Meet the Authors
Roger Bonner (winner 2007 LDS Publisher’s Choice award) was born Swiss but grew up in Los Angeles, California. He has published poetry, short stories, and won prizes in England. In the USA, his work has appeared in Cross Connect, The Drunken Boat, Thunder Sandwich, Sliptongue and in the Delmarva Review. Swiss Me, an illustrated collection of satires about the Swiss, is now in its second printing.
Don Carey (winner 2007 LDS Publisher’s Choice award) is an aspiring author who grew up in Hawaii and now lives in a small town outside Ft. Worth, Texas with his lovely wife and two daughters. His day job is writing computer programs, which is almost the same as writing fiction, but with a lot more semicolons.
Laura Hilton Craner is a mommy, freelance writer, and blogger. Her current projects include raising three kids, a graphic novel about deaf Holocaust survivors, and reviewing LDS books for
A Motley Vision. Her childhood cat, Misty, enjoyed quiche and lived a long life climbing many, many Christmas trees.
Joyce DiPastena loves all things medieval. She is the author of two sweet medieval romances, Loyalty’s Web (a 2007 Whitney Award Finalist) and Illuminations of the Heart.
Sarah M. Eden (winner 2009 LDS Readers’ Choice award). At the ripe-old age of five, Sarah M. Eden wrote her first book,“The Sun,” which stunk worse than cooked cabbage on a hot summer day. Sarah, at the ripe-old age of much more than five, is now the author of nine historical romances, which her mother thinks are fabulous, including 2008 Whitney Award finalist Seeking Persephone. Her tenth, Courting Miss Lancaster, will be published by Covenant Communications in 2010. When not writing and/or avoiding responsible things like cooking dinner, doing laundry or making vital phone calls, Sarah makes friends and influences people at www.sarahmeden.com.
L.T. Elliot (winner 2009 LDS Readers’ Choice award) lives in the western U.S. She spends most of her time playing with her kids, hanging out with family, and escaping to worlds within her mind.
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Gussie Fick (winner 2009 LDS Publisher’s Choice award) is a teacher, homemaker, and aspiring novelist. You often see Gussie with a camera taking pictures of clouds, rainbows, and horses. She e-mails her sisters in Spain and California every day and loves to laugh at Frasier.
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Melanie Goldmund (winner 2007 LDS Publisher’s Choice award) began making up stories as soon as she could talk. She played a lot with action figures (but never Barbie dolls) and thought up new adventures for them based on whatever she was reading or watching on television at the time. While majoring in English at the University of Utah, she participated in the Semester Abroad program at the University of Kiel. She loved it so much, she stayed, married and is now raising two bilingual sons. Her favorite television shows and movies inspired her to write fanfiction. When she discovered fanfiction on the internet, it inspired her to write even more and improve her skills. Now she’s hoping to cross over completely to original fiction.
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M. Gray’s first novel, a supernatural suspense, is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2010 by WiDo Publishing. She lives in the outskirts of Washington D.C. and stays home with her two children. M. Gray is currently working on a novel based on “A Sudden Resolve.”
Taegan Hutchinson currently lives in Virginia Beach, VA. Taegan is eighteen years old and works part-time to go to school full-time at Tidewater Community College. She is studying to be a writer.
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Angie Lofthouse has published a dozen sci-fi and fantasy stories
in such publications as AlienSkin, The Sword Review, Dragons, Knights
and Angels, Unparalleled Journeys and others. Her debut sci-fi adventure
novel,
Defenders of the Covenant,
was released in 2012. Angie lives in a little canyon in the foothills
of the Wasatch Mountains with her family of writers, artists, singers,
composers, illustrators and musicians.
Lori Nawyn is an award winning author, artist, and photographer whose work has appeared in regional and national publications. She and her husband Brian, a firefighter, have four children, two grandchildren, four chickens, three dogs, and a crazy life. A special thank you goes to Lori, who did an awesome job on the artwork for the cover of this book.
Tristi Pinkston (winner 2007 LDS Readers’ Choice award) is the author of the Silver Quill Award-winning author of Secret Sisters, as well as
thirteen other novels and self-help books. She has also penned over two
thousand articles for the Internet. Her work as a freelance editor
allows her to do something she loves—mentor writers on their journey to
publication. She is the mother of four amazing children and the wife of
one incredible husband, and loves spending her free time trying recipes
no one will eat, scrapbooking, and taking really, really long naps.
Brian C. Ricks is busy writing for academic publications and
doing research projects. He is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at
Brigham Young University. He also enjoys writing fiction, something
people might actually read.
Sandra Sorenson is a mom of seven children and two of the most adorable grandchildren on the earth, dancing her way through life as a mom, student, friend and entrepreneur. She used to dance to music, on a dance floor. Now she does the dance of life, with kids, pets, a mortgage and a job. But she still dances.
The Choir is Sandra’s first published work.
Janice Sperry was born in Murray, Utah. She attended Westminster
College in Salt Lake City where she earned her Bachelors degree. She is
married to Jason Sperry and began her adventures in parenting in 1999.
She uses her children, Spencer, Alena, and Calton, as an inspiration for
writing.
Christine Thackeray (winner 2008 LDS Publisher’s Choice award) graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. in English. While raising her seven children, she kept busy writing articles for the local paper and working as a researcher and technical writer for various national marketing studies. When her youngest went to kindergarten, she decided to try her hand at writing fiction. Her first novel Crayon Messages: A Visiting Teaching Adventure was published in 2008. It was followed by C.S. Lewis: Latter-Day Truths in Narnia, which she co-authored with her sister. Christine considers her role as a wife and mother primary, but loves her writing hobby. She likes to think of it as quilting with words.
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Meet the Support Staff
LDS Publisher is an anonymous blogger (Yes, she is real. No, she
won't tell you who she is.) who talks about publishing in the LDS
market. She gives basic writing and publishing tips, features LDS
authors and publishers as guest bloggers, and spotlights new fiction
releases by LDS authors. LDSP hosts an annual Christmas short story contest from which the stories in Checkin' It Twice were selected. The 2012 contest should be starting in November.
Karlene Browning is the publisher/editor/typesetter/and all-around cheerleader for Checkin' It Twice.
She has always loved words and stories. When she went to college, she
majored in exaggeration and hyperbole. This penchant for creative
embellishment sometimes gets her into trouble. On occasion it provides
entertainment to those around her. When Karlene is not at her computer
writing, editing, typesetting or coding ebooks, she enjoys spending time
with her husband, children, and grandchildren.
