Vicki Vass

Vicki Vass traded in her reporter's notebook to write the near-real adventures of her two best friends in the Antique Hunters Mystery series. The first book in the series, Murder for Sale, was a finalist in the Mystery and Mayhem contest.

As a journalist, Vicki wrote more than 1,500 articles for the Chicago Tribune and has contributed regularly to business trade publications, healthcare and university websites. She developed the entertainment and telecommunications channel for the two-time Webby-award winning website, HowStuffWorks.com. Two years ago, she fled the snow to move to Greenville. Her first screenplay, Christmas at the Grey Horse Inn, is currently in production, scheduled for a November 2021 release.

When not writing, she can be found reading on her back porch which overlooks Glassy Mountain in the beautiful Upstate.

Lee Matalone

Lee Matalone is the author of the novel HOME MAKING (Harper Perennial 2020). Her fiction has been featured in the The Offing, Denver Quarterly, Hobart, Joyland, Nat. Brut, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Bat City Review, among other places. Her essays and reporting have appeared in LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the National, and Flavorwire, among others. She has been a contributor to the Tin House, Bread Loaf, and Sewanee writers conferences, and has been awarded residencies at Pocoapoco and Art Farm. Home Making is her first novel. She is a lecturer at Clemson University.

John Jeter

Journalist, novelist, playwright, academic and entrepreneur, John Jeter is best known in the Upstate as co-owner of The Handlebar, a now-legendary concert venue in Greenville, S.C. Most recently, he signed with a literary agent to represent his latest novel, SPENT: THE LAST DAYS OF SEX & ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. For 20 years, he and his wife, Kathy Laughlin, ran the live-music club where he bought talent for some 2,500 shows, presenting the likes of John Mayer, Sugarland, Zac Brown Band, Joan Baez, John Hiatt, Jason Isbell and many more. He leveraged his experience to create a position as adjunct professor in the Music Business & Technology Certificate program at Converse College, where he won the Above & Beyond Award in 2017. He’s a nationally published author: ROCKIN’ A HARD PLACE, a Hub City Press memoir based on his experience as the Greenville club’s talent buyer; THE PLUNDER ROOM, his debut novel from St. Martin’s Press; and THE LUCIFER GENOME, a co-authored thriller from Brigid’s Fire Press. While currently at work on a musical, he’s also a contract stringer for The New York Times. His work has also appeared in USA Today. In 2019, he won a writing residency in Italy to work on his stage play, THE LAST LYNCHING. He has traveled to Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Central America, Mexico and Canada, the Caribbean, southern Africa, the Middle East and throughout the United States. He has appeared on Oprah! and on TV, in newspapers and radio, as a contributor and a subject.

Heather Marshall

Heather Marshall is an author and teacher whose work is published in literary journals in the United States and in Scotland. Her novel, The Thorn Tree, was published in 2014. She is currently finishing work on a second novel about secrets, uncovering the truth, and belonging.

Ashley Warlick

Ashley Warlick is a novelist, food and freelance writer living in Greenville. She is the winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature. She teaches fiction in the MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, and works as the buyer at M. Judson Booksellers.