Donna Balon is a former certified public accountant and tax attorney based in Las Vegas who turned to fiction writing. She is the author of *Sam Time* (Desert Day Press LLC, September 2023), a historical fiction novel about a history professor who befriends Ulysses S. Grant. Inspired during a trip to Colorado's old mining towns, she immersed herself in researching Grant and Victorian customs to bring the story to life.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author best known for her novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, One True Loves, Malibu Rising, Carrie Soto Is Back, and Atmosphere.

Born in Nagasaki and raised in Britain from the age of five, **Sir Kazuo Ishiguro** has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature.

Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author.