from Chesterfield, Virginia

                from Greensboro, NC

                from Roanoke, Virginia

Coming all the way from Scotland for the third year in a row:

Dirk Robertson is a lecturer in social welfare, professional writer and actor. First thriller Highland T'ing was met with widespread critical and commercial success. His second is Bad Day For A Fat Boy.

He is a former Representative to Parliament for the National Body for Social Work in the United Kingdom, and spent many years working with delinquent adolescents. He is a former Karate international and professional instructor and trained actor, and he taught creative writing and drama in young offenders' institutions.

His screen work includes some of the top stage, film and television productions in the United Kingdom.  

                  from Suffolk, Virginia

Tony Ruggiero has been publishing fiction since 1998. His science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and novels have appeared in both print and electronic mediums.

            His published novels include:

Team of Darkness-- The US military has developed a new weapon to be added to its arsenal—the creatures known as vampires. Ground breaking and fast paced, the novel is a characteristic mixture of the vampire lore of Anne Rice and the clandestine secrets of the military found in Tom Clancy novels. The concept has spawned a four book series to be release from Dragon Moon Press, beginning with Operation Immortal Servitude in late 2006.
             Aliens and Satanic Creatures Wanted: Humans Need Not Apply-- Aliens, Satanic Creatures, and other alternate life forms have gathered together to make a stand for literary fairness. Move over pesky human...a change is coming. An anthology of short stories where the center character is not human. Includes the award winning story, Lucky Lucifer’s Car Emporium, as well as Electronic Bliss, Invasion or Subversion, and Going up?
             Tony’s space opera adventure debuts in a two book series: Alien Deception (2006): Nothing is as it appears…nothing. Your whole life you think you understand who and what you are and then one day you learn that it is all a lie. So what do you do? You have lunch with the leading candidate for President of the United States…you and your alien friends. Alien Revelation (2007): Death has many meanings. For some it is an end, while for others it is a beginning. Yet, for one human/alien hybrid, it is a way to have one final chance to try and save his home, Earth, a son he has never seen, and find an enemy that just won’t stay dead.  
            Tony is also a contributing author to The Fantasy Writers’ Companion from Dragon Moon Press. Tony’s contribution is a chapter on the effective use of horror in fantasy. 
            Tony retired from the United States Navy in 2001 after twenty-three years of service. He and his family currently reside in Suffolk, Virginia. While continuing to write, Tony teaches English classes at Old Dominion University, Saint Leo University and Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, VA.  Visit his webpage at http://www.tonyruggiero.com for more information.

               from Chesterfield, Virginia

     Sexual abuse, child pornography, human trafficking, and child prostitution - all subjects that make it to the forefront of the media so often that many viewers have grown numb, no longer able to sympathize with the victims.  Terre J. Sadler has written a fast-paced novel that puts a human face back on this national epidemic.  Although careful to tell the story in as realistic manner as possible, Terre eschews gratuitous sex and violence, dealing with this explosive topic with a sensitivity readers - especially former child victims of sexual violence - will appreciate.  Tackling everything from the role of the Internet to the often impossible task of apprehending criminal abusers, Terre has written a stunning novel that celebrates the inner strength of women who refuse to remain victims.

     As a former singer, songwriter and public speaker, Terre has always enjoyed expressing herself creatively.  When illness confined her to a wheelchair, she chose to see it as an opportunity to pursue her dream of being a writer.  “Tell Me That You Like It” is her first novel.

                         from Pennsylvania

Jordan Sonnenblick attended amazing schools in New York City.  Then he went to an incredible Ivy League university and studied very, very hard there.  However, due to his careful and well-planned course selection strategies, he emerged in 1991 with a fancy-looking diploma and a breathtaking lack of real-world skills or employability.

 Thank goodness for Teach For America, a program which takes new college graduates, puts them through “teacher boot camp”, and places them in teaching positions at schools in teacher shortage areas around the country.  Through TFA, Mr. Sonnenblick found his place in the grown-up world, teaching adolescents about the wonders and joys, the truth and beauty, of literature.

Mr. Sonnenblick always wanted to be a writer, too, so one day in 2003 he started in on the book that became Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie.  This book was inspired by several aspects of the author’s real life: like Steven, the main character in the novel, he really plays the drums, he really went through an incredibly awkward year in 8^th grade, and he really was completely spastic around girls until right around his 21^st birthday.  The made-up parts of the book are all reflections of the author’s basic philosophy, which is that the world is a tough place, so you’d better be kind and laugh a lot.

Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie was published by Scholastic Press in 2005 to great acclaim, and was named to several Best of 2005 lists, including the American Library Association's Teens' Top Ten.

In October 2006, Scholastic will release Mr. Sonnenblick's second young adult novel, Notes from the Midnight Driver, which is about drunk driving, lawn gnomes, divorced parents, a unique old man, and a beautiful girl with deadly hobbies.

Mr. Sonnenblick lives in Bethlehem, PA with the most supportive wife and lovable children he could ever imagine.  Plus a lot of drums and guitars in the basement. 

               from Waynesboro, Virginia

                 from New Hope, Virginia

Robert Swope Jr. has written and published several books on history and historical items.  His book Indian Artifacts of the East and South has been reprinted several times and is considered a classic work on the topic of Native American stone artifacts.  When he found a collection of WWII Navy photographs in the early 1990s, that came from a Staunton family, he began an odyssey of research and writing that culminated in Tall Dogs and Hellcats: A Navy Photographer's Pacific War.  The book showcases over 300 never-before-published WWII photographs and includes a history of Navy photographer Ted Riddle and Air Group Two aboard the USS Hornet.

Robert Swope was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania and has a book on early 20th century photo postcards from that area due off the press by the end of September 2006.  Many of these photo postcards were taken from about 1907 to 1930 by men that Swope knew when he was very young.  Of course they were older gentlemen at that time, but they left with him such an impression that he wrote a book about their photography.

The author lives in New Hope, Virginia with his wife and two dogs, not far from where his great grandfather was born 

             from Colonial Heights, Virginia

A tale of horror, a tale of truths, which will you find as you turn the pages?  Set high upon North Mountain just over the way from Waynesboro lives a dark and dreadful soul named Cecil Hicks, just waiting for you - wanting to know you as only you know yourself.

Writing as Rainey Moon, her work was claimed as off the beaten path with a profound insightfulness that few authors hold - a modern day Song of Solomon.  Now as the story truly unfolds her work is proclaimed by horror author Nicholas Grabowsky (Halloween IV) as a talented writer whose heart is driven to make you truly afraid.

                  from Midlothian, Virginia

Willie is a retired Army NCO who served tours in three foreign countries and spent most of his army career at Fort Bragg, N.C. He received two meritorious service medals and three Army Commendation Medals, and is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Criminal Justice. He is a member of the Criminal Justice Honor Society (Sigma Phi Mu). Currently, Willie is a Consumer Affairs Investigator.

Willie hopes that his book, The Winds of Destiny, which sends messages about his family's sins and domestic violence, will influence other people not to make the same mistakes. Willie is on the board member of Read Aloud Virginia and a member of Virginians Against Domestic & Sexual Violence. Midwest Book Review called the book "a charged, thought provoking, deftly written story." The book has received rave reviews from book clubs, readers and other authors.