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I have published short fiction and poetry in The Cream City Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The G.W. Review, The William and Mary Review, Switchback, The Literary Review, Kerem, Jewishfiction.net, The Crescent Review, Poetica, The Sand Hill Review, The CCAR Journal, The Manhattanville Review, Emrys Journal, Folio and Lilith.

In 2015, I was awarded a Special Mention for the Pushcart Prize. My short story, “The Lives Under the Stones”, was included in the fiction anthology, Frankly Feminist, which was published in 2022 by the Brandeis University Press.

I've been teaching at Rutgers Law School since 2002.

I want to thank Elizabeth and Dave for setting up this space.

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Sapers, Jonathan

The 24-hour room has been my graduate school. I was a published fiction writer, essayist and journalist before I joined, but working with Elizabeth and Dave King and learning from the other participants in open mikes, small classes and one on one sessions has helped me conceive of my work as a practice. I am a regular at all of the weekly craft gatherings I can manage. And working with Elizabeth (I am a two-time veteran of her novel writing course) and Dave have finished three novels and four new short stories. For more about my work, please go to www.sapersink.com.

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how lovely to find this group of fellow travelers. i have been around a while.. actor, writer, teacher. maker, mom and friend. www,susanmerson.com. DOOR OPENS, WALK THROUGH. with thanks and  hard won hope.

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I am a writer and a reader. You can find my books on Amazon-- i apologize-- but that was before gazillion aires went mad in public

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Award-winning journalist and author: fiction - The (Original) Adventures of Ford Fairlane, non-fiction - The Woodstock Census, screenwriter for film and TV (Miami Vice), reader of crime fiction (Chandler, Hammett) and classics (Conrad, Melville, Hawthorne, Twain) for inspiration.

Co-founder/Co-director of the Todos Santos Writers Workshop, now upcoming in its 13th year Jan 31 - Feb 7, 2026 in Baja California Sur. MX, where I now reside.

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I was in a long-term writing group and nearly everybody died! I am so happy to discover this resource and hope to find new community here. I'm working on an autobiographical novel about vegetarian idealists at the intersection of the music and movie businesses in Los Angeles in the 80s at the height of the AIDS epidemic. I run the film program at Stony Brook and give good notes if anyone wants to swap novels.

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After 30 years at UC Riverside as an English professor, lecturer, and administration, I retired to write full-time. Elizabeth Gaffney and the 24 hour Room became my line to the real world during Covid and now.

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I took Elizabeth's Novel Workshop in February 2020 (which went remote after three meetings because of COVID!) where I workshopped the first draft of my novel. I'm still working on the novel and am an active member of the 7am and 10am flow groups. I'm a sixty year old retired classical vocalist--now spending about half the year with my retired lawyer husband in a 25 foot RV traveling around the continent. My novel TWO JANES is based on a difficult decision I made during my college years after an academic year abroad and follows Jane on two possible alternate journeys to motherhood. It traverses themes of romantic and filial love and self-determination. It considers the way choice can impact a life.

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Recently retired from teaching and instructional coach work for the City of New York. Published in The New York Times and A Public Space. Very happy to be here. Currently working on a mystery, The Night Cafe. Endlessly working (and mostly not working) on a non-fiction sprawling book project about various crimes committed by my family members, tentatively titled "Why Me?"

https://vickimadden.net/

vmadden at gmail.com

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Hi! I’m Jenny from Seattle. During the covid pandemic, I got infected with an idea for a story. New to writing fiction and hungry for a writing community, I lucked out after I found the 24Hr Room while lurking on Metafilter.com. And then I got to meet Dave King and Elizabeth Gaffney (and a few other regulars <wink>) *in person* at the Seattle AWP conference. They sunk the hook deep. Thank you all for the stimulating conversations, the flow readings, and supplying fuel to my narrative engine. The pleasure is all mine.

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In 2002 I left the USA to get my teaching certificate in Spain with enough things shoved in my bag to sustain me for one month.  It's now 2023 I and haven't been back since. During this time I have been teaching English in such countries as Korea, China, The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and for the past ten years in Hong Kong. I met my wife (and obvious Soulmate) while teaching in the Philippines, and we have three kids born in three different countries fluent in a language neither my wife or I can fathom, Cantonese. We don't live in a high rise jungle as you might expect, but on a small rural island with a population of around 8,000 people who come from 88 different countries. There are no cars, trucks, supermarkets, or anything else like that here, just jungle, beaches, and one of Asia's top mountain biking sites.

Now that I look back on it, I have lived quite a varied life. I don't share much about what I've done because most people give me the side-eye and think I am making it up, so I write fiction instead of memories, as people will believe what I imagine rather than what I've done.

I have been writing stories for my own amusement for a long time, but have never  tried to get them published before now. Hopefully that will change now that I am starting to submit them.

To separate myself from the literally tens of thousands of others with the same name I want to come up with a pen name. I was thinking of using the original French family name from a thousand years ago, de Heriz, but am open to any suggestions if anyone has any ideas.

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Wendy completely knows what a phone is and likes to take selfies. She's a young cob, descendent from Vardo pulling ponies of the Irish travelers. 

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Fáilte mo cairde
I had a very different life in NYC where I wrote about design and sustainability, but everything changed and now I live on the West Coast of Ireland where I am slowly building "Another Life Again." My husband and I have a 23 acre organic farm, situated between the sea and an ancient forest, that we are rewilding. We have 3 horses and a deaf collie and a 60 year old turtle. You can look me up on Wikipedia but what it won't tell you is that I am disabled, having had four brain tumors (stage 4 melanoma) in 2019. Concentrating is difficult but with practice I improve. There is much I would like to share before I depart for the other side camp, which is why I care about writing.

And can I just say that my Irish village (population 452) is totally a wild ride. I really should be writing about this.

Elizabeth was my "old girl" at our boarding school. Among other things she taught me how to smoke cigarettes and introduced me to Virginia peanuts. If I can't write like a cool kid at least I could look like one. (and to be clear I do not smoke, but I know how to inhale)

I adore her daughters.

slán abhaile from Louisburgh, County Mayo

www.gracejeffers.com
Grace@gracejeffers.com

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I'm grateful to Dave King for inviting me to join this wonderful community. I write about French Canadians, my people. Woonsocket, my first novel, is set in 1928 in this majority French Canadian mill town and in Mussolini's Rome. The story is rooted in the history of migration of a million impoverished French Canadians to the mills of New England from 1840 to 1930. The political conflict pits French Canadian Catholics against their Irish American bishop. My heroine's finds herself caught between the warring factions and the man she loves.
My second novel, The Anemones is a prequel to Woonsocket, set 20 years earlier. One of the characters in Woonsocket fights with the French Canadian troops as their chaplain under British Command in WW1.
Great thanks to Elizabeth Gaffney for welcoming me to her Lounge.
annickdeb2@gmail.com
www.annickdebellefeuille

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I'm a former lawyer, occasional college lecturer (in legal writing and legal studies), a guitar-riffer, a father and a husband living in Berkeley with part of his heart still in a NYC that may no longer exist -- except in a long-in-progress novel. My short stories have been rejected by several fine magazines; a few of my poems were anthologized in a small-press volume decades ago. I'm grateful to EG and to DK for growing and sustaining this warm, supportive, and often brilliant community and for the serendipity that led me here. clffrdstnly@gmail.com

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I am curious about the fracture lines between cultures, the deep reach of human history, and love in a time of catastrophe. I write long-form fiction, creative nonfiction, shorts, and flash at a standup desk among the red cedar of Northwest Idaho, where I am working on a series of linked hybrid YA projects. My short stories and creative nonfiction have been anthologized in Best of Carve etc. I hike the backcountry and travel widely in cyberspace.

This Lounge space is just fine, thank you Elizabeth!

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In 2015, I returned to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina after twenty years outside Yosemite, CA. I traded my Harley for an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. "The character is the door opening to a world. The writer just pushes it open a little more in each scene. Until the story is broken open on the page. Then all the ghosts are set free." The 24HourRoom is my writing community thanks to Elizabeth Gaffney!

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I'm the author of a novel, The Ha-Ha, which won the Rome Prize and other awards. My work has appeared in The Paris Review, Conjunctions, Fence and other periodicals as well as the 2018 edition of The O. Henry Prize Stories and the poetry anthology Feathers From the Angel's Wing.

I run the Monday craft sessions (5pm Eastern time) and am proud to participate in this terrific resource. Thank you, Elizabeth!

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I live, write, teach in Canada and occasionally engineer. I've published short stories and poetry. I'm working on a novel. I enjoy the beautiful, inspiring community the Elizabeth has created with the 24 Hour Room.

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I live and write in California. Began my writing journey as a poet. Am now working on a literary thriller. Published a handful of poems and short stories. I really enjoy interacting with the writing community in the 24 Hour room!

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Author of Metropolis, When the World Was Young, and many stories.