SUZANNE STREMPEK SHEA is the author of five novels: SELLING THE LITE OF HEAVEN, HOOPI SHOOPI DONNA, LILY OF THE VALLEY, AROUND AGAIN, and BECOMING FINOLA, published by Washington Square Press. She has also written three memoirs, SONGS FROM A LEAD-LINED ROOM; NOTES--HIGH AND LOW--FROM  MY JOURNEY THROUGH BREAST CANCER AND RADIATION; SHELF LIFE: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore; and SUNDAYS IN AMERICA: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, all published by Beacon Press.

Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing fiction in her spare time while working as a reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and theProvidence Journal (Rhode Island). Her freelance journalism and fiction has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Yankee, The Bark, Golf World, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Organic Style and ESPN the Magazine. 

Suzanne is a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program in creative writing and is writer-in-residence at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Mass. She has taught fiction and nonfiction in the MFA program at Emerson College and in the creative writing program at the University of South Florida. 

She lives in Bondsville, Mass. with her husband, Tommy, a columnist for The Republican newspaper in Springfield, Mass., and their two dogs, Tiny and Bisquick. 

ELIZABETH SEARLE is the author of four books of fiction, most recently GIRL HELD IN HOME (2011), and the librettist of TONYA & NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA, a show that has drawn national media attention.  Her previous books are: CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE, a novella that was produced as a short film in 2010; A FOUR-SIDED BED, a novel nominated for an American Library Association Book Award and in development as a feature film and MY BODY TO YOU, a story collection that won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. Elizabeth's theater works have been featured in stories on GOOD MORNING AMERICA, CBS, CNN, NPR, the AP and more. Her show TONYA & NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA has been produced on both coasts, most recently in Boston in 2011.