Hafsah Faizal
Hafsah Faizal is an American author of young adult novels, best known for her fantasy novel We Hunt the Flame. Faizal was born in Florida and grew up in California. She is of Sri Lankan and Arab descent and is an American Muslim. Her parents are both Muslim Sri Lankan immigrants. When she hit puberty, Faizal started wearing a niqab, after years of asking her parents to let her. She was homeschooled starting age 13, the same age when she first started building her design skills, which ultimately turned into her founding her own web design company, IceyDesigns, at 17. Faizal names fellow young adult novelists Leigh Bardugo, Roshani Chokshi, and Renée Ahdieh as some of her major literary influences and describes Graceling by Kristin Cashore as the book that made her fall in love with reading.
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde was an enthusiastic member of the film industry for nineteen years before becoming published. Author of five 'Thursday Next' and two 'Nursery Crime' books, he says that writing is "The same as filming, really. Only you do all of the jobs, and not just one."
He currently lives and works in Wales, where his hobbies include family, flying and photography. 'Shades of Grey', Due out in January 2010, will be his eighth novel. His mother, wife, editor and children all think it's really good.
Katie M. Flynn
Katie M. Flynn is a writer, editor, and educator based in San Francisco. Her short fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Indiana Review, The Masters Review, Ninth Letter, Tin House, Witness Magazine, and many other publications. Her debut novel, The Companions, about love, revenge, and uploaded consciousness, is out now from Scout Press/Gallery Books. Katie has been awarded Colorado Review’s Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction, a fellowship from the Writers Grotto, and the Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing. She holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and an MA in Geography from UCLA.
