Born in Southern California to Chinese-American immigrant parents, she struggled academically and socially in her k-6 years. But ever since kindergarten, she had developed a strong passion for the visual arts that brought joy, friendship, and meaning to her life.

Eventually, she went on to study at University of Southern California(BFA Fine Art, 2001) and then later at Otis College of Art & Design(BFA Digital Media, 2007). She has been working in various art and non-art industries while also creating her own stories from her own story worlds.

Since 2003, Diana Huang has also been teaching art to pass on the knowledge, experiences, and passion for the arts through an Intro to Cartooning class every Sunday at Irvine Chinese School. She went on to get a Masters in Teaching Degree from USC(2015) so she could be a better art teacher, and teacher in general. She tutors in academic subjects from k-12, leads workshops, summer camp sessions, and stays connected to all kinds of people around the world on the internet.

Degrees:

BFA Fine Art(2001) - University of Southern California

BFA Digital Media(2007) - Otis College of Art & Design

MAT: Multiple Subject(2015) - University of Southern California

Lorraine Gow, a native of Honduras, is the author of Black Women with Tamales and a children's book, Tula. She also served a co-editor for the anthology series, The Truth That Can’t Be Told. Her short stories and poems focus on the journey of AfroLatina women in America and have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband and their dog Dylan in Orange County, California.

lorrainegowiwrite@gmail.com

I grew up in a world filled with with the arts and passion for everything dance and theater related. I walked from elementary school directly to my parent's dance studio in Burbank California every day and worked at the studio from the age of 16. After moving to Orange County CA, my mother and I owned and managed a large studio in Mission Viejo. Dancers and the search for talent to nurture was our passion. I have always been fascinated with people who not only survive but thrive against extreme odds. Combine survival with art and passion and find the elements of my work. "The Truth That Can't Be Told 2" is my first opportunity to publish. I offer three short stories in this anthology. One is about a unique young dancer with a destiny to be played out in my novel, still in progress, Firefly Dancer. The second is a survival story about a giant sea turtle and my third is a revelation from a walk in my neighborhood.

Website: charmainewakefieldauthor.com

Facebook: charmainececilewakefieldauthor

Casey Dorman is a former university professor and dean, a psychologist, a literary review editor, an essayist, and the author of twelve novels, including his new novel, Ezekiel's Brain (NewLink Publishing April, 2021). He also is a contributor to several anthologies (e.g., The Literary Parrot, The Truth That Can't Be Told, The Global Pandemic Crisis). His website, HTTPS://www.caseydorman.com, includes frequent reviews of books in fiction, philosophy and artificial intelligence.

Casey’s novels borrow heavily from his clinical and research background as a psychologist and neuroscientist. His recent novel, Ezekiel’s Brain, is a sci-fi novel on the cutting edge of research in neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

Casey has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Washington. He has published dozens of research articles and a volume in the Johns Hopkins Series on Neuroscience and Psychiatry. In addition, he was editor and publisher of the literary quarterly, Lost Coast Review, for seven years. His sci-fi/mystery novel, I, Carlos has been optioned as a screenplay. He is a member of the Society of Philosophers in America and has published in their official journal.

Casey lives in California near the ocean and enjoys gardening, hiking, reading and wine tasting with his wife, In addition to writing his own books, he is a prolific reviewer of others’ works. He can often be found in a coffee house near the ocean, hunched over his MacBook or Kindle, while enjoying the sounds of waves and the calls of seagulls.

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I packed my suitcase and left home when I was three because of two words: "Young Yayden." Being reprimanded by my dad with the term "young lady" was an insult to my three-year-old self, one which I apparently couldn't tolerate. Through the years when my mother retold this story, she would add, "…and then Billie marched out, headed for my sister Marion's house saying, "My Aunt Maremin won't stand for this."

"Young Yayden," and the tone my father used with it, cut me to the core. Words are important, and I am fascinated by their power. I marvel at how just the right words put in the perfect order can move a nation, change a mind, make someone laugh, or bring a person or a whole country down.

In the darkest time of my life, it was the beautiful words that pulled me through: "I'm not afraid of storms for I'm learning to sail my ship," Alcott; "He who has a 'why' to his existence can bear with almost any 'how,' Neitzche; "To strive to seek to find, and not to yield," Tennyson.

I think behind everything I write whether a short story, essay, children's book, or novel, is the quest to craft one perfect arrangement of words, one sentence, that lingers. Writing something that mattered would be like receiving an Oscar, Olympic Gold Metal, and a brand new puppy, all rolled into one! I'd love to hear a word or two or a hundred from YOU at billiekelpin.com

Ottilia Scherschel taught writing and languages at the college level before creating fiction. The daughter of immigrants, she grew up hearing stories of their native Hungary that were as full of danger as the suspense novels she liked reading. When she ventured into writing short stories, she set them in foreign places like China. She is currently working on the final edit of her first novel, historical fiction, whose setting is WWII Hungary.

Ottilia lives in Southern California and loves to pack a suitcase. She can get by for two weeks with a carry-on and five wardrobe pieces. When not writing, she visits family, friends, and food and wine purveyors around the world.

Cassandra Rendon is an author and artist based out of Southern California. View more of her work at handcraftingalife.com.

Lana began writing poetry as an eight-year-old Iowa farm girl, but laid aside those so-called “childish things" for many decades. Today she realizes that as a writer, she loves to play. . . to play with thoughts and ideas, then shape them into images and metaphors that inspire and motivate. International experiences in China and Armenia have nourished her creativity and led to the development of a “Who Am I?” workshop series she currently facilitates. Lana and her husband Don live in San Clemente, California, but spend many months teaching in Armenia. They have 3 adult children, 7 grandchildren, and 2 (almost 3) great grandchildren.

Larry J. Dunlap is the author of NIGHT PEOPLE, Book 1, and ENCHANTED, Book 2, of Things We Lost in the Night, A Memoir of Love and Music in the 60s with Stark Naked and the Car Thieves. His short stories have appeared in: 2012 WRITING FROM INLANDIA (2015) and HERE COMES THE SUN (2017).

In the years following his memoir, Larry spent most of the 70s in Hollywood as a personal manager, publisher, and Sunset Boulevard recording studio owner/operator. He also reviewed live-music performances in his column NIGHTWORK for AFFAIR Magazine and wrote and drew a music-based comic strip called FRETS for "Inside" Magazine. In the 80s Larry co-founded the first all-digital broadcasting network, followed by a number years in video and film production, and post-production. Larry's professional writing career began as a pencil-for-hire, technical and training writer for Fortune 50 companies in the 90s.

Larry's favorite project has been imagining a galactic empire with a detailed history and backstory. He designed the gameplay and delivery system and worked with his team to develop a breakthrough graphical multiplayer online strategy game, IMPERIAL WARS. Don't be surprised to see stories soon from this long-imagined universe in the near future. Currently, Larry writes from his home near the ocean in Southern California where he counts his blessings and shares his life with his wife Laurie and their Chilidog.

Find out more about Larry and his writing at http://larryjdunlap.com Contact him at larry@cvppress.com

Barb DeLong is an award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal stories of love, laughter, and magic. With her love of animals, you know there’ll be a feature creature in there somewhere. Her short stories appear in several anthologies, including Secrets of Moonlight Cove, Love for Christmas, The Truth That Can’t Be Told, and The Truth That Can’t Be Told 2. She is currently working on a paranormal romance series called Keepers of Magic, about a society of witches desperate to keep their existence a secret. The first in the series, a light fantasy romance The Witch Whisperer, is under contract with The Wild Rose Press and was released in January, 2023. Book two, The Keeper’s Code, is very much a work in progress.

A transplant from the Canadian cold, she enjoys sunny Mission Viejo, California, with her husband and a pampered, blue-eyed, ragdoll cat.

You can find her at:

https://www.facebook.com/BarbDeLongAuthor

https://twitter.com/BarbaraDeLong7

https://www.amazon.com/Barb-DeLong/e/B01M4QI1L8

https://bingebooks.com/author/barb-delong

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16049288.Barb_DeLong

Elizabeth Conte is an award winning novelist, writer of short stories published in journals & books from all over the world, and a sketcher of poetry, “Creating Beauty for the mind.” A native to California, she enjoys the year-round gardening weather growing roses, photographing flowers, walking her dog, Winston, or mixing up a cocktail. She prefers whiskey! Her love for writing is only equal to her love of gardening. 

C.W. Spooner was born and raised in Vallejo, CA, graduating from Vallejo High in 1960. He earned a B.S. in Management (no pun intended) from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, and enjoyed a forty-five year career in information technology, primarily in the telecommunications industry.

In 2003, he confided to a friend that he'd always wanted to be a writer. The friend asked, "So what's stopping you?" Spooner realized he had no answer to that question. He went to work on his first short story titled "Party Crashers," published in The Storyteller, June 2010.

His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of national journals, including Lost Coast Review, Spitball Magazine, Balloons Literary Journal, The Halcoyne Review, Sandy River Review/The River, Imitation Fruit, plus anthologies from Main Street Rag, Wising Up Press, and the Lake Forest Writers' Rountable. He has published three novellas, two short story collections, and a collection essays, memoirs, and poems.

Spooner currently resides in Orange County, CA, where he pursues his passions for jazz, golf, storytelling, and grandchildren, not necessarily in that order.

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Kent Rogers Born in Oklahoma to a minister and traveling evangelist, Herbert Kent Rogers, Jr., experienced an America that stirred his imagination and his intense curiosity. Kent earned advanced degrees at Cal State Long Beach with minors in business, psychology, history, and religious studies. His primary interest in the Hebrew Bible with its symbols and history lead to a discovery that “consonants carry the meaning,” and are reflected in languages in the current time. He has written several essays on the subject. That, along with his background and experiences, informed his writing and desire to share his stories, real and imagined. He was surprised to learn he’d won a blue ribbon in a V.A. hospital’s writing competition for his story “Screaming Eagles.” You can read this story as well as “The Girl in the Tower” and his poem “Apparit” in the upcoming Lake Forest Roundtable anthology The Truth That Can’t Be Told Book 2. He enjoys the Roundtable group and all the support they give him.

Hello World,

When I was four I wrote my first book, hole punched the edges and put it together with those little brass brads. It was named "My World". I copied a picture of the world on the cover from the family atlas and colored the outsides of the book with my favorite red crayon. Inside were simply the names of everyone I loved.

Since then my writing sandwiched in between playing tennis and graduating with honors with a degree in music education, marriage, raising two kids, teaching elementary school music, directing musicals, serving as church choir director and/or pianist, and teaching lots of piano lessons. Based upon a favorite quote by Marc Anthony I would say I've never "worked". "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."

Recently I completed a book that had slept in a drawer for a number of years, and realized that my love of art and poetry could be combined to write and illustrate books for young children about subjects I love (God, music, and tennis). My desire is to teach and inspire ages 2-7.

My first real book, Natalie Carver Fizzleflame, is about following one's dream. All children have a talent. As parents we want to help our children find that talent and follow their dreams. Young Natalie finds she has the gift of singing. Readers follow her journey all the way to Broadway!

7 Keys, A Piano Alphabet Book, teaches prospective piano students (geared towards pre-school age) the best way to recognize keys on the piano. No more counting up from middle C! This book is a valuable addition to a piano teacher's studio, and a creative book to jumpstart a young child's piano instruction.

Seeds. Adorable family characters help tell the story of God multiplying seeds to sustain us while giving us the seeds of His Word to share with others. Children are introduced to obedience, kindness, and love for others.

Wee Play Tennis, a Counting book 1-10 is a picture book with tennis ball addition at the end. It is a great early introduction to the game of tennis. The book is dedicated to God and to my granddaughter, but otherwise has no religious wording whatsoever.

Pat Anderson currently lives with her husband, Paul in Southern California where she teaches piano and plays lots of tennis. They both love babysitting their first grandbaby, Reagan. Pat enjoys finishing and creating new children's books and she still never "works".

John Nicholas is a 1992 graduate of Cal State Dominguez Hills, with a degree in Business. In the Fall of 2021, he returned to school to pursue his lifelong passion of writing. There he was inspired to chronicle the baseball career of his late father, Don Nicholas aka The Phoenix Flash, and bring new life to his family’s legacy. He is currently working on a series of short stories to tell of his father’s time in the major leagues. Born in St. Paul and spending the majority of his life on the west coast, John has a Minnesota heart and a California soul.