The kids were all on their own at that point. The dump was a 300 year old plantation house that is listed in the National Registry that I remodeled. Today it is beyond belief as are the gardens and the equally old Angel Oaks that drip Spanish moss. Unfortunately, I could not get my ghost to relocate. This ghost has been documented by previous owners. Mary Margaret as we call her, is “a friendly”. She is also mischievous. It took me two weeks to figure out that she didn’t like my coffee cups. They would slide off the table or counter or else they’d break in the dishwasher. I bought red checkered ones. All are intact as of this writing. She moves pillows from one room to the other and she stops all the clocks in the house at 9:10 in the a.m. at least once a week. When the Azaleas are in bloom, and only then, I find blooms on my night stand. I have this glorious front porch and during the warm months I see my swing moving early in the morning when the air is still and again late in the day. She doesn’t spook the dogs. I always know when she’s around because the five of them line up and look like they’re at a tennis match. As of this writing we’re co-habiting nicely. Most writers love what they do and I’m no exception. I love it when I get a germ of an idea and get it down on paper. I love breathing life into my characters. I love writing about women who persevere and prevail because that’s what I had to do to get to this point in time. It’s another way of saying it doesn’t matter where you’ve been, what matters is where you’re going and how you get there. The day I finally prevailed was the day I was inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame. For me it was an awesome day and there are no words to describe it. I’ve been telling stories and scribbling for 37 years. I hope I can continue for another 37 years. It wasn’t easy during some of those years. As I said, I had to persevere. My old Polish grandmother said something to me when I was little that I never forgot. She said when God is good to you, you have to give back. For a while I didn’t know how to do that. When I finally figured it out I set up The Fern Michaels® Foundation. READ FERN MICHAELS' FULL BIOGRAPHY HERE: http://www.fernmichaels.com/biography/

JILL MARIE LANDIS is the bestselling author of nearly thirty novels which have appeared on the NYT bestseller list, USA Today and other national bestseller lists. She has won numerous awards for her heartfelt characters and sweeping emotional historical romances that include SUMMER MOON and MAGNOLIA CREEK and the Irish Angels Series; HEART OF STONE, HEART OF LIES, and HEART OF GLASS. All of her Historical Romances are available in eBook format. She is currently writing The Tiki Goddess Mysteries series which includes MAI TAI ONE ON, TWO TO MANGO, THREE TO GET LEI'D, TOO HOT FOUR HULA and HAWAII FIVE UH-OH! from Bell Bridge Books. Toes in the sand and head in the clouds, she is living the dream in Hawaii with her husband, Steve. Jill Marie loves to spend hours at the beach reading or writing and she also loves dancing the hula.