2024 Faculty: A through F
Traci Hunter Abramson
Traci Hunter Abramson, a former employee of the CIA, was born in Arizona, where she lived until moving to Venezuela for a study abroad program. She has written more than fifty best-selling novels and is an eight-time Whitney Award winner, and a five-time Silver Falchion Award Finalist. https://www.traciabramson.com/
A.M. Adair
A.M. Adair is a retired Navy Intelligence Officer with over two decades of experience. She specialized in counterintelligence, human intelligence, interrogation, and analysis within the Naval Special Warfare and Expeditionary communities. She is currently pursuing her degree in screenwriting and is the award-winning author of the Elle Anderson series. https://www.amadair.com/
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez received her English Literature degree from UC Berkeley. She is the author of ten novels, including two Young Adult thrillers. Her books have received praise, award nominations, and international press for their themes on friendship, bullying, personal responsibility, and climate change. She lives in Middle Tennessee with her husband and a cat named Cheeto.
Photo credit: Karen Perez
Carmen Amato
Ex-CIA officer Carmen Amato crafts crime fiction brimming with danger and deception. Beginning with Cliff Diver, her Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series pits the first female police detective in Acapulco against Mexico's cartels and corruption. A judge for the BookLife Prize and Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award, Carmen’s essays have appeared in Criminal Element, Publishers Weekly, and other national publications. Find out more at carmenamato.net.
Laura Ayo
Laura Ayo is one of the advisors for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ (SCBWI) Midsouth region, which encompasses Tennessee and Kentucky. When she isn’t bringing creators of children’s books together, she’s writing historical fiction and making sure her friends and family have bellies full of gumbo and jambalaya.
Kayla Brown
Elise Burke Brown’s novel, CHASE HARLEM, won the 2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for Best Unpublished Investigator Novel. It will be published by Rising Action in June 2025. She teaches composition at the University of Alabama and runs the popular book blog, https://coupleofbeesread.com/. She is agented by Rachel Beck.
Mark Bruce
Mark Bruce graduated from UC Berkeley’s law school in 1987 and has tried over a thousand cases in criminal and family law courts. He won the 2018 Black Orchid Novella Award for his story of Minerva James, a woman lawyer in 1962 Sacramento. Since then, Minerva has been published in magazines and anthologies, including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. https://markbrucewriter.com/
Philip Cioffari
Philip Cioffari is the author of the novels: NIGHT AND ITS LONGINGS, IF ANYONE ASKS, SAY I DIED FROM THE HEARTBREAKING BLUES; THE BRONX KILL; JESUSVILLE; DARK ROAD, DEAD END; CATHOLIC BOYS; and the story collection, A HISTORY OF THINGS LOST OR BROKEN. He has a Ph.D in literature from NYU. www.philipcioffari.com
Bruce Robert Coffin
Bruce Robert Coffin is an international bestselling novelist. A retired detective sergeant, Bruce is the author of the Detective Byron Mysteries and the forthcoming Detective Justice Mysteries and co-author of The Turner and Mosley Files. His Anthony Award-nominated short fiction has been published in more than a dozen anthologies. https://www.brucerobertcoffin.com/
Elizabeth Copps
In the summer of 2010, Elizabeth Copps did what any starry-eyed word nerd would do: she used her savings to move from Florida to New York City with the goal of doing something—anything—related to books.
When she was offered an internship with Maria Carvainis Agency, Inc., she discovered her passion for publishing. She founded Copps Literary Services, LLC in 2021 and is thrilled to continue building the agency and her list of award-winning and eclectic clients from her current home of Denver, Colorado.
For the past fourteen years, Elizabeth has dedicated herself to the care and management of author careers. Her business philosophy is simple: to foster relationships across the industry that are equitable, transparent, and long-lasting.
Elizabeth is drawn to fresh takes on timeless plots, and stories that are thought provoking and discussion spurring. She loves complex, voice-driven characters who are brimming with personality and burst off the page. She specializes in humorous and heartfelt contemporary novels, horror, and historical fiction for middle grade, YA, and adult audiences. She is also partial to gut-busting romantic comedies. In nonfiction, she loves platform-driven memoir and biography, as well as policy-driven, narrative nonfiction.
She is not seeking cozy mysteries, political thrillers, hard sci-fi, epic fantasy, short story collections, or poetry.
To learn more, please visit www.coppsliterary.com, connect with her on Instagram or Twitter @elizcopps, or visit her Manuscript Wish List (https://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/elizabeth-copps/).
Susan Crawford
Bestselling author of The Pocket Wife and The Other Widow, Susan lives in Atlanta with her husband and a trio of rescue cats, where she dabbles in local politics and is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club and Sisters in Crime. She is currently working on her next book.
Kimberly Dana
Kimberly Dana is an award-winning author, literacy specialist, and founder of Nashville's Thrills and Chills Book Club boasting over three hundred members. When she's not writing, Kimberly enjoys traveling around the country giving author presentations to children and young adults. Her picture book Millie and Mina (Picklefish) is set to be released in 2025. https://kimberlydana.com/
Honorée Corder
Honorée Corder has published 65 books in 40 languages and sold more than 4.7 million copies. She's a book marketing expert with a duplicable process you can apply to your books. https://honoreecorder.com/
John DeDakis
Novelist, writing coach, and manuscript editor John DeDakis is a former editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” DeDakis is the author of five mystery-suspense novels. His fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, is the winner of Reviewers Choice, Foreword INDIES, and Feathered Quill book awards. In his most recent novel, Fake, protagonist Lark Chadwick is a White House correspondent dealing with “fake news” in the era of #MeToo. Fake earned Honorable Mention for the Reviewers Choice Award and was a Finalist for Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion, and for CIBA’s CLUE Award. DeDakis is also the host of the video podcast “One-to-One with John DeDakis” on YouTube.
Learn more about John at https://www.johndedakis.com
Cindy Dees
NYT and USA Today bestselling author, Cindy Dees, is the author of 100+ novels. A former U. S. Air Force pilot and part-time spy, she writes thrillers, military romance, and a bestselling, non-fiction, writing how-to series on using tropes. You can learn more or contact her at www.cindydees.com.
Karen Dionne
Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of the award-winning psychological suspense novels The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and in dozens of other countries. The Marsh King’s Daughter was named one of the best books of 2017 by iBooks and many other booksellers and reviewers and released in 2023 by Lionsgate as a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn. Karen enjoys nature photography and lives with her husband on a small lake surrounded by forest in the middle of Michigan. Read more about Karen at https://karen-dionne.com/
Caroline Brooks DuBois
Caroline Brooks DuBois is the author of The Places We Sleep, an NCTE Notable Book in Poetry and A Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, and Ode to a Nobody, which received Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal and was a nominee for the Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award.
Scott Ellis
Scott Ellis is an audiobook narrator having narrated over 100 audiobooks! He and his wife, Josie, own Scott Ellis Reads, an audiobook production company having produced over 250 audiobooks. They have helped many authors bring their first projects to audio and they look forward to speaking to you.
Brenna English-Loeb
Brenna English-Loeb joined Transatlantic in 2019 after working for several years at Janklow & Nesbit Associates and Writers House, where she had the pleasure of working with New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors across multiple genres. Brenna grew up in beautiful Upstate New York and studied English and Theatre at Bucknell University.
Brenna is also the owner of BEL Tower Editorial, where she works with authors as a developmental editor on such big-picture issues as world-building, plot and character development, pacing and theme, among other areas of concern, such as query and synopsis critiques.
Stephanie Faris
Stephanie Faris is the author of a dozen middle grade novels and chapter books, including Finding Normal and the Gabby Ghost Hunter series. When she isn’t crafting fiction, Stephanie writes personal finance content for a variety of websites, including The Penny Hoarder. She lives in Nashville with her husband.
Kallista Foote
Kallista Foote is a certified Story Grid editor and Author Accelerator coach. She also works with The Write Practice to help struggling writers finish their first draft. As a developmental editor, she specializes in taking stories that don’t work and turning them into tales others will enjoy. https://www.kallistannediting.com/
Kathleen Foxx
Kathleen Foxx is a literary agent at The Rights Factory in Toronto, Ontario, representing clients from anywhere in the world. She’s also a fiction editor at Foxx Editorial, host of the #badasswriters podcast, audio editor for The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, and a founder/organizer/host of #MoodPitch. She’s heavily engaged with the writing community on Twitter and Instagram and also writes thrillers and supernatural horror. She’s a member of Editors Canada, CWC, SinC, and ITW. She’s building her list of exceptionally talented writers!
In adult and YA commercial and upmarket fiction, Kat is looking for domestic/psychological thrillers and suspense, supernatural horror, hi:storical fiction, historical fantasy (witches, time travel, past lives/reincarnation, etc.), and some light speculative fiction. She has a very specific nonfiction wish list available on her website. Kat is NOT interested in picture books, middle grade, political or legal thrillers, space operas, graphic novels, poetry, novellas, short story collections, epic fantasies (kings/queens/kingdoms/wars/mythical creatures/epic journeys), hardcore sci-fi, religion, politics, academia, sports, erotica, gore/body horror, extreme violence, or anything generated by AI.
Learn more about Kat’s MSWL at https://kathleenfoxxagent.com/mswl/ and her editing services at https://foxxeditorial.com