Meet the Girls
Melissa, Lauren, Marni, Mariana & Nina in Park City, Utah 2009
Mariana Damon earned a BA from the University of Arizona, an MA from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and an MFA from Goddard College. She was a recipient of an honors grant from the University of Arizona, which allowed her to research Colette’s original manuscripts at the Sorbonne. Subsequently she presented a paper on that research at the Arizona Honors Convention.
Her first novel, Flowers of Gold, is a mystery set in Provence, France. Her second novel, Blood in the Desert, also a mystery, takes place on the Tohono O’odham Indian reservation. She has completed a third novel set in Cambridge, England. Damon has published in Finding Change, and currently teaches English at Lexington High School in Nebraska.
Marnette Graff, RN, BS is the author of screenplays, essays, short stories, poems, and three novels. After writing for Nursing Spectrum’s New York edition for six years, Graff wrote feature articles and interviews for seven years for Mystery Review magazine. She currently writes for Mystery Scene magazine, and has twice been the recipient of month-long writing residencies at the Vermont Studio Center.
Graff’s background includes working in television and motion pictures on scripts and medical scenes. She has taught Creative Writing and Memoir in North Carolina and leads the newly formed NC Screw Iowa! “Writers Read” Workshop. A member of Sisters in Crime, Graff is represented by Mitchell S. Waters at Curtis Brown, Ltd. Her current novel, Death Unscripted, takes place in Manhattan in the land of soap operas.
Graff can be reached at her blog, Auntiemwrites’s Weblog, or her website, www.mkgraff.com. Her novel The Blue Virgin is forthcoming from Bridle Path Press.
Nina Romano earned a BA from Ithaca College, an MA from Adelphi University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Her short fiction, memoir, reviews and poetry have appeared in The Chrysalis Reader, Whiskey Island,Gulf Stream Magazine, and Irrepressible Appetites, among others. Excerpts from her novel-in-progress, The Secret Language of Women, have appeared in Dimsum: Asia’s Literary Journal, Driftwood, and Southern Women’s Review.
Romano’s debut poetry collection, Cooking Lessons, was published in 2007 by Rock Press, and her new collection, Coffeehouse Meditations, is forthcoming from Kitsune Books.
Fluent in Italian and Spanish, Romano lived in Italy for twenty years where her poetry regularly appeared in The Rome Daily American. She has won multiple prizes for her poetry and short fiction. She has taught poetry workshops and read at The International Miami Book Fair. Romano maintains a blog, A Writer’s Blog: Food and Poetry. You can contact her atwww.ninaromano.com.
Lauren Small grew up in Denver, Colorado, where she was an avid reader and horseback rider. She is the author of Choke Creek and the founder of Bridle Path Press. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Fiction, The Monocacy Valley Review, Partisan Review, and Story Quarterly. Her short story “Livia” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has published essays in Driftwood and Finding Change, and an excerpt from Choke Creek in the online literary magazine Willows Wept Review. She has presented her work at readings in New York, Colorado, Nebraska, and at the Miami Book Fair International. She has also been a presenter at the Sanibel Island Writers Conference and the regional conference of the Colorado Language Arts Society. Small has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the Community College of Baltimore County. You can contact Small through her website, www.laurensmall.com.
Melissa Westemeier earned a BA from UW-Stevens Point and a MS from UW-Madison. She has published essays in Clever Magazine and Finding Change. She is also a contributor to Teaching Writing in High School and College: Conversations and Collaborations. She maintains a blog, Green Girl in Wisconsin, and co-founded Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet.
Westemeier’s completed projects include Whipped, Not Beaten, a chick lit novel; Across the River, a literary novel; andQuintessential Summer, a YA novel. She is currently writing Kicks Like a Girl, a karate-themed chick lit novel. She is the founder of Write On! and is represented by Mitchell S. Waters at Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Westemeier can be reached through her blog, Green Girl in Wisconsin.
