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96 M. Scott Douglass founded the Main Street Rag Publishing Company in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is now the publisher and managing editor. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he was the recipient of a NC Arts & Science Emerging Artists Grant in 2001. He is also a graphics design artist and his work in this field has earned him two PICA Awards and a nomination for a 2010 Eric Hoffer Award. He and his wife live in Charlotte.
In addition to writing and publishing four of her own novels, Elizabeth Ridley is the owner and operator of The Writer’s Midwife, a freelance editing and consulting business in Brookfield. Through her business she has ghostwritten more than a dozen novels, memoirs, general nonfiction books, and feature film screenplays. With over 18 years of experience in the publishing industry, Ridley has worked with more than 200 authors and authors-to-be, and in 2011 she was the recipient of a Literary Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
At the 2013 Southeast Festival of Books, Kathie Giorgio will debut her novel, Learning to Tell (A Life) Time which is the sequel to her 2011 award winning The Home for Wayward Clocks. In 2012, Giorgio wrote Enlarged Hearts. Giorgio will also provide the Friday evening keynote address and appear in discussions throughout the Festival. Giorgio’s poems and short stories have been published in more 
than 60 literary magazines with new stories to appear in Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Socially Engaged Literature, Clockhouse Review, Edge (Tahoe Writers Group), Glassworks, and Meat For Tea. Giorgio has been nominated twice for the Million Writer Award and twice for the Best of the Net anthology, with the latest being for her short story, “Getting Lucky.” Giorgio is the director and founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop, a creative writing studio. She also teaches for Writers’ Digest and serves on their advisory board.
Christopher T. Werkman has retired from teaching and writes full time. His stories appear in numerous literary journals and are included in such anthologies as Hannibal’s 
Manor, Short Sips–Coffee House Flash Fiction, and Daily Flash: 366 Days of Flash Fiction. In addition to writing, Werkman lists painting as one of his passions. He designed covers for Kathie Giorgio’s two novels and her short story collection. He lives near Haskins, Ohio, with his partner, Karen, and, as he describes it, too many cats!