The 2025 list is coming soon! Below are the Faculty from last year:
Faculty List
Marilyn Atlas
Talent & Literary Manager
Marilyn R. Atlas is a talent and literary manager, author, and award-winning producer. Among her credits as a film producer are “Real Women Have Curves” for HBO, which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently being developed as a Broadway musical for 2022. “A Certain Desire,” starring Sam Waterston; and “Echoes,” which won the Gold Award at the Texas International Film Festival. In addition to producing a variety of programming for the cable/pay TV market, Marilyn has produced live theater. She co-produced the West Coast premiere of the musical “God Bless You Mr. Rosewater” by Ashman and Menken (the writers of “Enchanted” and “Tangled”). She also co-produced the award-winning play “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,” which was made into a film starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter Gallagher. In 2014, she co-produced the play “Detained in the Desert” at the Guadalupe Theater in San Antonio, TX. She will present sessions on Creating Non-stereotypical and Memorable Characters and Dirtying up your characters
Mike Black
Author
Michael A. Black is the award-winning author of 50 books, most of which are in the mystery and thriller genres. He has written in the sci-fi, western, horror, and sports genres. A retired police officer from the Chicago area, he has done everything from patrol to investigating homicides to conducting numerous SWAT operations. Black was awarded the Cook County Medal of Merit in 2010. He is also the author of over 100 short stories and articles, and wrote two novels with television star, Richard Belzer (Law & Order SVU). He did eleven novels under the name Don Pendleton in the Executioner series and his Executioner novel, Fatal Prescription, won the Best Original Novel Scribe Award in 2018. He has written numerous westerns under both his own name (Legends of the West: A Deputy Bass Reeves Novel) and as A.W. Hart (Killer’s Ghost, Killer’s Gamble, Killer’s Requiem, and Border Blood). He is exceptionally proud of his latest western, Where Legends Lie, which he considers his finest work to date.
Jenni Curtis
Author
Jenni Curtis is an award-winning author of YA Fantasy and Adult Fantasy Romance. Her debut novel, Lies of the Haven, won the best YA Fiction in the state of Nevada from the Indie Authors Project. When she is not writing stories, she works for Mystic Publishers, Inc. as their head of the media and marketing Department.
Kimberly Parish Davis
Publisher
Kimberly Parish Davis is the director and founder of Madville Publishing. She sometimes teaches English Composition, Creative Writing, and Technical writing, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, and a BA from Columbia College-Chicago in Arts and Entertainment Media Management. She spent five years on the editorial staff of Texas Review Press.
MM Finck
Editor / Master Class
MM Finck, our Master Class faculty member, is a niche editor who specializes in queries, pitches, opening pages, and overall story analysis. She was granted the first ever interview with the Editor-in-Chief of Amazon’s Lake Union Publishing. She hosts the Agents’ Corner and Author Interviews segments of an international writers’ website. Among MM’s clients’ and interviewees’ successes are chart rankings, bestsellers, boldfaced named Book Club choices, and two adaptations to television series – one Apple, one Prime. Query Quill est. 2014. Rep https://maassagency.com/katie-shea/
J. L. Greger
Author
Would you like to learn a bit more about science, but you’re not interested enough to read a dry text? Janet Greger explores modern scientific controversies in her novels of my Science Traveler Series. As a scientist with more than twenty years of teaching and research experience in the biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she thinks science can be interesting to if the topics are relevant to the novels she writes. She lives in New Mexico and travels to exotic places to incorporate into her novels. She writes for adults and children.
RobRoy McCandless
Author
R.A. McCandless has been a writer both professionally and creatively for nearly two decades. He was born under a wandering star that led him to a degree in Communication and English with a focus on creative writing. He is the author of the steampunk novel THE CLOCKWORK DETECTIVE and BENEATH A FEARFUL MOON and the urban fantasy series TEARS OF HEAVEN, HELL BECOMES HER, and , COMPANY OF THE DAMNED. His short stories include “And Into A Watery Grave” in IN SHAMBLES, “Grenadiers and Dragon’s Fire” in GEARS GADGETS AND STEAM, “Through the Sting of Fairy Smoke” in NINE HEROES: HEROIC FANTASY anthology, and “He Who Tells the Tale” and “Holes Full of Dark” in HOLES: AN INDIE AUTHOR ANTHOLOGY.
He continues to research and write historical and genre fiction, battle sprinklers, and chauffer his three boys around Southern California.Wolf O'Rourc
Author
Wolf O’Rourc (aka Warry Wotter, Word Wizard Wextraordinaire) brings his passion for writing and publishing to parallel universes full of categories, copies, and covers. Drawing on his unique skills, he conjures a powerful blend of ancient magic and modern technology into practical advice on storytelling and self-publishing. What else can you expect from a support specialist for word processors in a previous life reborn as a graduate of the Wogwarts School of Writing and Wizardry?
Links
Website: https://www.wolforourc.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfORourc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WolfORourc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WolfORourcAuthor
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wolforourc
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/WolfORourc
Linked-in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/WolfORourc
Penny C. Sansevieri
Marketing
Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon visibility campaigns as well offering national media pitching, online book marketing, author events, and other strategies designed to build the author/book visibility. She is the author of 18 books, including “How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon,” “Revise and Re-Release Your Book”, “5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors,” and the newly-released “From Book to Bestseller”
Jo A. Wilkins
Publishing
Jo A. Wilkins is the Chief Executive Officer and Acquisitions Editor for Mystic Publishers, Inc., (started in 2002) a company dedicated to producing quality self-published books. Since 2014, she has overseen the submissions for Mystic Publishers four traditional/commercial imprints, Ink & Quill Publishers, (for General Genres), NewLink Publishing (for Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy), Tremplins Publishing (for Mid-grade novels) and Vision Novels, a publishing aid, dedicated to helping authors (as their backroom staff) with niche properties, who want to truly self-publish without using a vanity press. As an author she has collaborated with R.R. Draude on the three books of the Tyranny series (Sci-Fi), has sold short stories to places like KNPR’s “Making Nevada Home” program (www.knpr.org) and a murder mystery (A creative non-fiction novel dealing with a gambling addiction) named Dealing Out Death. She is also published in 20+ anthologies. She teaches author technique classes and short story writing classes for the OLLI program at UNLV and does one-on-one private coaching with aspiring authors.
Phone: (702) 564-6388/866-869-7842 or email her at joawilkins@mysticpublishersinc.com
Maer Wilson
Publisher
Maer Wilson is the founding partner at Ellysian Press, a boutique publisher, known for their high-quality books, rigorous editing and excellent covers. Because they spend time with each author, they offer a place for the writer to find a home for themselves as an artist. Several of their authors have received awards over the last few years. Due to the individualized attention on each book, EP only accepts one or two authors each year.
Coming into the literary world first as an author, Maer brings with her a vast background including business, public relations and theatre arts. She is involved in all aspects of the press and has a thorough understanding of what it means to be an author in today’s constantly changing literary world.
You can find all Maer’s books and novelettes at Amazon and other online retailers. For more info, you can visit Maer’s website at http://maerwilson.com/ or Maer’s page at Ellysian Press.