our authors
Alphabetical (S-Z)
KATIE SCHMID
Former Associate Director of Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Nebraska, Katie is now Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ursinus College. She was awarded a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for poetry, and her poems have been published in literary periodicals including The Nation, 32 Poems, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. Her poetry book NOWHERE was published in 2021 by UNM Press. She’s been included in the Best New Poets anthology and was an AWP Intro Journals winner.
BLUE MILK (Poetry Collection) - A modern collection that explores bodily autonomy and desire through the lens of birth and motherhood; an incisive yet accessible examination of life’s most vulnerable love, and with a sprinkling of Lucille Clifton's domestic with political bent.
QUEEN NOTHING (Literary Fiction) - A searing portrayal of female relationships—their beauty and intensity, and their ability to alter the known world—framed and informed by an eerily compelling Before and After.
PETER SCHOOFF
Peter Schooff has been published in The New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and has had several short stories published on the website, East of the Web. His work was included in the humor anthology, More Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor. Also, Peter has been a top tech writer and editor for over fifteen years, appearing as a thought leader in books about data and business process management. Meet him on Twitter: Twitter handle: @pschooff
HELLAWEEN (Paranormal) - The trouble starts the morning after The Fifth Annual Hella Ween Bash when a group of friends discovers they've taken on the persona of their costumed characters from the party. There's Pam, who dressed up as Queen Victoria, a lesbian misfit who waitresses at a diner, and starts acting like she's all that and the Crown Jewels. There's Holly, who went as Aphrodite, her recent dry spell with men becomes a testosterone tsunami—but will that make it any easier for her to find one good guy? There's also a rookie used car salesman who is suddenly able to fly like a superhero, a devil dentist, a voodoo priestess, and Sigmund Freud (who can't stop psychoanalyzing customers in his supermarket checkout line), among others. The gang is divided over whether this is the best thing that's ever happened to them or the worst.
The bewildered gang tries to unravel the mystery of what happened, but there’s just one problem—no one can remember a thing about Halloween night. The only clue they have is a group picture taken moments before the witching hour. However, with a serial killer suddenly terrorizing the town, they worry that it might be one of their fellow partygoers. But what kind of costume would a murderer wear?
CONTACT - Dean Krystek
TYLER SCHWANKE
Tyler Schwanke holds an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University. His writing has appeared in Crime Reads, Chaotic Merge, Havik, Fiction Southeast, The Duck Lake Journal, The Cortland Review, IO Literary Journal, The Tusk, eFiction, and Rock, Paper, Scissors. He also graduated from the New York Film Academy and Minnesota State University, where his thesis film was invited to the Fargo Film Festival. Several of Tyler’s short films have played at film festivals nationwide and won various honors and awards.
BREAKING IN (Blackstone Publishing, May 2023) - When a crooked director announces his next big premiere, aspiring filmmaker Millie Blomquist is shocked to learn he’s stolen her script, setting into motion an electrifying series of moves and countermoves that result in an outcome not even Hollywood could see coming.
HELENE SHEN
Helene Shen, DDS is the daughter of a South Vietnamese soldier who was fortunate enough to escape his homeland with her mother when Saigon fell in 1975. They were among other refugees on a fishing boat which became lost at sea until a US Navy aircraft carrier rescued them. As a debt of gratitude for her parents being able to emigrate to the United States and freedom, the author has been a dentist in the Veterans Administration hospital system for many years and is currently the Director of Advanced Education in General Dentistry Program at the Tibor Rubin Veterans Administration Medical Center in Long Beach, California. She is also a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two teenaged children.
AMBER HAZE (Historical, YA, Asian) Da Nang, Vietnam, 1967. 18-year-old Yen seeks to escape a war that has robbed her of her childhood and threatens her future. As relentless fighting pits North against South, brother against friend, American Marines arrive at her village, putting her once obscure home in the path of the conflict. At first resistant to the foreigners, Yen becomes enamored with presence of the Americans and one in particular, whom she fears will draw a wedge between her and her traditional family should she become more familiar with him. But her vision of life in America where she would have the peace and freedom she longs for, creates an internal conflict that is exacerbated by Vinh, her best friend, who does not like the American presence and its effect on the once peaceful village. Vinh is determined to prove the American is not the man he seems, and he will do anything to protect Yen, including abandoning his own arranged marriage to take Yen away from the village. While Yen is torn between the man who wants to save her from the present, and man who offers the promise of a future, a deception is uncovered, changing her destiny in a way she would never expect.
CONTACT - Dean Krystek
AIRY SINDIK
Airy Sindik has a bachelor's degree in sociology from UNAM and a master's in creative writing from the National University of Colombia. His thesis novel Without Air for the Return (Sin Aire para el Regreso) was published by the Guadalajara University Press, and his book My Grandmother and COVID-19 will be published in May 2022 by Arte Publico. He was recently chosen as a fellow at the Istanbul Fellowship. Airy has been invited to read from Without Air for the Return at events and book fairs around the world. He has also given readings at the Embassy of Western Sahara in Mexico City and the Network of Embassies of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
MI ABUELA Y COVID 19 | MY GRANDMOTHER AND COVID 19 (Arte Publico Press - The University of Texas, October 2022) - The author’s debut children's picture book is a bilingual story of how COVID-19 changes a child's life and his relationship with his beloved grandmother, who falls ill.
Contact - Zeynep Sen
STEPHANIE SLAGLE
Stephanie Slagle is a professional freelance editor with six years of publishing industry experience. She majored in film production at San Diego State University, and writes with a cinematic eye. Her short story “Dark Space” is included in a 2022 anthology of YA stories by Latinx contributors.
THE GIRL WHO DREAMS IN FIRE (YA Fantasy) - A teen coerced by pirates must push the limits of her magic on a swashbuckling quest to save those she loves most and the kingdom they call home.
MICHAEL STRODE
Michael Strode is an award-winning writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Despite a BA in Medieval History and Philosophy from Brown, Michael has come to terms with his love for genre fiction. He received an MFA in Film Production from USC and has written scripts for a variety of producers. His short films have been distributed by IFC and iTunes, and have taken top honors at numerous worldwide festivals. When not writing, Michael enjoys cooking, playing tennis to combat the results of said cooking, reading, and exploring the wilds of Skyrim.
SPIT AND TOUCH IRON (Crime/Urban Fantasy) - A grounded supernatural mystery in which a supposed child abduction in post-WWII Ireland leads a visiting Scotland Yard detective to battle superstition, secretive locals, and creatures out of Celtic legend.
Contact - Sydney Queen DeTellis