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.

Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author.

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian-American journalist and novelist.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899, **Ernest Hemingway** became one of America's most celebrated and influential writers, transforming both literature and the public's perception of what it meant to be an author.

John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.