Current Members
Matthew Pugh
Matthew joined in 2019. His first novel, Tempered, was released in 2020 to middle grade readers. His poetry has been published in Xylem Literary Magazine, and has regularly written newspaper articles which have appeared in The Alpena News. He is also an alumnus of the Golden Egg Academy.
Being very indecisive, he settled on a multi-faceted bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Creative Writing, and Computer Science from the University of Michigan. and a graduate degree in teaching those subjects to kids. After teaching for ten years in the UK and USA, he now works as a Development Operations Manager (fancy way of saying that he develops techy solutions and automates stuff) to help improve the impact of charities and government services.
vivien Leanne saunders
Viv joined in 2019. Her first novel, Hunting, was released in 2018 for young adult fantasy fans. The post-apocalyptic dystopia RATS hit the shelf in 2019, as did the Riverbed fantasy trilogy: Mire, Tributary and Cascade. Flesh and Wine, a historical novel exploring the conquest of the Aztec empire, was published in 2020. In 2021 Vivien published YA historical fantasy Whispers, the first book in the Call series. The Body Entire, a historical fantasy thriller, was also released earlier this year.
Vivien won the NAWG Writing Magazine Trophy for historical fiction for two consecutive years with Umbra (2020) and Under a Stone Sky (2021). Squeak Squeak! was shortlisted in 2021. She was awarded the Sir Alan Ayckbourn Trophy for theatrical monologue with Ruby Red (2020). Her children’s story The Sackcloth Liar won the Reedsy Prompts contest. Her award-winning works were published in The Write Path (2020).
Helen Ansdell
Queen of the cliffhangers.
joe jacob
The master of mystery. He’s here.
Stanley Saunders
Stanley started out as a comic book artist, creating the Snakey series. He writes prose and verse that is either poetic or graphically violent. Sometimes both!
Recently, he has taken a dive into the world of D&D as a Dungeon Master, and in his downtime he enjoys roleplaying as characters from DC or Marvel respectively.
He joined in 2019.
Janet Stone
Janet is joined in January 2022.
She is very passionate about reading, but at the same time wants to be published herself! She has always enjoyed writing, from as far back as her school days. Going camping with her family and others, when young, while the other children would be out playing, she would be in the tent, with her pen and paper.
Over the years she has attended adult education classes in creative writing, and received a good mark in GCSE English Language.
Her preferred genres in creative writing are mystery, psychological thrillers, short stories with a twist, and comedy. She would like to attempt chick lit but her thoughts turn to the darker side when the words are flowing.
She currently has several WiP projects on the go, but needs a massive push to kickstart them, and hopes that being a member of this group will help.