The Authers Quill 1 st hour Elise Stephens second hour Jennifer Mellen

Author – Biography

Elise credits much of her storytelling influence to a lifelong love of theater and childhood globetrotting. Her work focuses on themes of family, memory, and finding hope after a devastating loss. Her short fiction has appeared in Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, Escape Pod and FIYAH, among others. She lives with her family in Seattle in a house with huge windows that supplies her with vast quantities of UV light to help her stay happy. Elise is currently seeking representation on her next science fiction novel.

Early involvement in the theater left her with a taste for dramatic, high-stakes adventure while international travel gave her an awe and respect for world cultures. She graduated with a Creative Writing degree from the University of Washington where she was awarded the Eugene Van Buren Prize for Fiction, attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in 2014, and won the Writers of the Future competition in 2018. Her short story “Untrained Luck” appears in Writers of the Future Vol 35.

Her novels include: Forecast (2013, Booktrope, 2019, Dragon Moon Press), and Guardian of the Gold Breathers (2013, Booktrope, 2015, Dragon Moon Press).

Through her fiction, Elise explores beauty within brokenness and finding healing after a devastating loss. She intends for her stories to offer light and strength for facing the darkness and disappointments of this world.

Find out more about Elise at,... www.EliseStephens.comLayton, Utah artist Ms. Jennifer Mellen is a winner in the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest and was honored along with eleven other artists and twelve other writers at the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood, California on April 25th. She illustrated the story, "Nonzero" by Writers of the Future Winner Tom Vandermolen. The illustration and story, along with the other writers' and illustrators' stories and art are published in the international bestselling anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 40 which will be officially released on May 7th.

Jennifer Mellen was born in 1988 in Salt Lake City and raised in Magna, Utah. She has been drawing from a very young age and growing up has explored every medium she could find including traditional, digital, and sculpting mediums. She has also always loved all things fantasy and creating strange creatures and dragons in her artwork.

She earned her associates in illustration while raising 3 children with her husband Nathan Mellen. After working for some years in graphic design, she and her husband started a business called SeaDragon Cove producing and selling fantasy products at various renaissance festivals, conventions, and Evermore Park. That business is now joined with We Geek Together Entertainment.

Jennifer became inspired to submit her art work to the Illustrators of the Future contest after meeting Joni Labaqui and Brian Hailes in their panel at the Life the Universe and Everything Symposium, and after meeting other fantasy illustrators at Evermore Park, and at The Dog and Dragon at various conventions.

The Contest, one of the most prestigious writing and illustrating competitions in the world, is currently in its 41st year and is judged by some of the premier names in speculative fiction.