Janis Cooke Newman lives in San Francisco, where she teaches classes in creative writing. While Mrs Lincoln is her first novel, Newman is also the author of The Russian Word for Snow, a memoir about adopting her son from a Moscow orphanage. Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives and four Travelers’ Tales editions. Newman’s travel writing has appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Backpacker. She is also co-founder of Line by Line, a literary editing service.
For more information on Janis please visit her website here: www.janiscookenewman.com
Belfast-born Gavin Weston is a multi-media artist, writer, lecturer and inventor and lives on the Ards Peninsula with his family, parrot and various other animals. He studied Fine Art at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design and Goldsmiths’ College, London, and subsequently worked and taught in West Africa.
Russell Whitfield was born in Shepherds Bush in 1971. An only child, he was raised in Hounslow, West London. Russell’s near life long fascination with ancient Greece and Rome was sparked by seeing The Three Hundred Spartans on ITV in the seventies. Educated to A-Level, he did not complete college, preferring instead to seek fame and fortune in a heavy metal band. Fame and fortune were not forthcoming and following a series of jobs he now works as an internet content editor. Russ lives with his wife and daughter in Surrey.
Sally Zigmond lives in North Yorkshire where much of Hope Against Hope is set. She has written professionally for eleven years, publishing several short stories and a novella: Chasing Angels. For several years she was commissioning editor for QWF, the literary short fiction magazine for women and is reviews editor for The Historical Novels Review.