ROMANCE-CON

Kennedy Ryan
she/her

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Kennedy Ryan writes for women from all walks of life, empowering them and placing them firmly at the center of each story and in charge of their own destinies. Ryan and her writings have been featured in NPR, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Glamour, Cosmo, Ebony, TIME, and many others. The audio edition of her novel Reel received the prestigious Audie® Award, and her Skyland series is currently in development for television at Peacock. The co-founder of LIFT 4 Autism, an annual charitable book auction, Ryan has a passion for raising Autism awareness. Dubbed “Queen of Hugs” by her readers, she is a wife to her “lifetime lover,” and mother to an extraordinary son.

C.M. Nascosta
she/her 

C.M. Nascosta is a USA TODAY bestselling author and professional procrastinator from Cleveland, Ohio. She’s always preferred beasts to boys, the macabre to the milquetoast, the unknown darkness in the shadows to the Chad next door. She lives in a crumbling old Victorian with a scaredy-cat dachshund, where she writes nontraditional romances featuring beastly boys with equal parts heart and heat, and is waiting for the Hallmark Channel to get with the program and start a paranormal lovers series.

Nikki Payne
she/her 

By day, Nikki Payne is a Civic anthropologist building accessible government services for vulnerable populations, by night she dreams of ways to subvert Canon literature. Hailed as “incandescent” by the Washington Post, Nikki Payne’s debut novel Pride and Protest was a Phenomenal Book Club pick and was selected by the Library of Congress to represent the District of Columbia for the National Book Festival. Featured in the New York Times, NPR, Elle, Oprah Daily and BuzzFeed, Nikki Payne is writing black women into their happily ever after.

Chip Pons
he/him

Chip Pons grew up in a small lake town in Northern Michigan before eventually traveling the world as a photojournalist in the US Air Force, where he met and worked alongside his dream of a husband and better half. He’s spent his entire life swooning over the love stories filling up his shelves until one day, he was brave—or delusional—enough to write his own.

He currently lives in the heart of Washington, DC. and when he is not writing or chasing his pup, Margot, around, he can be found daydreaming of untold happily ever afters or on Bookstagram shouting about the books he loves.

Julie Soto
she/her

Julie Soto is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, playwright, and actress originally from Sacramento, CA. Her musical Generation Me won the 2017 New York Musical Festival’s Best Musical award, as well as Best Book for her script. She is a musical theater geek, fandom nerd, and the author of many spicy fan fictions. Julie now lives in Fort Bragg, CA, with her dog, Charlie. She is probably drinking coffee and thinking about Interview with the Vampire as you read this.