Winter Sandberg grew up in a place nicknamed The Magic City, and the view from her house on the hill had her convinced the name fit perfectly for years. Spending time backstage or in music practice rooms took up a lot of Winter’s time, but hanging out with friends was truly preferred. Days after her eighteenth birthday, she headed to college not knowing how to cook. Nowadays Winter gets paid to help people solve their family problems and then comes home and writes. She happily leaves the cooking to her husband, who is also teaching their daughter that skill so she won’t have to survive on ramen noodles when she moves away from home like Winter did. Winter writes about transformative moments, exploring how characters manage to work through difficult times. How they respond may not be easy to see and is often not pretty, but they are genuine reactions to having life tipped on its edge. Coming out on the other side is where the good stuff is seen, and Winter likes to write about those moments of true growth rather than simply fading to black.

Posy Roberts started reading romance when she was young, but textbooks eventually replaced the novels, and she somehow existed without reading for fun. When she finally picked up a romance years later, it was like slipping on a soft hoodie . . . that didn’t quite fit right. She wanted something more. Now she wanted to read about queer people falling in love. She wanted to explore beyond the happily ever after and watch characters navigate the unpredictability of life as they create their happy homes. So Posy sat down at her keyboard to write the books she wanted to read. Her stories have been USA Today’s “Happily Ever After” Must-Reads and Rainbow Award finalists. When she’s not writing or editing, she’s spending time with loved ones and doing anything possible to get out of grocery shopping and cooking.