A native of Germany and nomad by choice, NL Gassert has lived on three continents and two islands, survived a number of typhoons and at least one earthquake, worked as a professionally-trained concierge, a public relations assistant, and a magazine reporter. NL has a master's degree in Communication and Information Studies from Rutgers University, chronic insomnia and a voracious need to read. She is the author of The Protector, the first book in a gay romantic suspense series.

To keep them all on their toes, the entire Gassert family will move from Hawaii to Kansas in the summer of 2008, exchanging their beach chairs for a porch swing and the chance to experience snow fall.

Like my main character, Kirby Nickel, I grew up in a small town in Kansas and am a rabid Jayhawk basketball fan. I’ve never played basketball in my underwear, but I used to have a recurring nightmare about walking into the school cafeteria wearing nothing but pajamas. I’m sure the dream meant I was afraid to show people who I really was. In telling Kirby’s story, I hope I show readers they shouldn’t be afraid to let people see who they are. Who they are is okay.

To write Airball: My Life in Briefs, I drew on two sources of athletic experience. The first was my own. I think I was actually born with a bit of natural athletic ability, but you sure couldn’t tell by watching me play. I was so worried about the people in the stands, the people looking at me, that I couldn’t focus on anything else. All I could think about was trying not to look stupid in front of all those people. And of course the more I tried not to look stupid, the more likely I was to run into a pole.

The second sports experience is my son’s. He’s very athletic, and like me, he’s very shy. But unlike me, when he steps onto a playing field, he’s able to put the people in the stands out of his mind and just play. For him, the love of the game trumps the fear of looking stupid. Over the y ears, as I’ve watched my son and his teammates compete, I’ve realized how important that kind of mental focus is. The kids who excel, the kids who can really play, are the kids who believe they can.

This applies to everything in life, of course, not just sports. I hope that when kids—and adults—read Airball, they’ll see they can reach their goals, too, if they believe they can.

Highly acclaimed author L. C. Hayden is the creator of the Harry Bronson novels. Hayden’s most recent release, Why Casey had to Die, is the 2007 Agatha Finalist for Best Novel. It followed What Others Know, a Left Coast Crime nominee for the prestigious best mystery award. Hayden’s other mysteries include Where Secrets Lie, When Colette Died, and Who’s Susan?

Besides mysteries, Hayden is also the author of the WordWright Best Seller inspirational, nonfiction book When Angels Touch You, a spiritually uplifting book about miracles and angels. The Drums of Gerald Hurd is a horror novel that promises all the punch of a first-class horror story and the sensitivity of a romance.

Besides being an accomplished author, Hayden is a popular speaker who is often in demand. She has done workshop and school presentations, has spoken to clubs and organizations, and was recently hired by several cruise lines to speak about writing while cruising all over the world. Hayden also served as the talk show host for Mystery Writers of America only live talk show, Murder Must Air.

Hayden, who taught high school English for twenty-six years, retired in May 2001. Although she calls El Paso, Texas, her home, her husband and she spend a vast amount of time on the road in their motor home, promoting books, attending and speaking at conferences, or doing presentations.

Hayden holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. She is member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and El Paso Writers League. She also enjoys being a member of Mystery Babes and DorothyL, Internet mystery discussion groups.

Besides writing, Hayden enjoys drawing, reading, traveling, and scuba diving. In addition to her novels, Hayden has published fiction, non-fiction, and poetry since 1975 in various magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. To date, she has sold over 400 pieces.

Marion Moore Hill was born in Oklahoma and grew up primarily in Illinois and Kansas, changing schools often as the family followed her father's oil-field career. She holds the A.A. degree from El Dorado (Kansas) Junior College (now Butler County Community College), the B.S. from Oklahoma Baptist University and the M.A. from Stanford University. Hill has worked as newspaper reporter, college English and journalism teacher, legal secretary, and ad copywriter. While teaching at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, she married Elbert Hill, who recently retired from 40 years of college teaching, most of those spent teaching chidren's literature and philosophy at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma, where she has also taught. Their interest in, and friendship with, international students at SOSU led to their opening a small ethnic/gourmet grocery in Durant, which they ran for eight years.

Hill likes animals and for years owned a big black dog named Aragorn, model for the title character in "Bear With Me," one of a collection of short stories in Almostly Murder...With Pets. The anthology, published by Padlock Mystery Press, features tales by nine Oklahoma mystery authors who call themselves the Cozy Crime Writers, and each story in the book includes one or more animal characters. Hill's first published novel, Bookmarked for Murder, also contains a dog character (the heroine's pet Rip). Two cats currently allow Hill to feed and care for them.

"Some of my readers ask if I'm Marion the librarian," she says. "I'm not a librarian myself, but I hang out in libraries a lot. Much of what I do revolves around reading." She is a tutor for Durant Literacy Council, and her inspirational article, "From a Literacy Tutor," appears in Ways Women Serve the Lord, compiled by Dolores White Kiser. Hill is a discussion leader for Book Talk, a reading group sponsored by Friends of the Robert L. Williams Public Library in Durant. She has served as FOL's book-fair chairman and for several years read stories weekly to residents of Caddo Nursing Home in Caddo, Oklahoma.

She also enjoys cooking--"especially making (and eating) rich desserts." She contributed a recipe for chocolate souffle, much like the one Juanita Wills makes in Bookmarked for Murder, to A Second Helping of Murder, a cookbook featuring recipes contributed by various mystery authors and published by Poisoned Pen Press. The cookbook was a finalist for the 2004 Agatha Award in non-fiction.

Hill also is interested in history, particularly the American Revolutionary period. She has begun a second series, of contemporary amateur-sleuth mysteries revolving around important figures from that time, called the Deadly Past Mysteries. The series debuted in April 2006 with Deadly Will, in which Millie Kirchner, a young single mother and history buff from Richardson, TX (just north of Dallas) learns she's an heir under an odd will based on the actual legacy Benjamin Franklin made to the cities of Philadelphia and Boston. Franklin left money drawing interest for 200 years after his death, and at the end of that time (in 1990) the cities received millions of dollars each from Franklin's bequest. In Will, a fictitious acquaintance of Franklin named Nathan Henry copies Ben's idea but makes changes: Instead of his accumulated millions going to cities, Henry decrees that his own descendants living two centuries following his death should divide the money. He also leaves personal items (called "keepsakes" in his will) to be distributed by lottery to these heirs. When his descendants meet at his Philadelphia mansion to hold the lottery, some die under mysterious circumstances, and it appears one heir is killing others to reduce the number who'll share Henry's money. Millie must solve the mystery, because she fears she may be next.

Hill also likes traveling, especially to sites of historical significance. Trips to Philadelphia are reflected in Deadly Will, and she'll travel in October 2006 to Lynchburg, VA, to do research at Thomas Jefferson's retreat, Poplar Forest, for the first sequel to Will, called Deadly Design.

As Professor of English at Johnson County Community College for 24 years, Juliet Kincaid taught hundreds of students how to write. She also led a workshop on mystery writing. Juliet was a submissions editor for Red Herring Mystery Magazine, and has had three mystery stories published, one nominated for a Pushcart award. Recently, through research, Juliet began traveling around old Kansas City in order to write the Calendar mysteries. She has completed January Jinx (set in 1899) and started Fatal February (1900).

For more than twenty years, Radine Trees Nehring's magazine features, essays, newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts have been sharing colorful stories about the people, places, events, and natural world near her Arkansas home. She's also the author of a book of essays set in the Ozarks. DEAR EARTH: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow was published in 1995.

"Until I began to write about Carrie McCrite, I'd dealt only in facts," she says. "What fun it is to take those facts and the settings I love, add people entangled in problems and seeking answers to important life questions, and come up with mystery fiction that shares my world with readers everywhere."

Nehring's research takes her to the places her character go. She's visited Arkansas tourist destinations, hiked hills and hollows, crawled through caves, spent time in jail (while training for the jail ministry), and--as a news reporter--interviewed officials in every branch of law enforcement. She and her husband John live in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Nehring's major at Principia College in Illinois was Fine Arts. She's done post-graduate work in English and creative writing at the University of Tulsa, and in the University of Iowa Summer Writing Program.