2023 Award Winners

E.T. Gunnarsson translates imagination into words for a living. His debut book Forgive Us was awarded Best Sci-Fi book in the 2021 San Francisco Book Festival and Best Post-Apocalyptic Book in the 2021 Fiction Awards. Born and raised in the Rocky Mountains (9,000 feet altitude!), E.T. now resides in

Amadea Cadence Tanner is a Baltimore-based journalist, screenwriter, and author who writes primarily historical fiction. She is partial to noir banter, philosophical musing, and featuring inanimate objects as characters in their own right. When she's not writing (or reading), you might find her

Speaker, author and songwriter, Matt McChlery, was born in Zimbabwe. In early 2016 Matt was diagnosed with cancer (non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) so took some time out of performing and recording. However he continued to write his blog and chronicled his journey whilst battling the disease which has since

Author of thrillers and crime fiction, also SF and romance (on the side)

I am an author, playwright, and freelance writer loving life in the American Southwest. Surviving and fleeing my upbringing in the Chicago area under the tutelage of white supremacist parents, I wandered until I found my true home here, inspired by the mystical landscapes, unique cultural history

Hannah Croft is an English comedian and writer who recently moved to Turin with her Italian husband and two children.

Glenn Somodi writes his stories in the short space between lying down and dreaming. The stories are written over many nights, replayed, and rewritten in his head for enjoyment. His mission is to find anyone who enjoys reading the stories as much as he enjoys creating them. He is a proud graduate of

I'm a writer, actor, and story coach from Edmonton, Canada. After working for years in a technical field, the company I worked for went under. Seeing it as an opportunity rather than a drawback, I decided to follow my passion of writing and film fulltime. With numerous produced screenplays and

I'm Bryony. I'm 29, and I'm from Northern England. I've been writing, in various capacities, since I was 12.

Alida Winternheimer is an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher. The creator of the Story Works Round Table podcast, the Story Works Fiction online school of creative writing, and developmental editor and writing coach at Word Essential, she has published two craft books, and multiple stories

Alysha grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, performing on the professional stage from the age of five. She found her place on the other side of the camera and produced commercials and music videos for several years in Los Angeles. But after a last-minute change of plans kept her from traveling on

A writer/director whose short films have been selected for various festivals, most notably Palm Springs International. In 2022 he directed a pilot for a 6-part television series which is currently in post production. Tim is determined to make meaningful action films that his wife and daughter would

John Danenbarger spends much of his time writing in Italy. Born in Atlanta, he graduated from University of Kansas with a degree in English and Creative Writing. With a backlist of short stories, Danenbarger established the Salem Massachusetts Writers' Club. After living in Oslo, Norway, Stockholm

Elliotté P. Joel is a poet, painter, sculptor, editor-in-chief of Estetično Magazine for young literature, arts and philosophy, and founder of the Literary Association Absence of Meaning Žilina. She is the author of three poetry collections and one literary study. The work documenting her mental

My debut novel, Running to Graceland, won the Independent Book Publishers gold medal in popular fiction in 2019. I have published fiction in Close to the Bone, Flash Fiction Magazine, Vermont Magazine and a young adult short story anthology published by Simon and Schuster, Soul Searching (2002). I

MARK T. RASMUSSEN is an Australian author born by the sea, cultivated in the city, formed via the world. Previously a professional journalist and editor, Mark now writes evocative, thought provoking subject matter for his adult novels and screenplays, and fun, captivating, thoughtful books for

MARK T. RASMUSSEN is an Australian author born by the sea, cultivated in the city, formed via the world. Previously a professional journalist and editor, Mark now writes evocative, thought provoking subject matter for his adult novels and screenplays, and fun, captivating, thoughtful books for

Keema Waterfield is the author of Inside Passage, a nomadic childhood memoir set along the wild coast of Southeast Alaska. Waterfield has written for The New York Times, WIRED, Brevity, Scary Mommy, INSIDER, and others. She lives in Missoula, Montana, where she moonlights as a stand-up comic when

L.R. Braden is the bestselling author of the Magicsmith urban fantasy series, the spin-off novel Demon Riding Shotgun, and several works of short fiction. Her writing has won the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Sci-fi/Fantasy, the First Horizon Award for debut authors, the Imadjinn Award for Best Urban

Ben Alvord has been writing across many different mediums since he was a kid. He's worked in screenwriting, slam poetry, live storytelling, sketch comedy and his original love, fiction. Ben lives in the Hudson Valley of New York with his wife and pitbull mix. When he's not writing, he's working his

Born in the UK and currently living in Switzerland, Paul has written four novels, two of which have been published. The other two will probably never again see the light of day, although they have good titles. As a writer, Paul tries to stick to the adage ‘write what you know’, although with the

Olga Tymofiyeva, PhD, was born in 1981 in Kyiv, Ukraine. After having lived in Ukraine and Germany, she now lives in the US and works as an Associate Professor of Neuroimaging at the University of California in San Francisco. The award-winning novella Just City is Olga’s first fiction book, which

I am an author, playwright, and freelance writer loving life in the American Southwest. Surviving and fleeing my upbringing in the Chicago area under the tutelage of white supremacist parents, I wandered until I found my true home here, inspired by the mystical landscapes, unique cultural history

Nick McLoughlin was born and brought up in Derby. After university he escaped teaching by running away to the French Alps to go snowboarding. He is still there. He is an alumni of the respected Faber 'Writing a Novel' course, and is currently working on his second novel.

Thomas Henry Pope gives the landscapes in his novels as much agency to influence events as he does to his characters. His narrative style draws on his passions of journalism, theater, songwriting and teaching. And his world travels provide grist for his characters and stories. After dropping out of

Allan is a professional actor, educator, writer and former stand-up comedian. During his years on stage, he’s gotten to participate in countless battles – some even with other people – involving longswords, rapiers, daggers, staves, pistols, bottles, loaves of French bread and, of course, his grimy

I’m a lawyer who started writing about seven years ago. I'm currently working on Seven Sins, a locked room murder mystery set in a City law firm, inspired by my time as a corporate finance partner in two such firms. My elevator pitch is: Seven suspects. Seven sins. Which one is deadly? My previous

Darrell Bowling, after a career in corporate aviation spanning fifty-five years, I now follow my favorite pastime, storytelling. With a thirty-year history as a pilot, part-time dealer, and pit boss for Nevada casinos, my background lends me to a life most only dream of. An old Chinese proverb reads

I am a 43 year old British Pakistani/ Kashmiri woman from a working class background. I have degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I moved to Malawi in 2005 and back to the UK in 2021. I am married, have three daughters and currently live in Ascot and