Gayle Lynds is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of ten international thrillers, including The Assassins, The Book of Spies, and The Last Spymaster. Gayle’s career began when her short stories were published in literary journals while she wrote male pulp novels under aliases. Since then, her fiction has won numerous awards. Publishers Weekly lists Masquerade among the top ten spy novels of all time. Library Journal hails her as “the reigning queen of espionage fiction.” With Robert Ludlum, she created the Covert-One series. The first—The Hades Factor—was a CBS miniseries. She recently appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, and in the deep dark past, she shattered the glass ceiling of Bouchercon’s infamous all-boys poker games. She’s co-founder (with David Morrell) of International Thriller Writers and lives in Maine with her husband, John C. Sheldon, a retired judge who’s now writing fiction, poor man, and one very bossy geriatric cat.

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Karna Small Bodman is the author of six international thrillers that have hit #1 in Thrillers on Amazon and won several awards, as well as a series of children’s picture books. Her books were inspired by the six years she served in the Reagan White House, first as Deputy Press Secretary, later as Senior Director of the National Security Council where she was the highest-ranking woman on the White House staff. On book tours she has given over 400 speeches and interviews nation-wide. She is a member of International Thriller writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. She offers autographed bookplates to buyers of her books that are available at Amazon and bookstores. When not writing or traveling, she is serving on several boards and swimming laps at her homes in Naples, FL, and Washington, DC.

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Tracy Clark, a native Chicagoan, is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Det. Harriet Foster series. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Edgar®, Macavity, and Shamus Award finalist, Tracy is also the 2020 and 2022 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award. She is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

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Retired police commander Isabella Maldonado is the award-winning international and WSJ bestselling author of four series published in 25 languages. An FBI National Academy graduate and the first Latina captain in her department, she uses her background to bring a realistic edge to her writing. 

For more information, visit www.isabellamaldonado.com.

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While honing her fiction skills, K J Howe worked as a medical, health, and fitness writer. She then became involved with the International Thriller Writers as the Executive Director of ThrillerFest, the organization’s annual conference held every July in New York City. In preparation for writing The Freedom Broker series, which focuses on elite kidnap negotiator Thea Paris, KJ spent extensive time researching the dark world of kidnapping. She has interviewed former hostages, negotiators, hostage reintegration experts, special forces operatives, and K&R insurance executives. KJ is an avid tennis player, cyclist, and swimmer. 

Robin Burcell spent nearly three decades working in law enforcement as a police officer, hostage negotiator, criminal investigator and FBI Academy-trained forensic artist. She has co-written with international best-selling author Clive Cussler on the Fargo series. Every book in her first police procedural series starring San Francisco Police homicide inspector Kate Gillespie was nominated for the Anthony Award (with two winners), two were nominated for Barry’s (with one win), and one for the Macavity, and The Kill Order was named by Library Journal as one of the best thrillers of 2014.

Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 75 novels, including her popular Sharpe and Donovan and Swift River Valley series. She has been spinning stories ever since she climbed a tree with pad and pen at age eleven. Now her books have sold in more than 35 countries and placed on the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Amazon bestseller lists. A magma cum laude graduate of Boston University, Carla has taught writing workshops in the U.S. and Canada and served on the boards of Novelists, Inc., and International Thriller Writers. She completed half-marathons in New England and Ireland. Carla and her husband live on a hilltop in Vermont, where they love to garden, read, hike and enjoy good times — and a taoscán of whiskey! — with family and friends.

Francine Stephanie Barron Mathews was born in Binghamton, NY, in 1963, the last of six girls. In 1981, she started college at Princeton, where she walked on to the women’s fencing team and joined the staff of The Daily Princetonian. Journalism eventually led to reporting stints, then she spent three years at Stanford and applied to the CIA. Four years as an intelligence analyst were profoundly fulfilling, the highlights being Francine’s work on the Counterterrorism Center’s investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland. Francine’s first novel was published in 1993, the year she left the CIA and moved with her husband to Colorado. 

S. Lee Manning spent two years as managing editor of Law Enforcement Communications before realizing that lawyers make a lot more money. A subsequent career as an attorney spanned from a first-tier New York law firm, to working for the State of New Jersey, to solo practice. An award winning writer, Manning is the author of international thrillers. Her life-long interests in Russia and espionage are reflected in her Kolya Petrov thrillers.