WordLink Authors G-L

GABRIELA GONZALES

Gabriela Gonzales holds a BA in creative writing from Belmont University. A former literary nonprofit program coordinator, her poetry and fiction have been featured in Wigleaf, Lost Balloon, Chestnut Review, The Lumiere Review, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and multiple times for The Pushcart Prize. She also performed at TEDx Nashville.

HOW TO LOVE YOU WHEN YOU’RE GONE (Coming May 2026 from Little Brown BFYR) - A funny, touching, deeply personal infusion of first love and first loss that delivers swoony romance in the grip of captivating individual character arcs.

Contact - Chip Rice

ELVIRA GONZALEZ

Elvira Gonzales is plant-based athlete, professional track & field coach, entrepreneur and writer. Elvira was born in Laredo, TX, where she was voted “2009 Female Athlete of the Year” for breaking numerous track and field records. As a college freshman, she set new hurdle records and earned All Lone-Star conference honors. In the past, she has coached at the University of Pennsylvania and privately trained two-time Olympic hurdler Ahmed Hazer. Elvira is currently a coach at The Armory, the premier indoor track & field facility in the US. As an athlete, she qualified for the NCAA National Championship in track & field in 2011 and recently punched a ticket to the 2020 USA Triathlon National Championships. Elvira is a member of the New York Writer’s Workshop, run by Charles Salzberg, and has founded her own writing initiative called NYC Writer’s Voice, a writing community for young and minority writers. For the past five years, she has been an active member of Las Comadres, the largest Latino book club that has partnered with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to promote reading.

HURDLES IN THE DARK (Roaring Brook Press, May 2024) - In the summer of 2006, Elvira was just 14 years old when she was given 24 hours to save her kidnapped mother from cartels in Mexico. The price for her mother’s life was $40,000. Through sheer grit, and with 2 hours to spare, Elvira managed to raise most of the ransom. Luckily, this proved enough to save her mother’s life. Yet the ordeal changed Elvira’s mother and her relationship with her daughter suffered for it. Two years later, Elvira ended up locked behind bars at a juvenile detention center in Laredo, Texas. Determined to never wind up anywhere like that again, she embarked on a journey in a dark stadium, at the very early hours of the morning, with only her running shoes and a set of hurdles standing in her lane. With rugged perseverance and the will to survive, she harnessed her athletic abilities to win her ticket to freedom.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

REBECCA HARDIN-THRIFT

Rebecca Hardin-Thrift received her MFA from UMass Amherst, where she studied with author John Edgar Wideman. Since her graduation, Rebecca has published various stories in Washington Square Review, Bellevue Literary Review and elsewhere. She also wrote and performed a one-woman show in the New York International Fringe Festival. Rebecca has worked as a creative writing instructor at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she also ran a book club at a women’s prison. Currently, she lives and teaches writing just outside of Raleigh, NC.

AM I THE UGLIEST PERSON YOU EVER F***ED? (Memoir) - A comical, fascinating exploration of women’s sexuality from a deeply personal angle.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

C. R. HILLIN

Catherine Rose Hillin lives in Beaumont, Texas with a small menagerie of pets. She graduated with degrees in Psychology and Pre-Medical from The University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on her Master’s Degree in Social Work. Her pastimes include music, art, languages, martial arts, and reading large, fat books, the longer the better.

THE ACTUALLY AUTISTIC GUIDE (Debuts Spring 2026 from Apollo Publishing) - with co-author Elora Dodd, the book has been carefully crafted by autistics for autistics in order to enable community members to conquer daily challenges heads on. Authors Elora Dodd, whose social media account buzzing with anecdotes from her experiences as a neurodivergent has acquired more than seven hundred thousand followers, and her fellow activist C. R. R. Hillin, use their signature humor, creativity, and relatability to provide guidance acquired from their own experiences as well as from members of the #actuallyautistic online community.

Contact - Zeynep Sen

JAMES HOLLAND

J. R. Holland is a member of the International Thriller Writers and has been published in Mystery Magazine. His career began as a freelance reporter and then he worked in financial services, consulting with the Federal Reserve and others. He has an extensive PR background, which he’ll incorporate into a marketing/publicity plan for the book. He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his spouse and their three-legged rescue dog (who inspired a canine character in Vigilante Love Song).

VIGILANTE LOVE SONG (Historical Romance) - When President Teddy Roosevelt’s life is threatened, he sends his daughter Alice away for her own protection. Instead of going into hiding, she teams up with Old West gunfighter Bat Masterson to hunt down the men who seek to harm her family—and destroy her country. The trail leads from east to west, from New York’s Gilded Age high society to San Francisco’s opium dens, with forays into gold mines and Comanche territory on the not-yet-tamed western plains. In a world where gangsters and brothel madams are more trustworthy than “respectable” businessmen, it’s hard to know who to trust, but Alice and Bat stay the rough course. Bat’s old friends Wyatt Earp and Bass Reeves lend a hand, but Alice must face the ultimate villain alone. While Alice drives the narrative in Vigilante Love Song, the tale includes a number of diverse historical figures who were (or could have been) in the places described at the time of the story.

Appeals to readers of The Nurse’s Secret by Amanda Skenandore and the Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn. The novel was recently long listed for a CWA Debut Dagger. 

Contact - Dean Krystek

RAYMOND PAUL JOHNSON

The author is an LA Magazine “Super Lawyer”, former US Air Force and CIA pilot, Vietnam veteran, and recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is the principal co-author of Defective Product: Evidence to Verdict, Juris Publishing/New York, and author of over 50 law-related magazine articles. The author has served as legal consultant to the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and New York Times, and has been interviewed on CNN, NBC Nightly News, and other programs. A member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Legion, the author teaches legal courses at the University of Southern California. The Raven Society is his first novel. It has received a 5-star rating in all categories from Readers’ Favorite.

CONSPIRACY IGNITED (Blank Slate Press, Jun. 2024) - When an attorney and former Air Force and CIA pilot becomes entangled in a web of murder and betrayal after exposing an international cabal that exerts whatever force necessary, including murder, to guarantee court decisions for the highest bidder, his battle for justice quickly spirals into a struggle for survival. A high-concept thriller in the vein of Michael Connelly’s The Fifth Witness in the voice along the lines of Lee Child’s The Sentinel.

Contact - Dean Krystek

KATHLEEN MARPLE KALB

Kathleen Marple Kalb is an award-winning weekend morning anchor at 1010 WINS radio, New York and author of the popular Ella Shane Mystery series. The author has also published mysteries under her pen name Nikki Knight. In addition to her novels, her short fiction has appeared in such publications as Black Cat Weekly, Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Her short story “Blame it on the Blizzard” was featured in Crime Spell Books’s Deadly Nightshade, a collection of New England’s best crime stories in 2022. To discover more about this talented author, visit her at kathleenmarplekalb.com.

LAST STAR, FIRST MURDER (Mystery) - Susan Sawyer is talking up her tell-all memoir when an aggressively perky entertainment reporter is thrown off the penthouse terrace. Surrounded by her salty best pal Dame Miranda Charles, brilliant (and biracial) granddaughter Mali, manager Derek Dunbar, and Yogi the giant dog, she tracks the killer and works in a little flirtation with retired NYPD Inspector Frank McCoy – finally unraveling everything in a wild on-camera confrontation. It’s a diverse, modern riff on Miss Marple…if Miss Marple were an EGOT with an eye for the fellas and a smart mouth.

WORKING VACATIONS WILL KILL YOU (Mystery) - a former network news pro turned crisis communications expert is taking a much-needed working vacation at a resort in Maine when a celebrity chef ends up dead in his own clambake; now, the onetime anchor, her rainbow of friends, and her tween son are handling crisis communications and helping the local police chief solve the murder,

(Writing as Nikki Knight) - GRACE “THE HIT MOM” SERIES #1 The Wrong Poison (Turner Publishing, Jul. 2023). #2 The Hound of the Bonnevilles (Turner Publishing, Mar. 2025. Murder on the Sea Otter Express (Turner Publishing, debuting Feb. 2026).

Contact - Mira Perrizo

ROSS KLAVAN

Ross Klavan is a critically acclaimed screenwriter, author, and performer. The movie of his screenplay, Tigerland, starred Colin Farrell, directed by Joel Schumacher and won the Independent Spirit Award. To date, Ross has written screenplays for Intermedia, Miramax, Walden Media and TNT TV. For Paramount, he helped develop Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse. His comic novel Schmuck (Greenpoint Press) was called “exuberant” by NPR. Since then, he has published a series of darkly comic crime novellas with Down and Out Books. As a performer, his voice has been heard in dozens of feature films including Alpha House, Sometimes in April, Casino, In and Out, and You Can Count On Me and in numerous TV and radio commercials. Earlier, Ross was a reporter in New York City and London, England for WINS Radio, the RKO Network, NBC (London), LBC (London), and the Gannett Newspapers. He teaches screenwriting and performance in the graduate creative writing program at Wilkes University and is a member of the Actors’ Studio Playwright/Directors Unit.

HERE WE GO DOWN (AND THERE IS NO BOTTOM) (Humor) - The novel tells the story of a man who wants to murder his elderly, albeit insane mother. Contemplating the implications of the murder, he falls in love with nun, wreaks chaos across town with his girlfriend, and tries to cope with being hated by his wife. Narrated from the point of view of his drinking buddy, a man who is slowly revealed to be the definition of shady, Here We Go Down is a tale of plausible absurdities in a world and city where anything can happen. Hilarious, at its core, the novel is about history’s utter lack of manners, unknowability of things, the temptation that obviously bad ideas can inherently present us with, and a lesson in the importance of never uttering the phrase, “Well, it can’t get any worse than this.”

Contact - Zeynep Sen

JONATHAN KRAVETZ holds a Masters in Cinema Studies from NYU and an MFA from Queens College where he was a Louis Armstrong resident. He teaches fiction and dramatic writing in New York City and drama at FIT State University of New York. His short story, “Conch,” was the Fiction Category winner for the Fall 2017 issue of Cardinal Sins. His stories and plays have appeared in a variety of journals, including The Iris Literary Journal, The Rappahannock Review, The Furious Gazelle, The Opiate Magazine, Narrative Northeast, and others. His short story, “The David,” was turned into a podcast by Welltoldtales.com. He is ther founder and former Editor-in-Chief of DUCTS.org. His play, Sing Sing, was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. His play, Insomnia, was a finalist for the Summer Scribes Series, for 12 Peers Theater and was selected as a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Jonathan’s novel How We Were Before was published by Running Wild Press in May 2024. Jonathan is also the founder of the monthly reading series, Trumpet Fiction, which is held the second Saturday of every month at KGB Bar in the East Village. His novel How W Were Before was published by Running Wild Press in May 2024.

EVERY GOOD BOY DIES FINE (Crime Fiction) - Bobby Baker is a ne'er-do-well trumpet player living on a dilapidated boat named Half Baked in Rockaway, New York. After his long-suffering girlfriend, Amy, ties Bobby to his bed and leaves him, he embarks on a journey to win her back. His first challenge is to nail the audition for a new band run by his old friend, Fitzhugh Panil. However, instead of a music impresario, he encounters a shadowy gangster offering him an ultimatum: kill Fitzhugh Panil or face dire consequences for himself and Amy. When Fitzy turns up dead, Bobby has only days to find the real killer before the police pin the murder on him. Desperate, he turns to the one person who always believed in him: Amy. As they work their way through the suspects, Bobby is not only determined to solve the crime so that he doesn’t lose his freedom, but he also wants to solve the mystery of his and Amy’s relationship, so he doesn’t lose her.

Contact: Dean Krystek

CHERI KRUEGER

After retiring from a career in journalism and copywriting, Cheri Krueger returned to her childhood passion of fiction writing. She has self-published four novels since 2021–The Abduction of Adrienne Berg was a finalist in Screencraft’s Cinematic Book Competition, and she has adapted it to a screenplay. An active member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, she learns and shares the craft as a critique partner and mentor to other novelists. Cheri can usually be found reading, writing, or rescuing dogs (who end up in her stories). Planning frugal vacations is her superpower. 

BORN A GHOST (Women’s Fiction) - Thirty-eight-year-old Sara Snow lives her dream life, traveling the world as a freelance writer and trusted house sitter. When her estranged mother dies, Sara and her younger sister inherit the infamous Delta Queen Hotel—with stipulations. One: Sara must attend the formal reading of the will inside the hotel, a place she left at age eighteen and swore to never step foot inside again. Two: Lance Walsh, lawyer and executor, must live with Sara to ensure she remains in her hated hometown until the estate is settled. Even though it’s worth millions, Sara loathes the hotel where she grew up—haunted by ghosts and memories of a grim childhood—and would gladly walk away, but her sister would lose everything.

With only days to satisfy the conditions of the will, Sara is plagued by recurring nightmares and bizarre incidents that leave her wondering if she’s losing her mind, or if her malevolent mother is still tormenting her from beyond the grave. Adding to her distress, Sara is drawn to Lance in a way that threatens her vagabond lifestyle. To protect her sister’s inheritance and her own sanity, Sara must confront the restless spirits and find the courage to fight for what she fears most.

Contact - Mira Perrizo

LIZ LARSON

Liz Larson is a novelist, physicist, and educator with Pennsylvania roots—and she’s not at all surprised if it's the first time you've heard that combination! Liz is the author of Fireflies and Zeroes, a music-infused mystery set in her current home of Charlottesville, Virginia. Liz holds a PhD in physics from the University of Virginia. When not writing, she can be found listening to music, playing bass guitar, and investing far too much emotional energy into Penn State football.

FRANKIE BURNS IS DEAD (NA Fiction) - College senior Mia is rocked by a devastating phone call: Frankie Burns is dead. The iconic Disarmed and Dangerous frontman, whose music saved her life and forged her identity, was found alone in his home. Gone at 33. Or is he? After breaking down in her best friend’s arms, Mia wakes up next to Frankie Burns in what seems to be the first track of Battle Scars, his band’s final album. What Mia thinks is a dream soon feels all too real as track one fades into track two...three...four. And the girl who thought she knew everything about Frankie Burns is suddenly face to face with the private and vulnerable man behind the mayhem.

Frankie and Mia—whom he dubs Sunshine—have only twelve songs to navigate the crash course in life, love, and destruction that is Battle Scars. They find common ground in the shared pain of their own lives, their hearts healing and breaking in equal measure as feelings for one another grow stronger. What happens after track twelve remains a mystery, but dead or alive, Frankie and Mia will never be the same for finding each other.

Contact - Chip Rice

CAIT LEVIN

Cait earned a BA in Creative Writing at Barnard College and an MA in English Literature at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She speaks regularly at conferences for publishers and librarians, drawing upon her variety of experiences in education, as well as her leadership roles in the technology and education industries.

IMPOSTER (Charlesbridge Publishing) - A tech-savvy girl experiencing gender discrimination in her coding elective finds redemption on the school’s RoboSub team, where competing requires collaboration with boys who don’t want her there.

Contact - Chip Rice