Meg Waite Clayton�is the nationally bestselling author of�The Four Ms. Bradwells, The Wednesday Sisters,�and the Bellwether Prize finalist�The Language of Light, all published by Random House's Ballantine Books and all major national book club picks.�Her fourth novel,�The Wednesday Daughters,�will be released in 2013.�Meg's novels have been translated into languages from German to Lithuanian to Chinese. Her essays and short stories have aired on public radio and appeared in print in�The Los Angeles Times, The San Jose Mercury News, Writer's Digest,�and�Runner's World, in literary magazines including�The Virginia Quarterly Review�and�The Literary Review, and online on Ms., AOL News, and the Huffington Post.�A graduate of the University Michigan Law School, she lives with her family in Palo Alto, California. www.megwaiteclayton.com

Pamela Gullard�s stories have appeared in the North American Review, Arts and Letters, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly and other journals and anthologies. Her collection, Breathe at Every Other Stroke, published by Henry Holt, includes a story that won a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, and another that took first place in the H.G. Roberts Fiction Contest judged by Gordon Lish. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. With co-author Nancy Lund, she has written three nonfiction books; the latest, Under the Oaks: Two Hundred Years in Atherton, appeared in 2009. Pamela teaches personal narrative and literature at Menlo College.

Nancy Etchemendy's novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly for the past 25 years, both in the United States and abroad. Her work has earned a number of awards, including three Bram Stoker Awards (two for children's horror), a Golden Duck Award for excellence in children's science fiction, and most recently, an International Horror Guild Award for her YA horror story, "Honey in the Wound." Her fourth novel, "The Power of Un," was published by Front Street/Cricket Books in March 2000. "Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural," her collection of short, dark fantasy for young adults, was published in 2002, also by Front Street/Cricket Books and appears on the A.L.A. Best Books for Young Adults list for 2002. She lives and works in Northern California, where she leads a somewhat schizophrenic life, alternating between unkempt, introverted writer of weird tales and requisite gracious wife of Stanford University's Provost.

Caryn Huberman Yacowitz writes both fiction and nonfiction for young people. Her award-winning picture books, "Pumpkin Fiesta" and "The Jade Stone, A Chinese Folktale" have been widely anthologized and adapted for the stage. Yacowitz's forthcoming picture book "I Know an Old lady Who Swallowed a Menorah" will be published in the fall of 2009 by Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic. She writes plays for adults and is a member of Pear Avenue Writers as well as the local Suburban Squirrel, Door#3 Comedy Sketch group where she writes, acts and directs as part of this ensemble. Her website is www.carynyacowitz.com.

Katy Obringer spent 22 years with the Palo Alto library system, which included serving as the supervisor of Palo Alto's Children's Library. Obringer also worked as an elementary school teacher for 10 years and an elementary school librarian for five years. Her love of introducing children to books continues in her retirement.