American Writing Awards Featured Authors

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A former English professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina, Jeannée Sacken is a photojournalist who travels the world documenting the lives of women and children. She also photographs wildlife and is deeply committed to the conservation of endangered species. When not traveling, she lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin with her three cats, named for her favorite photographers. Behind the Lens is her debut novel. The second novel in the Annie Hawkins Green series, Double Exposure, is slated for publication in October 2022.

Visit https://www.jeanneesacken.com/home/ to learn more about Jeannée Sacken.

Award-winning writer and scholar (Fulbright nominee) Kevin L. Gingrich, PhD, is the author of numerous publications, ranging from The Sons of Chester to children's stories, feature articles, and columns to scholarly articles, including his dissertation, Parechesis in the Undisputed Pauline. Kevin played Division I basketball, and was known as "The Ball-Handling Wizard of the Westwood Gym," performing halftime shows at basketball games and camps all over the Midwest. His greatest trick was "The Impossible Catch," which, as the name suggests, was impossible: catching a basketball behind his back, arms between his legs. Kevin did it with two basketballs at once!  

Frederick Douglass Reynolds is a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Sergeant. He was born in Rocky Mount, Virginia and grew up in Detroit, Michigan where he became a petty criminal and involved in gangs. He joined the US Marine Corps in 1979 to escape the life of crime that he seemed destined for. After a brief stint in Okinawa, Japan, he finished out his military career in southern California and ultimately became a police officer with the Compton police department. He worked there from 1985 until 2000 and then transferred to the sheriff’s department where he worked an additional seventeen years, retiring in 2017 with over seventy-five commendations--including a Chief’s Citation, five Chief’s commendations, one Exemplary Service Award, two Distinguished Service Awards, two Distinguished Service Medals, one city of Carson Certificate of Commendation, three city of Compton Certificates of Recognition, one city of Compton Public Service Hero award, one California State Assembly Certificate of Recognition, two State Senate Certificates of Recognition, a County of Los Angeles Certificate of Commendation, one Meritorious Service Award, two city of Compton Employee of the Year Awards, and two California Officer of the Year awards. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Carolyn, and their daughter Lauren and young son, Desmond. They have six other adult children and nine grandchildren.   

Author i.b. casey cui, a.k.a. Maritza Roño Refuerzo, is a Cal Berkeley alumna and current pickleball student at her local recreation center. She received her MFA at Mills College, where she studied fiction writing and English literature, as well as enjoyed magazine and newspaper feature writing classes under the tutelage of a former senior editor at Mother Jones.  Casey Cui has been a copy editor for tech-media companies GameSpot, Ziff Davis, CNET, and InfoWorld. She co-heads a foundation whose mission is to advocate programs that promote the well-being of dogs and provide children with language and arts enrichment.  Ms. Cui is a well-nigh 27-year colon cancer survivor. Her debut novel, Groovy Girl, is about a young, feisty Filipino-American girl whose 19-year-old wunderkind sister is diagnosed with colon cancer, amid the chaos of an animated, dramatic extended family. Partial proceeds of Groovy Girl will benefit four nonprofits, one of which is the Strides for Life Colon Cancer Foundation.  

Made entirely of rum and snacks—International Bestselling Author, Tracy A. Ball, is a native Baltimorean and veteran West Virginian, whose family is a mashup of cultures. She writes real and raw interracial romance with an intensity that burns because she has been busting stereotypes while teaching interracial/generational healing for more than a quarter of a century.

Tracy engages with folks from every twist of fate and all manner of experience. She has hung out with murderers and dined with people who have dined with the Pope, which is why she needs the rum…and a nap.

Her published works include: Blood Like Rain, The Other Shore, “Mercury Chain Thomson,” If By Chance: A Shorts collection, Welcome to BBs, Death’s Desire, Big Guns & Bullsh@t, “Imogene’s Flowers,” “Thorns,” “Black’s Magic,” “Truly, Madly, Kiss Me,” “Cumberland Christmas,” Civil Warriors, Dragonfly Dreams, KAYOS: The Bad & The Worse, The Tiger & The Snake, The Right Way to Be Wrong, Mail Duty, White Russian Lies, and Sons of the Nephilim: Honor’s Choice. 

For further information on Tracy, visit:   

https://www.amazon.com/Tracy-A.-Ball/e/B00JH7R8XY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

https://www.facebook.com/groups/601509103800290/625996514684882/?

 Christy Alexander Hallberg is the author of the novel Searching for Jimmy Page, from Livingston Press. She is a Teaching Professor of English at East Carolina University, where she earned her BS and MA in English. She received her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Goddard College. She is Senior Associate Editor of North Carolina Literary Review. Her short fiction, creative nonfiction, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in such journals as North Carolina Literary Review, The Main Street Rag, Fiction Southeast, Riggwelter, Deep South Magazine, Eclectica, Litro, STORGY, Entropy, storySouth, Still: The Journal, and Concho River Review. Her creative nonfiction essay “The Ballad of Evermore” was a finalist for the Sequestrum 2020 Editor’s Reprint Award. Her flash story “Aperture” was chosen Story of the Month by Fiction Southeast for October 2020. The editors of the Best Small Fictions anthology series chose it for inclusion in their 2021 issue. Find her at www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/