Author bio examples for books, queries and websites

Maren Kessler spent eleven years as a fraud investigator for an insurance company in Milwaukee, most of them on fires: warehouses, restaurants, a bowling alley that burned twice in one winter. She learned to read a scene from the smoke patterns and the paperwork, and to tell a family that had lost everything from one that had planned to. Several of her cases ended in court, where she saw how a jury listens to a story. A Fire in Unit Nine, her first novel, grew out of a case she never closed. It follows an investigator who suspects the man she has been sent to help, and can't prove it.

Before insurance, Maren reported for a weekly paper in northern Wisconsin, covering county board meetings, deer season and one memorable cheese theft. Her short fiction has appeared in two crime anthologies. She now writes full time and teaches a night class on investigative interviewing at a technical college. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband, two teenagers and a smoke detector that goes off whenever anyone makes toast. Her second novel takes place during a single night shift at a grain elevator, and is due out next year.

Maren Kessler spent eleven years as a fraud investigator for an insurance company in Milwaukee, most of them on fires. She learned to read a scene from the smoke patterns and the paperwork. A Fire in Unit Nine, her first novel, grew out of a case she never closed. Before insurance she reported for a weekly paper in northern Wisconsin. Her short fiction has appeared in two crime anthologies, and she teaches a night class on investigative interviewing. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband, two teenagers and a smoke detector that goes off whenever anyone makes toast.

Maren Kessler spent eleven years investigating insurance fraud in Milwaukee, most of it on fires. A Fire in Unit Nine, her first novel, grew out of a case she never closed. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband, two teenagers and a smoke detector that goes off whenever anyone makes toast.

Maren Kessler investigated insurance fraud for eleven years. Her first novel, A Fire in Unit Nine, grew out of a case she never closed.

This is my first novel. I've worked nights as a hospital pharmacist in Columbus, Ohio, for fourteen years, which is where Lena's habit of counting other people's pills came from. I swim a mile before every shift, and most of this plot was worked out in the slow lane.

My short stories have appeared in The Cinder Hill Review, Northlight Quarterly and Ferry Street, and “Low Country” was a finalist for the Marlow Prize, chosen from about 2,400 entries. I teach composition at a community college in Sacramento. I grew up in the Delta, two miles from the levee that fails in chapter nine.

I drove a long-haul truck for twenty-two years, the last nine as an owner-operator, and kept a second logbook in a spiral notebook on the dash. An essay drawn from those notebooks ran in Heartland Weekend last spring and drew more reader mail than anything else the magazine published that year. I now teach defensive driving in Joplin, Missouri, and still can't sleep without road noise.

I'm a certified arborist and have spent sixteen years caring for street trees for a city forestry department in Ohio, where I now run the tree inventory. I write Root Zone, a weekly newsletter about city trees with about 18,000 subscribers, and once a month I answer listeners' questions on a regional public radio call-in show. My article on why street trees die young was the most-read feature on a national gardening site last year.

I've self-published five books in the Hollis Bay cozy mystery series since 2021. Together they have sold about 60,000 copies, and the first has more than 3,000 ratings averaging 4.4 stars. THE WIDOW'S LIGHTHOUSE begins a new and separate series, written for traditional publication. Before writing full time I was a court stenographer in Providence, Rhode Island, which is excellent training for dialogue.

I've taught kindergarten in Tacoma, Washington, for twelve years, which means about 300 five-year-olds have heard my read-alouds, a tough room. GOODNIGHT, LOUD HOUSE came from a student who told me his house was too noisy to sleep in and then listed every sound. I'm a member of SCBWI and a monthly picture book critique group.

Theo Marsh was a court reporter in Baltimore for nine years and typed the testimony of more liars than he can count. Silent Record is his first novel. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, and still types faster than he talks.

Lucy Adeyemi writes small-town romances with big families, bad weather and at least one dog. She grew up above her parents' bakery in Astoria, Oregon, and can still shape a baguette half asleep. Second Rise is the third Harbor Street novel. She lives in Portland with her husband, who proposed to her in a grocery store.

R. J. Sato designs bridges for a living, which is why the cities in The Tidebound Crown have working drainage. This is his first novel. He lives in Seattle with his partner, their daughter and an unreasonable number of hand-drawn maps.

Nadia Ferrante is the author of the story collection Salt Year, which won the Marlow Prize for short fiction. Her stories have appeared in The Cinder Hill Review and Northlight Quarterly. Born in Trieste and raised in Providence, she teaches creative writing at a state university in Vermont. The Glass Orchard is her first novel.

Jess Tolliver coached high school debate in El Paso, Texas, for ten years and judged more than 2,000 rounds, several of them fairly. Rebuttal is her first novel for young adults. She lives in El Paso with her wife and a retired greyhound who sleeps through everything.

Dr. Helen Ashby is a soil scientist who has spent twenty years studying farmland across the Great Plains, from Texas to North Dakota. Her research on topsoil loss has been cited by state agriculture agencies, and she has testified before two state legislatures. What the Ground Remembers is her first book for general readers. She lives on a small farm outside Lincoln, Nebraska.

Carla Duarte drove a long-haul truck for twenty-two years and more than two million miles. Mile Marker Zero is her first book. She teaches defensive driving in Joplin, Missouri, and still can't sleep without road noise.

Annie Brandt is the author of the Juniper Pass mysteries, six novels about a retired park ranger who keeps finding trouble on the trails she used to patrol. The newest, The Switchback, came out this spring.

Annie worked fourteen summers as a seasonal ranger in national parks across the West, from Glacier to Big Bend, and she still spends every August with the trail crew that gave her the idea for the first book. The series began as campfire stories for visitors who asked what the most dangerous thing in the park was. Before the parks, she taught high school biology in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her books have been translated into German and Polish, and The Long Way Down was a finalist for a regional mystery award. She lives in Bozeman, Montana, with her husband and a pack mule named Earl, who appears in book four and has not forgiven her.

Hi, I'm Annie. I spent fourteen summers as a park ranger, which mostly meant explaining to visitors that the elk are not friendly. Now I write mysteries set on the trails I used to patrol. If you're new here, start with The Long Way Down, the first Juniper Pass book. Once a month I send a short newsletter with a true story from the backcountry and news about the next book. It's free, it's short, and Earl the mule makes regular appearances.

Nadia Ferrante's first novel, The Glass Orchard, is out now. She teaches creative writing in Vermont.

Helen Ashby is a soil scientist and the author of What the Ground Remembers. She writes about farmland in her monthly newsletter, Topsoil.

• Crime novelist. Former fire fraud investigator. A FIRE IN UNIT NINE out now.
• Small-town romance with big families and at least one dog. Harbor Street series, book three out now.
• Soil scientist writing about farmland for people who eat. New book: What the Ground Remembers.

Helen Ashby is a soil scientist. For twenty years she has studied farmland across the Great Plains, from Texas to North Dakota, measuring how fast the topsoil is leaving and where it goes. She has explained it to farmers, to state legislators, and now to the rest of us. Her new book is What the Ground Remembers. She lives on a small farm outside Lincoln, where, she tells me, the soil is in good shape. Please welcome Helen Ashby.

Before. Jennifer has loved writing ever since she was a little girl. She has always been passionate about stories and has worked very hard on her craft. When she isn't writing, she enjoys reading, coffee and spending time with her family. This is her first book, and she hopes you enjoy reading it as much as she enjoyed writing it.

After. Jennifer Lowe spent eight years as a 911 dispatcher in Reno, Nevada, where she learned how much can happen in a ninety-second call. Dead Air is her first novel. She lives in Reno with her family and still answers the phone on the first ring.