Event Featuring
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Just Write it Already!
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Participating Authors
Rick Arruzza
A love of reading helped get sparky author Rick Arruzza out of the Southfield Village projects as a child in Stamford, CT, and now he speaks the love of reading and writing in young kids through his Sparky’s Adventures series of children’s books. A portion of the books sales of Rick’s 10th book is donated to animal organizations, with more than $20,000 raised!
Katie L. Carroll
Katie L. Carroll began writing after her 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places, both real and imagined. She wrote her YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND and the forthcoming ELIXIR SAVED so Kylene could live on in the pages of a book. Katie’s middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND was selected by the Milford Public Library as the 2018 One City, One Story middle grade read. She lives not too far from the beach in a small Connecticut city with her husband and sons.
Suzanne Cordatos
Suzanne Cordatos grew up in the Midwest with a big family where her favorite things were boating at summer camp and snow days off from school. It is no surprise that her first books for children include a family adventure novel set on a Greek island, and a picture book series about a dragon playing in the snow and camping with his friends. Her favorite children’s books create cozy, exciting worlds and are still among her favorites: The Secret Garden, The Hobbit, Heidi, and Harry Potter. She is currently working on a new novel about a little village girl who longs for a sister and meets squabbling twin princesses who think their lookalike is a royal pain in the tiara. Suzanne works for Sacred Heart University and lives on a pond in Colchester, Connecticut with her husband, two daughters and an ancient snapping turtle named Mel.
Rich Cyr
Rich Cyr’s love of writing began at a very early age. He got his start by writing short stories for the enjoyment of his fourth grade classmates. Throughout the years he has been a lead singer, a disc jockey on several radio stations, co-writer of a television pilot, television host, documentarian, stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, podcaster, and is also part of an ensemble radio show that can be heard on 13 stations. He recently published his first book entitled Confessions of a Frenetic Mind with Rayor Publishing. He plans on releasing his next book sometime in the near future.
Shelby Davis
Hailing from Waterbury, Connecticut Mr. Shelby C. Davis received his Master’s in Counseling from the University of Bridgeport. Shelby C. Davis also is a graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. His course of study included many classes in social work, counseling, education and higher education. In his spare time, he enjoys volunteering, theater arts, exercising and traveling. Shelby is also a mentor for individuals in his community, and a vibrant educator of diversity-related issues, theater, and career building. He also enjoys spending time with his dog Murphy.
Terri Dixon
Terri Dixon is the well traveled internet personality Nina Kindred. She has self published two novels on Amazon, with digital copies available on Kindle, Inkitt, and Smashwords. Her novels include The Ring of the Queen and The Queen in Exile (The Lost Tsar Trilogy parts I and II). She also has several stories at Fictionpress. When Terri isn't working or writing, she is selling her photography on multiple sites online and is known for her calendars. She is a Midwestern girl relocated to New England where she lives with her husband, son and a cranky, pretentious kitty cat.
Charlene A. Donaghy
Charlene A. Donaghy’s plays have been produced and awarded from New York to Los Angeles, in Great Britain and Canada. Hansen Publishing Group publishes Charlene's play collection: Bones of Home and Other Plays. Other publications include Best American Short Plays (3x), Best Ten Minute Plays 2018, 25*10-Minute Plays for Teens, and Estrogenius, a Celebration of Female Voices (2x). Charlene is Festival Director/Warner International Playwrights Festival and Producing Director/Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. She is co-producer of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Judith Royer Award of Excellence in Playwriting. She teaches playwriting/theatre at University of Nebraska Omaha, is a founding member of Boston’s Proscenium Playwrights, a core member of NYC’s 9th Floor Playwrights, a member of The Playwrights Center, and Connecticut Regional Representative of The Dramatists Guild of America.
Olyvia Freeman
Olyvia Freeman may be new to the self-publishing world but that has not stopped her from jumping in headfirst. With each novel, she’s revamping her style, polishing her fine edges and bringing forth her passion for fiction writing to life. When she’s
not tied to her computer writing, or editing a new book cover, she enjoys spending time with her wife and stepdaughter. She is a amateur portrait photographer and avid reader and animal lover. She currently resides in northern Connecticut, where she shuttles future writers, lawyers and presidents to and from school.
Sheryl Kayne
Sheryl Kayne is an award winning travel writer, children’s book author, book ghostwriter, storyteller and former StandUp comic. Check out these books she will be presenting at the Author Expo: Immersion Travel USA: The Best & Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living & Learning Excursions; Volunteer Vacations Across America; Queen of the Kisses; and Queen of the Kisses Meets Sam Under a Soup Pot. Stop by to say hi and hear one of her Athabaskan stories from when she lived in Alaska or write your own note in her guestbook. She’s currently at work on upcoming mysteries, children’s books, and nonfiction. Her favorite activities are writing, speaking, and meeting new people.
Tabitha G. Kelly
Tabitha G. Kelly is a twenty-something writer and librarian from the Northwest Hills of CT. With her vast imagination and love for reading, she became interested in writing by the time she entered middle school. She graduated from CCSU with a degree in Communication and recently completed her Master's in Library and Information Science. Now that school is out of her way, Tabitha plans to expand on the characters of her first novel, Standing By, and work on the other ideas that have been brewing in her mind.
Christine Pakkala
Christine is the author of six books for children, including Last but not Least Lola: Going Green, which won the Green Prize for Best Children’s book with an environmental theme and Jasmine and Maddie, which was a Bank Street Best Books choice. She is originally from Idaho but now lives in Westport, CT. with an ancient golden retriever and a young one.
Renée Pirie
Renée Pirie lives in the northwest hills of Connecticut with her husband and dogs. Her memoir is the culmination of twenty-five years of experience with the disease that plagued three generations in her family. Her goal is to help other families face the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease with humor and dignity.
Donna Marie Merritt
Donna Marie Merritt is a poet and children's author who LOVES reading and writing. Her newest children's books are Teensy Meensy Mice, illustrated by Ed Heck, and Hush That Hullabaloo, illustrated by Chris Demarest; the newest poetry book is No Winter Maintenance. Her poems have also appeared in anthologies such as The Poetry of Us (National Geographic) and One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown and Co.). Sophie's Soup Kitchen, her 18th children's book, is due out in 2020. Mrs. Merritt is the school librarian at Southwest School and Forbes in Torrington.
Alison McBain
Alison McBain grew up in California and received her B.A. in African history and classical literature at U.C. Santa Cruz. She is an award-winning author with nearly a hundred short works published, including poetry and fiction in Litro, Abyss & Apex and On-Spec. She has one novel (The Rose Queen) and one short story collection (Enchantress of Books) under her belt as author, one anthology under her belt as lead editor (When to Now: A Time Travel Anthology), and was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. Once in a while, she writes book reviews for the magazine Bewildering Stories, pens a webcomic about parenting called Toddler Times, and draws all over the walls of her house with the enthusiastic help of her kids.
C.R. Quinn
C.R. Quinn, a Torrington native, began writing The Blood-borne Series as an escape from her life in the corporate world. With four novels in her ever-growing vampire series, she is still very involved in the local arts community and comes from a family of storytellers. For more information on her current projects, visit www.cr-quinn.com.
Susan B. Roara
Susan B. Roara is an independently published author of several well-received YA books. In November 2018, she released The Hope Grid, a YA fiction novel written to encourage young adults to make spiritual connections regarding their life choices, while entertaining readers with characters who experience meaningful light bulb moments between positivity and negativity. The Hope Grid focuses on contemporary social issues such as suicide, drugs, death, depression, and sexuality. She wrote this story, knowing that the messages and gifts from this book were significant. She is a mother of four children and feels blessed to share this novel.
Jack Sheedy
Jack Sheedy, of Harwinton, is the author of the memoir Sting of the Heat Bug, published by Signalman Publishing. He edited his late wife Jean Sands’ second poetry collection, Close But Not Touching, published by Antrim House. Both books, plus Sands’ first poetry collection, Gandy Dancing, will be available for purchase at the event. Jack is a feature writer, hard news reporter, poet, essayist and playwright. His honors include awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the New England Newspaper and Press Association; in 2000, his play Guardrail Nikes won the Connecticut One-Act Play Festival competition. Jack writes the column “Nutmeg Nuggets” for The Register Citizen and is a correspondent for Catholic Transcript, the magazine of the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Jamie Jackson Spannhake
Jamie Jackson Spannhake is a lawyer, writer, mediator, speaker, and certified health coach. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Lawyer, the Lion, and the Laundry. Her work has appeared in print and online, including at Attorney at Work and eHow.com, and in Law Practice magazine, and webzines Law Practice Today, The Complete Lawyer, and Electronically In Touch. She has also published in The Brooklyn Journal of International Law and The Cumberland Law Review, both academic journals. She regularly writes and speaks on issues important to women and lawyers, including time and stress management, health and wellness, and work-life integration.
A love of reading helped get sparky author Rick Arruzza out of the Southfield Village projects as a child in Stamford, CT, and now he speaks the love of reading and writing in young kids through his Sparky’s Adventures series of children’s books. A portion of the books sales of Rick’s 10th book is donated to animal organizations, with more than $20,000 raised!
Katie L. Carroll
Katie L. Carroll began writing after her 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places, both real and imagined. She wrote her YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND and the forthcoming ELIXIR SAVED so Kylene could live on in the pages of a book. Katie’s middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND was selected by the Milford Public Library as the 2018 One City, One Story middle grade read. She lives not too far from the beach in a small Connecticut city with her husband and sons.
Suzanne Cordatos
Suzanne Cordatos grew up in the Midwest with a big family where her favorite things were boating at summer camp and snow days off from school. It is no surprise that her first books for children include a family adventure novel set on a Greek island, and a picture book series about a dragon playing in the snow and camping with his friends. Her favorite children’s books create cozy, exciting worlds and are still among her favorites: The Secret Garden, The Hobbit, Heidi, and Harry Potter. She is currently working on a new novel about a little village girl who longs for a sister and meets squabbling twin princesses who think their lookalike is a royal pain in the tiara. Suzanne works for Sacred Heart University and lives on a pond in Colchester, Connecticut with her husband, two daughters and an ancient snapping turtle named Mel.
Rich Cyr
Rich Cyr’s love of writing began at a very early age. He got his start by writing short stories for the enjoyment of his fourth grade classmates. Throughout the years he has been a lead singer, a disc jockey on several radio stations, co-writer of a television pilot, television host, documentarian, stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, podcaster, and is also part of an ensemble radio show that can be heard on 13 stations. He recently published his first book entitled Confessions of a Frenetic Mind with Rayor Publishing. He plans on releasing his next book sometime in the near future.
Shelby Davis
Hailing from Waterbury, Connecticut Mr. Shelby C. Davis received his Master’s in Counseling from the University of Bridgeport. Shelby C. Davis also is a graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. His course of study included many classes in social work, counseling, education and higher education. In his spare time, he enjoys volunteering, theater arts, exercising and traveling. Shelby is also a mentor for individuals in his community, and a vibrant educator of diversity-related issues, theater, and career building. He also enjoys spending time with his dog Murphy.
Terri Dixon
Terri Dixon is the well traveled internet personality Nina Kindred. She has self published two novels on Amazon, with digital copies available on Kindle, Inkitt, and Smashwords. Her novels include The Ring of the Queen and The Queen in Exile (The Lost Tsar Trilogy parts I and II). She also has several stories at Fictionpress. When Terri isn't working or writing, she is selling her photography on multiple sites online and is known for her calendars. She is a Midwestern girl relocated to New England where she lives with her husband, son and a cranky, pretentious kitty cat.
Charlene A. Donaghy
Charlene A. Donaghy’s plays have been produced and awarded from New York to Los Angeles, in Great Britain and Canada. Hansen Publishing Group publishes Charlene's play collection: Bones of Home and Other Plays. Other publications include Best American Short Plays (3x), Best Ten Minute Plays 2018, 25*10-Minute Plays for Teens, and Estrogenius, a Celebration of Female Voices (2x). Charlene is Festival Director/Warner International Playwrights Festival and Producing Director/Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. She is co-producer of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Judith Royer Award of Excellence in Playwriting. She teaches playwriting/theatre at University of Nebraska Omaha, is a founding member of Boston’s Proscenium Playwrights, a core member of NYC’s 9th Floor Playwrights, a member of The Playwrights Center, and Connecticut Regional Representative of The Dramatists Guild of America.
Olyvia Freeman
Olyvia Freeman may be new to the self-publishing world but that has not stopped her from jumping in headfirst. With each novel, she’s revamping her style, polishing her fine edges and bringing forth her passion for fiction writing to life. When she’s
not tied to her computer writing, or editing a new book cover, she enjoys spending time with her wife and stepdaughter. She is a amateur portrait photographer and avid reader and animal lover. She currently resides in northern Connecticut, where she shuttles future writers, lawyers and presidents to and from school.
Sheryl Kayne
Sheryl Kayne is an award winning travel writer, children’s book author, book ghostwriter, storyteller and former StandUp comic. Check out these books she will be presenting at the Author Expo: Immersion Travel USA: The Best & Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living & Learning Excursions; Volunteer Vacations Across America; Queen of the Kisses; and Queen of the Kisses Meets Sam Under a Soup Pot. Stop by to say hi and hear one of her Athabaskan stories from when she lived in Alaska or write your own note in her guestbook. She’s currently at work on upcoming mysteries, children’s books, and nonfiction. Her favorite activities are writing, speaking, and meeting new people.
Tabitha G. Kelly
Tabitha G. Kelly is a twenty-something writer and librarian from the Northwest Hills of CT. With her vast imagination and love for reading, she became interested in writing by the time she entered middle school. She graduated from CCSU with a degree in Communication and recently completed her Master's in Library and Information Science. Now that school is out of her way, Tabitha plans to expand on the characters of her first novel, Standing By, and work on the other ideas that have been brewing in her mind.
Christine Pakkala
Christine is the author of six books for children, including Last but not Least Lola: Going Green, which won the Green Prize for Best Children’s book with an environmental theme and Jasmine and Maddie, which was a Bank Street Best Books choice. She is originally from Idaho but now lives in Westport, CT. with an ancient golden retriever and a young one.
Renée Pirie
Renée Pirie lives in the northwest hills of Connecticut with her husband and dogs. Her memoir is the culmination of twenty-five years of experience with the disease that plagued three generations in her family. Her goal is to help other families face the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease with humor and dignity.
Donna Marie Merritt
Donna Marie Merritt is a poet and children's author who LOVES reading and writing. Her newest children's books are Teensy Meensy Mice, illustrated by Ed Heck, and Hush That Hullabaloo, illustrated by Chris Demarest; the newest poetry book is No Winter Maintenance. Her poems have also appeared in anthologies such as The Poetry of Us (National Geographic) and One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown and Co.). Sophie's Soup Kitchen, her 18th children's book, is due out in 2020. Mrs. Merritt is the school librarian at Southwest School and Forbes in Torrington.
Alison McBain
Alison McBain grew up in California and received her B.A. in African history and classical literature at U.C. Santa Cruz. She is an award-winning author with nearly a hundred short works published, including poetry and fiction in Litro, Abyss & Apex and On-Spec. She has one novel (The Rose Queen) and one short story collection (Enchantress of Books) under her belt as author, one anthology under her belt as lead editor (When to Now: A Time Travel Anthology), and was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. Once in a while, she writes book reviews for the magazine Bewildering Stories, pens a webcomic about parenting called Toddler Times, and draws all over the walls of her house with the enthusiastic help of her kids.
C.R. Quinn
C.R. Quinn, a Torrington native, began writing The Blood-borne Series as an escape from her life in the corporate world. With four novels in her ever-growing vampire series, she is still very involved in the local arts community and comes from a family of storytellers. For more information on her current projects, visit www.cr-quinn.com.
Susan B. Roara
Susan B. Roara is an independently published author of several well-received YA books. In November 2018, she released The Hope Grid, a YA fiction novel written to encourage young adults to make spiritual connections regarding their life choices, while entertaining readers with characters who experience meaningful light bulb moments between positivity and negativity. The Hope Grid focuses on contemporary social issues such as suicide, drugs, death, depression, and sexuality. She wrote this story, knowing that the messages and gifts from this book were significant. She is a mother of four children and feels blessed to share this novel.
Jack Sheedy
Jack Sheedy, of Harwinton, is the author of the memoir Sting of the Heat Bug, published by Signalman Publishing. He edited his late wife Jean Sands’ second poetry collection, Close But Not Touching, published by Antrim House. Both books, plus Sands’ first poetry collection, Gandy Dancing, will be available for purchase at the event. Jack is a feature writer, hard news reporter, poet, essayist and playwright. His honors include awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the New England Newspaper and Press Association; in 2000, his play Guardrail Nikes won the Connecticut One-Act Play Festival competition. Jack writes the column “Nutmeg Nuggets” for The Register Citizen and is a correspondent for Catholic Transcript, the magazine of the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Jamie Jackson Spannhake
Jamie Jackson Spannhake is a lawyer, writer, mediator, speaker, and certified health coach. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Lawyer, the Lion, and the Laundry. Her work has appeared in print and online, including at Attorney at Work and eHow.com, and in Law Practice magazine, and webzines Law Practice Today, The Complete Lawyer, and Electronically In Touch. She has also published in The Brooklyn Journal of International Law and The Cumberland Law Review, both academic journals. She regularly writes and speaks on issues important to women and lawyers, including time and stress management, health and wellness, and work-life integration.