2025 American Writing Awards (ONE-CATEGORY ENTRY)

 Andrew Bridge spent 11 years in Los Angeles County foster care, before earning a scholarship to Wesleyan University and graduating from Harvard Law School. He is a Fulbright Fellow and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Writing Resident.

His work has garnered coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Showtime, The Observer, The CBS Early Show, NBC Nightly News, Time Magazine, PBS, Psychology Today, NPR, and Observer Magazine.​

He began his legal career representing children against the State of Alabama. His work resulted in the closure of one of the most notorious psychiatric institutions in the country, the Eufaula Adolescent Center. After that, he returned home to Los Angeles as CEO of The Alliance for Children’s Rights. He defended children at MacLaren Hall, where he was once confined. Under Andrew’s leadership, The Alliance successfully sued Los Angeles County over its practice of not visiting foster children. The victory gave every foster child the right to see and speak with their social worker at least once a month.

Andrew chaired Los Angeles County’s Blue Ribbon Foster Care Task Force, which called for an end to the disproportionate removal of African-American babies from their parents. He is the co-founder of National Adoption Day. He went on to lead California’s largest recruiter of LGBT+ foster and adoptive parents.

A sought-after expert in his field, he has advised senior federal and state officials on reforming our foster care system to meet the needs of families living in poverty. His educational work resulted in the establishment of New Village Girls Academy, California’s first all-girls high school for pregnant and parenting teens. He regularly consults with child welfare systems, children’s facilities, and private foundations. As a member of Arizona’s Foster Care Review Board, Andrew advises Arizona’s Juvenile Court on the safety and well-being of individual children in the state’s care.

  Gail Priest has a passion for women’s fiction. Her degrees and work in theatre and counseling psychology inspire her stories of healing from trauma and secrets within families. A dash of romance and her love of second chances are always in the mix. The settings of her novels are influenced by her time spent on the coast of New Jersey and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Gail Priest’s newest award-winning novel, Soul Dancing, is women’s fiction with a paranormal twist. Her holiday novelette, A Collingswood Christmas, was just released. Gail is also the author of the Annie Crow Knoll trilogy which includes Annie Crow Knoll: Sunrise, Sunset, and Moonrise. The final novel was a Kindle Book Awards semi-finalist. Eastern Shore Shorts, her collection of short stories set in various Eastern Shore towns, was a finalist in the International Book Awards Short Story category.

Gail is a member of The Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Eastern Shore Writers Association, Novelitics Writers Collective, and the South Jersey Writers Group, where she was named Writer of the Year.

Gail lives in New Jersey with her husband and their Havanese dog, Annie. When she's not writing or teaching, Gail can be found reading or looking for birds and sea glass along the beaches and bays of the East Coast.