KEYNOTE
Ann Dávila Cardinal is a Puerto Rican fiction writer with an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her young adult novels include Five Midnights (winner of a 2020 International Latino Book Award and a finalist for a Bram Stoker), Category Five, and this year’s Breakup from Hell, a horror romcom from HarperCollins. The Storyteller’s Death, released in October 2022, was her first novel for adults, and her second, We Need No Wings, is scheduled for release from Sourcebooks in March of 2024. Ann lives in Vermont with her husband Doug, and is finally, joyously, writing full-time. You can find her online at http://anndavilacardinal.com/
Julie Bliven has been editor at Charlesbridge for more than a decade. She acquires and edits fiction and nonfiction board books, picture books, and middle-grade novels. Julie holds an M.A. in Children’s Literature from Simmons University, where she has taught and mentored students in the University’s M.F.A. program. She has also served as a member of the Children’s Book Council Diversity Initiative. Julie has been a longtime secret writer herself. This spring her debut picture book, Sometimes Shy, publishes.
JerriAnne Boggis is Executive Director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, an organization that preserves, celebrates, and honors African-American history in the state. She is a writer, educator, and community activist who works to correct the historical record on the racial complexity and richness of New Hampshire’s diverse past. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2022 Social Innovation Leader Award in the non-profit sector by the Entrepreneurs Fund of New Hampshire, the Ona Judge Award by the Human Rights Society in 2021, and named as one of the ten most influential women of the century in New Hampshire by the Seacoast Press in 2020. Most recently, an interview with her was featured in the November 2022 issue of Yankee magazine.
Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.
Anne Jennison is a traditional Native American storyteller and historian of European and Abenaki heritage. While Anne’s storytelling skills have been polished by more than 30 years of experience sharing Indigenous lesson stories with audiences of all kinds, she also believes that her growth and development as a human being has been deeply influenced by internalizing the content of the Northeastern lesson stories that she tells. With Master Degrees in both Storytelling and History, Anne also brings a wealth of cultural and historical knowledge to enrich her retelling of timeless Northeast Woodlands Native American stories. Anne is listed on the New Hampshire Traditional Artists Roster as a traditional Native American storyteller & craftsperson.
Additionally, Anne is the current Chair of the NH Commission on Native American Affairs and is also a member of the the Indigenous NH Collaborative Collective, an affiliate faculty member for the University of New Hampshire Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) Minor, and a co-creator of the “People of the Dawnland” interpretive exhibit about the Abenaki/Wabanaki peoples at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH. Anne continues to act as a consultant for the museum’s ongoing Abenaki Heritage Initiative – a plan to develop and sustain exhibits and events at Strawbery Banke Museum that focus on the history and culture of the Abenaki, Indigenous peoples of New Hampshire and the Northeast, both past and present.
Jason McIntosh is an author-illustrator and graphic designer from New Hampshire. His love for writing and illustrating stories began as a very young boy growing up in the rural woods of southern New England. Since 1999, Jason has created thousands of designs and illustrations for hundreds of clients ranging the globe from Mozambique to Montreal. He is the self-published author and illustrator of Scroll Seekers: The Black Dragon of Dearth and has illustrated numerous books for other self-published authors as well. When he is not writing, designing or doodling, he can often be found adventuring through the woods with his wife and six children or traveling with them through the lands of Middle Earth, Narnia, Redwall Abbey and the like. Jason’s mission: Create thoughtful illustrations and stories that inspire.
E. Pryblyski began their trip into the publishing world in 2009, when they joined Divertir Publishing as an acquisitions editor. Fast forward to now, they’ve been working as an editor for over a decade while learning the many skills needed to forge their own writing career. Currently, they serve as Insomnia Publishing’s creative director. After publishing a number of short story fiction pieces over the years, they began writing Fallen during lockdown in 2020, inspired by their husband and a shared love of text-based roleplay (which is how the two met).
When they’re not writing, E. is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (OSR fencer in the East Kingdom), a violinist, and a great lover of the fiber arts from spinning to weaving to crochet and embroidery. They always have a project in their hands. It helps their ADHD and allows her to focus while also producing usable or pretty art.
Finally, E. is physically disabled and struggles with severe chronic migraines and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and its many comorbidities. They try to write characters who are authentic to this experience and don’t shy away from writing about disability, mental health, gender, and other challenging topics.
Adi Rule is the author of Why Would I Lie? and Hearts of Ice (Scholastic), as well as The Hidden Twin and Strange Sweet Song, which won the 2016 NH Writers Project literary award for Outstanding Young Adult Book and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Houghton Mifflin/Clarion Prize (St Martin’s Press). Adi has led workshops throughout New England for groups that include 826 Boston, the VCFA Young Writers Network, and the NH Writers Project. Her work has appeared in Hunger Mountain journal of the arts and NH Pulp Fiction anthologies. She also contributes essays and features to New Hampshire Magazine.
Rebecca Rule is a full-time writer, humorist, storyteller, host for ten years of the NH Authors Series on NHPTV, currently host of Our Hometown on NHPTV. The author of a dozen books for children and adults, her latest is That Reminds Me of a Funny Story: a memoir, how-to, and compendium of yankee humor. For New Hampshire Magazine she writes a monthly humor column called “Ayuh.” Her daughter, Adi Rule, is also a writer.
Kip Wilson is the author of White Rose (2019, Versify), a critically-acclaimed YA verse novel about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl, and The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin (2022, Versify), set in a queer club in Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic. Her latest verse novel, One Last Shot (2023, Versify), focuses on photojournalist Gerda Taro, who captured the vibrant hopes of Spanish republican forces fighting fascism during the Spanish Civil War. Kip holds a Ph.D. in German Literature and is an Associate Editor at Voyage YA.
Derry Author Fest 