Jen Howard was born in Escanaba, Michigan, and pursued a PhD in literature with a focus on literary criticism before shifting gears and setting her sights on a career as a writer, writing teacher, and editor. With an MA in English and an MFA in Fiction Writing, she teaches creative writing (both fiction and nonfiction) at Northern Michigan University. She is the editor-in-chief of Passages North, and her own stories and essays have been published in Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Redivider, Sycamore Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Southeast Review, Quarterly Review, wigleaf, Literary M...

Peter Gelfan has been editing and ghostwriting both fiction and nonfiction for the past 17 years. His clients range from beginners to published and bestselling authors and celebrities. He also edits screenplays and has sold two he wrote under his own name, one of which was produced and recently released in France. While experienced in most every genre from crime through mainstream to literary, he specializes in analyzing and strengthening underlying structure—plot, character, and scenes in fiction, and organization and argument in nonfiction. Peter has published a feature-length article...

Shannon Roberts has always had an interest in the world of media and publishing. In 2007, she graduated as a Mass Communication major from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she had worked during her senior year as a writing tutor and consultant. Using that experience, she began offering her editing services freelance to a number of small clients locally. After a year of this, as well as an internship at Front Street Books (an extension of Boyds Mill Press), she began working closely with Editorial Department founder Renni Browne as an editorial assistant and manuscript co...