Jesse Thoma splits her professional time between graduate school and work. She is a project manager in a clinical research lab and spends a good amount of time in methadone clinics and prisons collecting data and talking to people.

Jesse grew up in Northern California but headed east for college. She never looked back, although her baseball allegiance is still loyally with the San Francisco Giants. She has lived in New England for ten years and has finally learned to leave extra time in the morning to scrape snow off the car. Jesse is blissfully married and is happiest when she is out for a walk with her wife and their dog, pretending she still has the soccer skills she had as an eighteen-year-old, eating anything her wife bakes, or sitting at the computer to write a few lines.

A recent telecommunications retiree, CF Frizzell ("Friz") is the recipient of the Golden Crown Literary Society's 2015 Debut Author Award for her novel, Stick McLaughlin: The Prohibition Years. Friz discovered her passion for writing in high school and went on to establish an award-winning twenty-two-year career in community newspapers that culminated in the role of founder/publisher.

She credits powerhouse authors Lee Lynch and Radclyffe, and the generous family that is Bold Strokes Books, for inspiration. A lifelong Massachusetts resident, Friz is into history, New England pro sports, and singing and acoustic guitar--and living on Cape Cod, just an hour from Provincetown, with her wife, Kathy. Follow Friz at her website, www.cffrizzell.com, and on Facebook at CF Frizzell.