Authors

PATTI MCCRACKEN is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review, and elsewhere. She has worked in various newsrooms, including the Chicago Tribune, and was twice a Knight International Press Fellow. She was based abroad for nearly two decades, and worked extensively as a journalism trainer in the former Soviet bloc, the Balkans, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. She now resides on Martha’s Vineyard, where she is at work on a screenplay with legendary screenwriter Ron Bass. The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring (William Morrow), is her first book.

EVELYN MCDONNELL has written or co-edited eight books, including Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl and Queens of Noise: the Real Story of the Runaways. She has been a pop culture writer at the Miami Herald and a senior editor at The Village Voice. Her writing has appeared in various anthologies and publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Ms., and Billboard. She teaches journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and lives in San Pedro, California.

PATRICK MCDONNELL is the bestselling author, illustrator, playwright, painter, and creator of the comic strip Mutts, which appears in more than 700 newspapers around the world. He has received numerous awards internationally, including a Caldecott Medal and the Reuben Award, the highest honor given by the National Cartoonists Society. The Art of Nothing: 25 Years of Mutts and the Art of Patrick McDonnell, a career-spanning monograph, was published by Abrams ComicArts in 2019. He lives in New Jersey.

CAMPBELL MCGRATH is the author of 11 books of poetry, most recently Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems, and XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century, which was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. His writing has been recognized with a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Witter Bynner fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a United States Artists fellowship. McGrath lives with his wife in Miami, where he teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University.

BEN MCKENZIE has been a fixture on television for more than two decades, first capturing audiences in the pop culture phenomenon The O.C. Recently, he played the lead role on Fox’s hit series Gotham, for which he also directed and wrote episodes. In 2020, he starred on Broadway in Grand Horizons, which received a Tony Award nomination for best new play. McKenzie graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia with a degree in economics and foreign affairs.

JENNIFER MCMAHON is the author of more than 10 novels, including The New York Times bestsellers Promise Not to Tell: A Novel and The Winter People: A Novel. She lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with her partner, Drea.

BRITTANY MEANS is a Chicana writer and editor living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A graduate of the University of Iowa's MFA Nonfiction Writing Program, Means has worked with writers Inara Verzemnieks and Kiese Laymon. She has received several awards for her work, including the Magdalena Award, the Geneva Fellowship, the Grace Paley Fellowship, and the Herodotus Award.

LAURA MECKLER is national education writer for The Washington Post, where she covers education across the country as well as national education policy and politics. She previously reported on the White House, presidential politics, immigration, and health care for The Wall Street Journal, as well as health and social policy for The Associated Press. Her honors include a Nieman Fellowship and Livingston Award for national reporting, and she was part of a team that won the George Polk Award for Justice Reporting. Meckler lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two sons.

PEDRO MEDINA LEÓN nació en Perú en 1977. Es autor de los libros Streets de Miami (2012), Mañana no te veré en Miami (2013), Varsovia (2017) – con la que ganó el Florida Books Award 2017 – Marginal (2018), y Tour: una vuelta por la cultura popular de Miami (2018); y editor de las antologías Viaje One Way (2014) y Miami (Un)plugged (2016). Además es creador y editor del portal cultural y sello editorial Suburbano Ediciones y speaker en temas de historia y cultura popular de Miami para el Florida Humanities Council. Este año llega a la Feria con Bandidos (Sudaquia, 2023), que relata el episodio de un grupo de jóvenes coludidos con el gobierno de Estados Unidos para enviar armamento clandestino a las fuerzas contrarrevolucionarias nicaragüenses que combaten contra los Sandinistas durante los años ´80; mientras tanto, en tiempo presente, el Comanche, el investigador más icónico de Miami, desenreda el asesinato de un hombre que fue encontrado en un contenedor de basura. Medina León guía minuciosamente al lector hasta la última línea, para entender en qué punto convergen ambos relatos.

ASKOLD MELNYCZUK is the author of four novels and the short story collection The Man Who Would Not Bow: And Other Stories. He is the founding editor of Agni and Arrowsmith Press, and co-editor of From Three Worlds, an anthology of Ukrainian writers, and Between Fury and Peace: The Many Arts of Derek Walcott. His fiction, poetry, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, the U.K.'s Times Literary Supplement, The Kenyon Review, and other publications.

MIGUEL GONÇALVES MENDES is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is the author of José and Pilar (2010), a documentary about writer and Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, co-produced by Pedro Almodóvar, his brother Augustín, and Fernando Meirelles. In 2011, after a successful international festival circuit, the movie spurred an unprecedented popular movement in Portugal. Currently, Mendes is at the postproduction stage of his new documentary, The Meaning of Life, produced by Fernando Meirelles, which is considered “an important composition that explores the relationship between death, creation, power, movement and the universe."

MARUCHI MENDEZ is the author of Finding Home: A Memoir of a Mother's Undying Love and an Untold Secret, along with the Spanish translation Buscando Mi Estrella. She has co-authored two different editions of 100 Things to Do in Miami Before You Die. Mendez is also the co-founder of the JunTos Foundation, and is a fierce advocate of student-athletes' health. She has received several awards and proclamations for her efforts to pass legislation that raises the standards of student-athletes' cardiac screening. She has lived in Miami for more than 50 years.

ARMANDO MENDIVE has an M.A. in history and is a 32-year veteran of the teaching wars, having spent the last 26 at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Miami Gardens/Opa-locka, teaching all levels of world and American history, human geography, government, and economics. He married his college sweetheart (he actually met her in high school) and currently has college-age twins, a rescue dog, and three rescue cats.

ANA MENÉNDEZ has published five books of fiction: The Apartment: A Novel (Counterpoint, 2023); Adios, Happy Homeland!; The Last War: A Novel; Loving Che: A Novel; and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, whose title story won a Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, most recently as a prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. Menéndez’s work has also appeared in Vogue, Bomb, The New York Times, and Tin House, and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an MFA from New York University. From 2008 to 2009, she lived in Cairo, Egypt, as a Fulbright Scholar. She has also lived in India, Turkey, Slovakia, and the Netherlands, where she designed a creative writing minor at Maastricht University in 2011. For the past 20 years, Menéndez has taught at various writing conferences and programs, most recently at Bread Loaf and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives in Miami and is currently an associate professor at Florida International University, with joint appointments in English and the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab.

BRIAN MERCHANT is the technology columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the national bestseller The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. He’s the co-founder of Terraform, Vice’s science fiction outlet, and the founder of Gizmodo’s automaton project examining AI and the future of work. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, Fast Company, and other outlets. He lives in Los Angeles.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL has published eight collections of poetry including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, including Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars; Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain; The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War; and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. As the director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, he has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than 50 countries.

MARYA MEYER is the executive director of The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade. As One Billion Rising’s global coordinator for Miami, she has worked with Eve Ensler and other activists across the globe since 2012, when this grassroots movement united ordinary citizens and stakeholders to create the awareness and solidarity necessary to end the staggering statistics of gender violence, locally and across the globe, in our lifetimes. Focusing locally on the greatest challenges facing the South Florida community, Meyer and key partners coordinated powerful grassroots RISINGS which subsequently transformed into a partnership with The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade to lead monthly meetings where public and private entities, government civil servants, activists, volunteers and all those concerned with creating freedom from violence could join forces and resources, including on the key issue of human trafficking. She served as co-chair of the community outreach working group of the official Stop Sex Trafficking campaign of the Miami Super Bowl host committee, with lead partners the Office of the Miami-Dade State Attorney and The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade. Meyer is a member of the South Florida Human Trafficking Task Force, Miami-Dade Human Trafficking Coalition and the advisory boards for Design & Architecture Senior High and the TJ Martell Miami Host Committee.

DUNYA MIKHAIL was born in Baghdad. After graduating from the University of Baghdad, she worked as a journalist and translator for The Baghdad Observer. Facing censorship and interrogation, she left Iraq, eventually settling in Detroit. She is the author of The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; The Iraqi Nights; Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea; and The War Works Hard, chosen as one of New York Public Library’s Books to Remember; and an edited volume, Fifteen Iraqi Poets. Mikhail is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Knight Foundation grant, a Kresge Artist Fellowship, and the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. She works as a special lecturer of Arabic at Oakland University in Michigan.

Emmy Award-winning journalist GLENNA MILBERG joined Miami’s Local 10 News in September 1999. She covers South Florida’s top stories and community issues, and hosts the station’s highest-rated public affairs program, This Week in South Florida. After beginning her career as a print journalist for a travel trade magazine, Milberg made the jump to broadcast news in 1987. She covers South Florida news from the Everglades to the ocean; works the campaign trail for local, state, and national elections; and travels worldwide to bring home big stories. In addition to her Emmy nods, her work has also been honored by South Florida’s Esserman-Knight Journalism Awards. Other honors include being named South Florida’s “Best TV Reporter” by Miami New Times, a Big Impact Award from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Miami, Hadassah’s Myrtle Wreath Award, a “Woman Worth Knowing” distinction from the Miami Beach Commission on the Status of Women, and a “Significant Women” nod by Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Cancer Lifeline. Milberg graduated from the University of Florida as an English major with a B.A. before earning a B.S. in broadcast journalism from Florida International University. The native New Yorker and her husband, Michael, have two bright and beautiful daughters and two high-energy and huggable labs, Cooper and Shadow.

MARÍA MÍNGUEZ ARIAS es periodista, traductora, narradora y ensayista. Es autora de Nombrar el cuerpo (Editorial Egales/España; El BeiSmAn PrESs/USA, 2022) y de la novela ganadora de un Premio ILBA Patricia sigue aquí (Editorial Egales, 2018). Sus relatos y ensayos aparecen en antologías y revistas de Estados Unidos, España y México. Es coeditora de la antología #NiLocasNiSolas: narrativa escrita por mujeres en Estados Unidos (El BeiSmAn PrESs, 2023) y de la revista de literatura en español de Estados Unidos, El BeiSmAn. Trabaja como directora de operaciones para la editorial Aunt Lute Books en San Francisco, California.

JAMILA MINNICKS is the author of Moonrise Over New Jessup: A Novel (Algonquin Books), which won the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her short stories have been published in CRAFT, The Write Launch, and The Silent World in Her Vase, and elsewhere, and her piece Politics of Distraction was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Howard University School of Law, and Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, D.C.

RAJIV MOHABIR is a poet, memoirist, translator, and the author of four books of poetry, including Cutlish, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction works have been named finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in poetry and nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir, respectively). His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2020. Whale Aria: Poems (Four Way Books) is Mohabir’s fourth collection. He is currently an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

DEENA MOHAMED is an Egyptian designer, illustrator, and writer. She first began making comics at 18, when she created the viral webcomic Qahera, a satirical superhero strip starring a visibly Muslim superheroine. Shubeik Lubeik, Mohamed's debut graphic novel, was originally published in Arabic by Dar el Mahrousa in Egypt and was awarded Best Graphic Novel and the Grand Prize at the 2017 Cairo Comix Festival. Mohamed lives in Egypt.

Journalist ÓSCAR MOLINA V. is Miami Book Fair’s Emerging Writer Fellow in the Spanish language. He was born in Quito, Ecuador. His work has appeared in magazines and media outlets from Latin America and the United Stateslike Gatopardo, Telemundo, Univision, El Espectador, The Clinic Online, Relatto, GK, and Mundo Diners, among others. In 2019, he was part of the exhibition “Archivxs LGBTIQ+” at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito with the work Contengo multitudes. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, and a master's degree in literary creation from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. His texts are part of journalistic and literary anthologies in Ecuador and the U.S. El periodista ÓSCAR MOLINA V. nació en Quito, Ecuador. Su trabajo ha aparecido en revistas y medios de América Latina y Estados Unidos como Gatopardo, Telemundo, Univision, El Espectador, The Clinic Online, Relatto, GK y Mundo Diners, entre otros. En 2019 formó parte de la exposición “Archivxs LGBTIQ+” en el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito con la obra Contengo multitudes. Tiene una maestría en periodismo de la Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism de la City University of New York y una maestría en creación literaria de la Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. Sus textos forman parte de antologías periodísticas y literarias en Ecuador y Estados Unidos. Ganó el Emerging Writers Fellowship 2023 en español de la Feria del Libro de Miami y participa este año en conversación con Cristina Rivera Garza y Gisella Heffes.

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE is a historian of Russia and the Middle East whose books have been published in more than 40 languages. His book Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (now known as The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction); Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards; and Young Stalin was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography, the Costa Biography Award, and le Grand Prix de la biographie politique. Montefiore received his Ph.D. from Cambridge, and he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.

ROSA MONTERO nació en Madrid y estudió Periodismo y Psicología. Ha publicado las novelas Crónica del desamor (1979), La función Delta (1981), Te trataré como a una reina (1983), Amado Amo (1988), Temblor (1990), Bella y Oscura (1993), La hija del caníbal (1997, Premio Primavera de Novela), El corazón del Tártaro (2001), La loca de la casa (2003, premios Qué Leer, Grinzane Cavour y Roman Primeur), Historia del Rey Transparente (2005, premios Qué Leer y Mandarache), Instrucciones para salvar el mundo (2008, Premio de los Lectores del Festival de Literaturas Europeas de Cognac, Francia), Lágrimas en la lluvia (2011), Lágrimas en la lluvia. Cómic (2011, Premio al Mejor Cómic en el Salón Internacional del Cómic de Barcelona), La ridícula idea de no volver a verte (2013, Premio de la Crítica de Madrid), El peso del corazón (2015), La carne (2016), Los tiempos del odio (2018), La buena suerte (2020) y El peligro de estar cuerda (2022). También ha publicado el libro de relatos Amantes y enemigos (1998, Premio Círculo de Críticos de Chile), y dos ensayos biográficos: Historias de mujeres – reeditado en edición ilustrada, revisada y ampliada con el título de Nosotras. Historias de mujeres y algo más (2018) – y Pasiones (2000), así como cuentos para niños, recopilaciones de entrevistas y artículos, y Escribe con Rosa Montero (2017). Desde 1976 escribe en El País, en el que fue redactora jefa del suplemento dominical durante 1980-1981. Además de los mencionados, ha sido galardonada con el Premio Nacional de Periodismo (1981), el Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas (2017), los premios Leyenda de la Asociación de Librerías de Madrid y Ciudad de Alcalá de las Artes y las Letras (2019) y el Premio Cedro (2020). Es doctora honoris causa por la Universidad de Puerto Rico y su obra está traducida a más de veinte idiomas. Este año Rosa Montero inaugura la Feria con La desconocida (Alfaguara, 2023), en un exitoso retorno a la novela negra, escrita junto al periodista francés Olivier Trux, ganador del Premio Quais du Polar, el más prestigioso galardón francés del género policiaco.

MICKI BERTHELOT MORENCY is a Haitian American author. She is a graduate of Northeastern University and the Institute for Writers. After a career in banking and social services, Morency merged both experiences into a consulting business while mentoring, advocating, and empowering women to find their voices. Her stories have appeared in Writer’s Digest Magazine, the Tampa Bay Times, The Weekly Challenger, and other print magazines and e-zines. She lives in Florida with her husband. The Island Sisters: A Novel (BHC Press), published in 2023, is her debut work of long fiction.

SARAH MORENO es periodista de el Nuevo Herald desde 1995, donde ha trabajado como reportera y editora. Tiene una maestría de Florida International University y tomó cursos de doctorado en la Universidad de La Laguna, en Tenerife. Ha recibido premios y reconocimientos de la Florida Society of News Editors, el Sunshine State Awards de la Society of Professional Journalist y un premio Pulitzer general otorgado a el Nuevo Herald en 2022 por la cobertura de noticias del derrumbe del edificio de Surfside.

NATALIA MORET nació en Buenos Aires en 1978. Es socióloga, escritora y guionista. Publicó relatos en las antologías Nuevas narrativas. Historias breves II (Sudamericana, 2006), En celo (Mondadori, 2007), Buenos Aires Escala 1:1 (2008), Autogol (2009), Sólo cuento (2011) y Outsider (2011), y la novela Un publicista en apuros (Literatura Random House, 2012). Su cuento Platero y yo fue llevado al cine en la película Cinco (2009). Este año llega a la Feria con El año en que debía morir (Ediciones B, 2022), novela en la que una mujer aislada en el campo, en el momento más frío y oscuro de un invierno de encierro, espera el resultado de una biopsia. Habita un limbo ansioso plagado de presentimientos: un mes en el que tiene y no tiene cáncer. La narradora se embarca en la lectura de un mapa familiar que solo podrá iluminar a condición de no mirarlo de frente.

MARCIA MORGADO is a Florida-based writer and journalist who is passionate about the arts. Currently working as the art and culture editor for SRevista, a high-end Spanish-language lifestyle monthly publication, she has contributed to Indulge Magazine, Casa & Estilo, and Florida Inside Out. She previously worked as the art and culture editor at Vanidades and was a regular contributor to Exito Weekly and The Barcelona Review. Morgado was the founding editor of The Miami Reporter and Mariel, a quarterly literary publication. Some of her fiction work has been featured in local and international literary magazines and short story collections; she has also published a Spanish-language novel.