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JENNIFER ADAMS is a writer, editor, and bookseller. She is the author of more than 50 books, including the best-selling BabyLit board books, which introduce small children to classic literature and have sold more than 2 million copies. Jennifer works weekends at The King's English Bookshop.
Jennifer received her BA in English literature from the University of Washington and her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She loves letterpress printing, cattails, dragonflies, beautifully wrapped packages, and the first snowfall in winter.
NOAH BASKETT is The Salt Lake City Public Library Executive Director. Baskett most recently worked as the Vice President of Operations for Leadership Foundations in Tacoma, Washington – a global network of community-based leadership development organizations.
Before that, he worked as the Senior Director of Community Engagement for the Tacoma Rescue Mission, the Senior Programs Officer for Northwest Leadership Foundation, and served as a volunteer with AmeriCorps. Baskett grew up in Salt Lake City. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Puget Sound and a Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership from Seattle University.
AMY ALLEBEST grew up in Colorado in a tight-knit Mormon family. She has a BA in English from Brigham Young University, studied abroad in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, and spent a year and a half in Chile. She also has a master's degree in liberal arts from Stanford University, where she gained the training to analyze and write about literature, philosophy, and history. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Utah, studying Education, Culture, and Society.
JAMES ALISON (London 1959) is a Catholic Priest, Theologian and Author. He is principally known for his career-long dedication to developing the fecundity for systematic theology of the thought of René Girard (Avignon 1923-Palo Alto 2015).
In addition he has, for thirty years, publicly pursued the thesis that basic Christianity flows organically into openness towards LGBT life and witness, while trying to live this out in the face of the clerical mendacity that is traditional in this sphere. Over time, and with increasing institutional recognition, he has developed pastoral encouragement to LGBTQ+ believers seeking to live truthful lives all over the world. Currently he lives in Madrid, Spain.
STACIE SHANNON DENETSOSIE is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. Her clans are Todích'íí'nii (Bitterwater Clan), born for Naakaii (Mexican Clan). She is a fiction writer and poet. She was named a 2025 National Book Foundation 5 Under 25 Honoree. Her debut short story collection, The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories, was named a 2024 Southwest Book of the Year, a Foreword INDIES Book Award winner, and a 2024 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist. Stacie received her MA from Utah State University and her MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Originally from Kayenta, Arizona, she currently resides in Northern Utah with her husband and cat.
KATIE MANSFIELD is the creator of Tragic Girls, an illustration brand and online store featuring horror tropes and relatable situations in her comic book–style art. She resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.
MARCI KAY MONSON is an avid reader, crafter, and gardener. She received her BS in Technical Communications from Utah State University and a graduate certificate in publishing from the Denver Publishing Institute. She found a love for Agatha Christie when her book club read And Then There Were None and never looked back. She loves story, bright colors, and a little bit of (cozy and fictional) murder. Raised in Japan, England, and Germany, she now lives with her dog Suki in Layton, Utah.
WILL NEVILLE-REHBEHN directs fundraising, marketing, and community development and works with publisher Kirsten Allen and creative director Kathleen Metcalf on acquisitions, always seeking to advance THP’s mission and impact. Throughout his career, he has helped organizations expand their capabilities, engage new audiences and tell stories that change the world. He received a BA in Theatre from Davidson College and a master’s in Political Management from The George Washington University. A Utah native and lifelong book nerd, Will returned to Salt Lake City in 2020 with his husband, their young son and very old cat.
MORGAN SJOGREN writes about Western lands and water through a lens of history, culture, science, and adventure. She is the author of Path of Light: A Walk Through Colliding Legacies of Glen Canyon (Torrey House Press 2023); 2025 Utah Book Award Winner and Library of Congress “Great Reads from Great Places” selection.
Read her stories in Archaeology Southwest, Arizona Highways, bioGraphic, Fast Company, Reasons to be Cheerful, Runner’s World, and Sierra Magazine. Her work has been supported by the 2022 Water Desk Grant for reporting on the Colorado River and a 2024 Charles Redd Center for Western Studies Independent Research and Creative Works Award. She was the 2024 Entrada Institute Writer-in-Residence.
BRYAN YOUNG (he/they) works across many different media. His work has won two Diamond Quill awards, he was named 2023 Writer of the Year by the League of Utah Writers, and he won the 2025 Utah Book Award from the Utah Humanities Council. He teaches writing for Writer’s Digest, Script Magazine, and at the University of Utah. Follow him across social media @swankmotron or visit swankmotron.com.
CHRIS CARLSON is a photographer deeply connected to Great Salt Lake through his ancestry, which traces back to the earliest pioneer settlers on Antelope Island. Over the past three years, Chris has dedicated himself to capturing the lake’s magnificence, using both traditional cameras and drones to craft expansive aerial views alongside detailed ground-level shots. His photographic approach skillfully reveals the lake’s grandeur in vivid and unexpected detail.
Chris’s work aims to elevate public awareness and appreciation of Great Salt Lake’s ecological significance. He believes in the power of photography to bring people together, building a community of conservationists who, despite their differing viewpoints, share a common goal: the preservation of Great Salt Lake for future generations.
ELLEN HOPKINS is well known for multiple NYT Best Selling Novels such as Crank, a true story based on her daughter, Cristal’s battle with drugs, Burned, Impulse, Perfect, and Tilt to name a few. She currently resides in Carson City, Nevada where she remains active on her Facebook fan page often sharing exploits on her travels, updates on her writing, interesting articles, and advertising where she will be for book signings or readings.
PAISLEY REKDAL is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven collections of poetry, including West: A Translation, which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The New Republic, and on National Public Radio, among others. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah, where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program and directs the American West Center. Between 2017-2022, she served as Utah's Poet Laureate, receiving a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She currently serves as poetry editor for High Country News, and as co-chair of PEN America's Utah Chapter.
DARCIE LITTLE BADGER is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received a Nebula Award, an Ignyte Award, and a Newbery Honor and is on the National Book Awards longlist. Her third book, Sheine Lende, is the prequel to Elatsoe and was a USA Today bestseller. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran.
JENNIFER A. NIELSEN, was born and raised in northern Utah, where she still lives today with her family. She is the author of The Ascendance series, beginning with The False Prince; the Traitors Game series, the historical novels, Iceberg, A Night Divided, Words on Fire, Lines of Courage and several other titles. She loves chocolate, old books, and lazy days in the mountains.
DANNY RENSCH is an international chess master, world-renowned chess broadcaster and commentator, and chief chess officer for Chess.com.
Rensch was a seven-time all-American chess player and a multiple-time national scholastic chess champion. He became the youngest chess master in Arizona history and today lives in Utah with his wife and four children.
LJ ANDREWS is a USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy romance. She mystically brings to life worlds of dark Nordic and Viking myths bound by conflicts that bring together impassioned heroes and heroines. In her non-author moments, she is courageously corralling her four children to the myriad of life activities that involves, along with spending time with her favorite hero, her husband. Add two high maintenance dogs and a sassy conure to the mix and that sums it up. LJ Andrews thrives spending time in the Rocky Mountains where she lives in Utah.
VICTORIA REDEL is a first-generation American author of four books of poetry and six books of fiction, most recently Paradise (2022). Her novel I Am You is forthcoming September, 2025. Victoria’s work has been widely anthologized, awarded, and translated in ten languages. Her debut novel, Loverboy (2001) was adapted for feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Redel’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O and NOON among many others.
She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. Victoria is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate Creative Writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York and Utah.
ALY MCKNIGHT, b. 1991 in Reno, NV, is an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and is an artist and illustrator, whose art features vibrant colors and Indigenous stories. She spends her days sketching, painting, collaborating with the Indigenous creative community, and adventuring with her family throughout Idaho, Nevada, and Utah.
Aly’s paintings are created by hand using watercolor and graphite on paper. The imagery portrayed in her artwork usually begins with an impression from the connection Indigenous peoples have with all living things, and that connection becomes the beauty and permanent focal point within each artwork.
KATIE MCNEY holds a PhD in English with a focus in medieval literature from the University of Minnesota. She taught writing for over fifteen years and was a faculty member at the University of Southern California until 2021, where she co-founded and hosted the Writing Program’s podcast. She is one of the founding members of the Humanities Podcast Network.
Katie has written several books, including a memoir with Rebecca Lafferty, forthcoming from Union Square. She writes both fiction and nonfiction and is represented by Kurestin Armada at Root Literary. She is Ngāi Tahu Māori and lives in Los Angeles, California, with her daughter.
REBECCA LAFFERTY is the oldest child of Dan Lafferty and the mother of three children. She is a certified hypnotherapist (CHt) and is passionate about helping others heal from childhood trauma. She lives in Salt Lake City.
BROOKE SMART is an illustrator based in Sandy, Utah, where she spends her days gathering ideas for stories and her nights telling those stories with her pen and paintbrush, inspired by her children. Brooke earned a BFA in Illustration from Brigham Young University and started her artistic career as a fine artist.
She loves working with traditional media, especially with watercolor, gouache, and on occasion, acrylic paint. Her work appears in children's magazines, children's books, but also on cards and other learning materials. She lives with her husband and three children.
SARAH M. EDEN is a screenwriter and a USA Today best-selling author of more than eighty witty and charming historical novels, which have sold over one million copies worldwide. Her works include 2020’s Foreword Reviews INDIE Awards Gold Winner for Romance, Forget Me Not, and 2020 Holt Medallion finalist, Healing Hearts. She is a three-time “Best of State” Gold Medal winner for fiction and a three-time Whitney Award winner.
Combining her obsession with history and her affinity for tender love stories, Sarah loves crafting deep characters and heartfelt romances set against rich historical backdrops. She holds a bachelor’s degree in research and happily spends hours perusing the reference shelves of her local library.
JULIE JAG left the beach of Santa Cruz, Calif., where she worked for 17 years, for the mountains of Salt Lake City in 2019. She has covered the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Maverick's big wave surf contest and two Olympics. A Colorado native, she enjoys creating her own adventure, occasionally with her husband and two kids in tow.
DANYELLE WHITE leads The Salt Lake Tribune’s product, subscriber, marketing and audience growth initiatives. Danyelle was an editor at The Tribune from 2007-2012 and has spent the past near-decade leading content marketing teams. She is a University of Utah graduate, an avid reader and sports fan.
PALAK JAYSWAL is an award-winning journalist who covers culture/music at The Tribune. She graduated from the University of Utah and has lived in Utah her entire life. Her work spans areas of coverage in the cultural world. She loves writing about how culture—and the people who create it—shape life in Utah. She aspires to write for Rolling Stone.
KIERON WALQUIST [he/they] is a queer neurospicy poet + visual artist from mid-Missouri. Their work appears in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, IHLR, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Third Coast, Waxwing, + elsewhere.
Their chapbook, LOVE LOCKS, was selected by Luther Hughes for the 2022 Quarterly West Chapbook Contest.
He holds a BA from Lincoln University of Missouri, an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, + has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Monson Arts, + Vermont Studio Center. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Utah + lives in Salt Lake City.
SAMYAK SHERTOK’s debut collection, No Rhododendron, was selected by Kimiko Hahn for the 2024 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press (Pitt Poetry Series) in 2025. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and the Jake Adam York Prize, he has received fellowships from Aspen Words, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
His work has been awarded the Robert and Adele Schiff Award for Poetry, the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, and the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Originally from Nepal, he was the inaugural Hughes Fellow in Poetry at Southern Methodist University and currently teaches creative writing at Mississippi State University.
ROBIN PATTEN, a freelance writer, naturalist, and teacher, has spent years exploring and writing about some of the world’s great mountains. She received the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award for “The Carcass Chronicle.” She is the author of The Mountain: Journeys in High Places from the University of Utah Press. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian and The Georgia Review, among others.
CHRISTIAN MCKAY HEIDICKER is the author of the Newbery Honor-winning Scary Stories for Young Foxes, its non-Newbery-winning companion The City, and the Thieves of Weirdwood trilogy, which is pretty good if you’re into that sort of thing.
AMBER MCCRARY is a Diné poet and zinester. She currently resides on Akimel O’odham and Piipaash lands.
ROBERT GEHRKE has spent more than 20 years primarily covering government and politics in Utah and the West, including seven years in Washington, D.C
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JULIE WRIGHT began writing her first book when she was fifteen. Since then, she's written twenty-six novels and coauthored half a dozen more. She is a two-time winner of the Whitney award for best romance with her books "Cross My Heart" and "Lies Jane Austen Told Me." and was a finalist for "Death Thieves."
The America Library Association listed “Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me” in their 2020 top ten best romances and "A Captain for Caroline Gray" in their 2021 top ten best romances.
She has one husband, five kids, two grandbabies, one dog, and a varying amount of houseplants (depending on attrition).
ESTHER HATCH grew up on a cherry orchard in rural Utah. After high school, she alternated living in Russia to teach children English and attending Brigham Young University in order to get a degree in archaeology. She began writing when one of her favorite authors invited her to join a critique group. The only catch was she had to be a writer. Not one to be left out of an opportunity to socialize and try something new; she started on her first novel that week.