Victress Authors
Adriana Allegri
Adriana was born with a powerful love for books, thanks to a mother who read to her while still in the womb. She believes in the healing power of words and the long-lasting impact of a great read. As a first-generation American with parents who lived in Europe during World War II, Adriana grew up on stories about how small acts of compassion and kindness saved lives. That theme shows up in everything she writes, regardless of genre.
She spent fifteen years as an educator and more than a decade in the New York metro area in marketing communications management. Today, she’s happily relocated in Arizona and loves the desert sun. When not tapping away at the keyboard, you’ll find her cooking, painting, gardening, day-tripping, or cozying up with a favorite read. She’s also the proud mom to two ornery rescue cats, whose hooligan antics sometimes find their way into her writing.
Michael Brumage, MD, MPH, FACP, FACPM
Mike is a physician, public health specialist, combat veteran, mindfulness instructor, avid traveler, and writer. He is board-certified in both internal medicine and preventive medicine and retired as a colonel from the United States Army after 25 years of service.
He’s recognized as a “go-to” expert on the drug crisis in the United States for national, international, and local media outlets, after years of working as a public health physician during the opioid epidemic in his home state, West Virginia. He has also been interviewed by national and international outlets about rural health issues and for the COVID-19 pandemic response. His work has been published in The Atlantic and The Hill.
Mike considers himself the Forrest Gump of public health physicians. He’s been a part of history-making events in the Balkans, Iraq, the magnitude 9.0 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant meltdown in Japan, the opioid epidemic, and other public health crises.
C. Cimmone
C. Cimmone is a journalist, editor, and comic from Texas. She spends her time writing dark, free-verse poetry and prose, which can be found in her collections, ‘Torn Up’ (Femme Salve Books) and ‘Third Generation Hysteria’ (Alien Buddha Press). Her blog, GYM ANXIETY, explores her journey with mental and physical health. Her debut novel, What Meth Did, is currently in production.
Cimmone is known for her brutally-honest writing about mental health, addiction, love, and loss. She’s allergic to cats, hates flying, and once unknowingly passed Sandra Bullock in an Austin PetSmart. If you’re looking for her, she’s probably watching a stand-up comedy special on Netflix with her Standard Poodle, Hammy.
Kimberly Cooper
Kimberly Rashelle Cooper is a YA novelist who is fond of Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, and Sci-Fi fiction genres. She has lived in Northwest Arkansas all of her life where she discovered her love for books in junior high when a friend introduced teen novels by L.J. Smith. Those creative tales cultivated her interest to pursuing studies in creative writing, finally getting her degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment from Full Sail University.
When she is not reading or writing, Kimberly spends her time watching movies, playing videogames, and entertaining her son with Comicon conventions once a year. But let’s face it…she loves to dress up for the events, feeding into her own anime nerdy side.
Being represented as well as getting a chance to share her stories is a dream goal of hers, and she is honored to have the opportunity to do so.
Joshua Corneil
Joshua has always been surrounded by stories. Raised in a Navy family, he loved sitting at the table and listening to the adults tell stories of past lives, desperate to make a connection with strangers in a strange land. He eagerly listened to the stories of any saint or martyr he could find, no matter how grim or brutal. Many nights would find him hiding under his sheets with a flashlight, reading of great adventures or mysteries well past his bedtime.
But life is not always kind. At a young age he began to experience frequent anxiety attacks that would leave him bedridden or sick. As a teenager he sank into a severe depressive episode. Life lost its color. It lost its joy.
Yet he persisted. After a lot of therapy and soul searching, he began to heal. As he reflected on his experiences, he decided to begin writing. His darkly colored stories, wrapped in fantasy and spirituality, are an honest look at mental illness. His tales are not for the faint hearted, but a necessary exploration into an all too common human condition.
Robyn Dabney
Robyn Dabney is a fiction writer and freelance copyeditor with a copyediting certification from the University of California San Diego. Robyn’s passion for reading, writing, and exploring thrilling stories about unlikely heroes conquering evil started at a young age. Her favorite books span every genre and she likes to describe her own work as having something for everyone—a sprinkle of suspense, a dash of adventure, and a whole lot of good versus evil.
Robyn grew up running around the red rocks and ravines in the deserts of southern Utah—building forts, fighting battles, and living out the lives of all the characters she and her friends created. An avid lover of all things nature and the outdoors, Robyn attended Texas A&M University where she majored in wildlife biology and natural resource management.
She currently lives in Munich, Germany, and maintains a home base in Moab, Utah. When she isn’t lost in another dimension creating havoc for her characters and stories, Robyn spends her time talking science-fiction and fantasy as a co-host of the Tipsy Nerds Book Club podcast and playing in the great outdoors (usually on the face of a rock).
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Jennifer Della’Zanna
Jennifer Della’Zanna loves to combine history, mythology, fantasy and romance in her fiction and in her life. Her undergraduate degree is in History, German and Ancient Greek and holds a Master’s of Fine Arts degree in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. She has published several short stories, more than fifty feature articles for magazines and websites on topics as diverse as firearms, movies, and healthcare, and has written and teaches several online courses.
Della’Zanna co-wrote Making it in Country Music: An Insider’s Look at the Industry with Rich Redmond (Jason Aldean’s drummer) based on his experiences and those of other major country music artists and experts. The book debuted on May 15, 2023.
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Ian Fortey
Ian Fortey started freelance writing in 2007and quickly became the most prolific writer on Cracked.com, the web-version of the classic comedy magazine. He’s had work featured on Syfy.com, CollegeHumor.com, Break.com, CBR.com, Grunge.com, FilmDaily.com and many others. He has had many short horror stories published in anthologies such as the “Terror in the Shadows” series as well as “Twisted Anatomy” and “Darkness Wakes.” He’s also featured in the New York Times bestselling book “You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News” and has written the Amazon best-selling series “Jigsaw of Souls.”
Over the course of 14 years, Ian published in the neighborhood of 3,000 articles, racking up over 150 million page views and representing 6 million published words. He’s worked in comedy punch up writing for animated scripts and his screenplay “Nic Cage vs Zombies” took 2nd place at the 2014 Zedfest film festival screenplay competition, 4th place at the 2015 Horror Hotel, and was an official selection at 2014 NOLA film festival.
Corey Hill
Corey Hill is a human rights activist, journalist, poet, screenwriter, and occasional lizard chaser. He is the co-founder of Revelatur, an NGO dedicated to providing actionable analysis and intelligence to progressive individuals and organizations. Co-founder of the Protest Facebook Coalition, as well as 3 Lb. Magician Production Studio. His journalism has appeared in The Independent, Yes!, Alternet, and others. His fiction has appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Antithesis, The Moth, Coe, and many more.
Mark Hill
Mark Hill is a career U.S. Intelligence Officer and former National Security Senior Executive whose intelligence production led to numerous mission successes and multiple awards including Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Office of the Year. He has also been a founder of four successful commercial sector start-ups.
Mark is a founder and Editor-in-Chief Innovation Officer of Revelatur, Inc., a progress accelerator whose mission is to measurably advance Democracy in the United States and globally through the provision of actionable information. Mark is a recognized thought leader in: organizational science, change and transformation; information technology; problem solving and solutions engineering; design and systems thinking; and modeling and forecasting.
He holds intellectual property rights to Rational Design Technology, a systems modeling platform generating forecasts with defined probabilities. Mark and his wife Paula live in Orlando, Florida where he is now writing thought provoking nonfiction.
Michael Hiller
Michael S. Hiller is a nationally-recognized cannabis lawyer and legalization advocate. His upcoming book, Yes We CAN-nabis: Washington v. Barr and the Fight to Legalize Marijuana, chronicles what one magazine denominated the “lawsuit of the century” – a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. His passion for legalization is largely rooted in a desire to provide patients with access to life-changing and, in many instances, life-saving, medication (medical marijuana), while also ensuring that persons of color who have been wrongfully convicted under the Controlled Substances Act are freed from prison and able to expunge their criminal records resulting from discriminatory enforcement of our nation’s drug laws. Michael, a former Professor of Constitutional Law, regularly lectures around the country, and has been widely recognized for his work, including having received the International Hope Award (Cannabis Business Association, 2018) and been named 420 Advocate of the Year (Canna-Gather, 2018). He has also been listed as one of the top cannabis litigators in America (Mg Magazine 2019); a Cannabis Trailblazer (National Law Journal, 2021); and a Cannabis SuperLawyer (SuperLawyer Magazine, 2009 to 2022).
A prolific writer, Michael’s works have been published by the New York Law Journal, New York Times, New York Post, and the New York Bar Association Journal, among others. He is also the author of two screenplays – The Key, which was a quarterfinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship (sponsored by the Academy Awards) and The Alphabet Protocol, which was a semi-finalist for the National Screenwriters Expo. When not writing and practicing law, Michael, a former professional musician, composes music for and performs with his band, Lunar Tourists. Michael is also a spirited advocate for preservation of our environment and national, state and city landmarks – work for which he received the Grassroots Preservation Award.
Suki Jones
Suki Jones is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer, specializing in addiction and harm reduction. She raised two children as a single mother in Oakland and has been sober for 23 years. She has worked with the syringe access program at Glide Church SF and is a board member for the Harm Reduction Treatment Center SF. Her writing has appeared in Stereo Embers Magazine and Broke Ass Stuart. She enjoys long hikes on the beach, listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Tower of Power, and everything in between. Her debut memoir, Sea, Swallow Me, was published with Embers Arts Press in February 2023.
Carol LaHines
Carol LaHines is the author of Someday Everything Will All Make Sense, a finalist for the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel and an American Fiction Award. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals including Fence, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Denver Quarterly, Cimarron Review, The Literary Review, The Laurel Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, The South Carolina Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Sycamore Review, Permafrost, redivider, Literary Orphans, and Literal Latte. Her short story, Papijack, was selected by judge Patrick Ryan as the recipient of the Lamar York Prize for Fiction. Her short stories and novellas have also been finalists for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction from Sarabande Books, the David Nathan Meyerson fiction prize, the New Letters short story award, and the Disquiet Literary Prize, among others. She is a graduate of New York University, Gallatin Division, and of St. John’s University School of Law.
Merlin B. Love
Merlin Beaumont Love (which he promises is his real name) is a novelist, a screenwriter, a poet, a coder/programmer, a photographer, a professional salesperson, a corporate overlord, an avid video game player, and the son of a guy who’s afro was so marvelous that Merlin’s own hair promptly fell out from the shame of being maternally acquired.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Merlin has lived a life of adventure, residing in numerous places, including Philadelphia, Canada, Arizona (where he earned a degree in English Literature from Arizona State University), and now resides in Sacramento, California with his partner and their cumulative six children.
Erin Newman
Erin Newman is a speaker, author, retreat facilitator, and coach for entrepreneurs. Erin speaks regularly to corporations and groups on empowerment, money mindset, and spirituality in business. She loves to help business owners to overcome their subconscious blocks to soul-fueled success.
Erin graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in German literature, and then spent the next ten years in the corporate world, desperate to escape and follow her dreams. She began to explore all things spirituality and spent three years in a Shamanic practitioner training, infusing her approach to business.
In addition to her non-fiction books for business owners, Erin also writes ancient historical fiction. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with one husband, two kiddos, and one very old doggie. When she’s not reading, writing, working, or trying to cook meals that don’t involve chicken nuggets, you can find her on a trail in the woods. Her remaining vices are really strong Earl Gray tea and European chocolate.
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D. Thourson Palmer
D. Thourson Palmer sheared sheep in rural Ohio, studied in the Appalachian foothills, taught in Japan wherever a train could take him, and got lost in the Central Valley of California. In his past he’s been a forensic chemist, blood research scientist, English teacher, and competitive judoka.
His forthcoming novel, Rust River Gothic, is emblematic of his work; a dreamlike, sometimes unsettling waterway leading from our world to another—more vibrant, more peculiar, and more dangerous. He also writes emotional and freaky epic fantasy that veers occasionally into horror.
He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
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Deena Remiel
Deena is an award-winning and USA TODAY bestselling author. She spends her time playing in the Garden of Good and Evil as she writes paranormal romance, urban fantasy and suspense. While being known for having downed a few beers with her angels, she’s even put Satan in his place a time or two. The concept of immortality and all its implications fascinates her.
Deena has been an award-winning educator for over 30 years and considers herself a student for life. She enjoys open-world video gaming, photography, scrapbooking, gatherings with family and friends, and snuggles with her Siamese cat, Simon. Chandler, Arizona is where she calls home.
Diana Waldhuber
Australian author, Diana, is a well-known saint (in certain circles) of dubious qualities.
Apart from dubious and self-appointed sainthood, she’s led a varied and rich life of many careers, including; actor, chef, bartender, wine-shop-patron-wrangler, and cleaner for Miss Universe, but writing is where it’s at for this particular gemini.
Diana loves books of all kinds, across all genres, and believes books are true nourishment for the soul. She also believes that romance novels are good quality chocolate for the soul and everyone should indulge in that particular vice.
“If there’s a book that you want to read,
but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
TONI MORRISON