Meet the 2025 Staff
All Genre Instructors
Jason Tanamor (tan-uh-more) is a Filipino-American writer and author.
Named as one of the “5 Best Modern Filipino Writers” by Pinas Global Newspaper, Tanamor is the acclaimed author of the supernatural/folklore novel, “Vampires of Portlandia,” and the Filipino YA novel, “Love, Dance & Egg Rolls.” “Vampires of Portlandia” was optioned for screen and is currently in development. His new book, a Filipino YA superhero novel titled, “The Legend of Sensei Tsinela,” will be released Spring 2025.
Tanamor also spent a decade as an entertainment writer and interviewer, interviewing the likes of author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club); comedians Dane Cook and Gabriel Iglesias; musicians Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Ann Wilson (Heart), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction), and Henry Rollins (Black Flag); and baseball legend Pete Rose.
He has covered everyone from Steve Martin to Jerry Seinfeld and from Evanescence to President Obama. Jason is happy to be returning to Novel Bookcamp for the second time.
Christina Marrocco This will be the second year Christina serves as instructor for Novel Bookcamp. She is an author and poet who works in multiple genres including Literary Fiction, Short Story, Creative Nonfiction, and an assortment of poetic modes. She often sets her work in Illinois and the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, having a foot in each state all of her life. Her debut novel, Addio, Love Monster won Best New Indie Fiction, 2022, Chicago Writers Association. She has a second novel forthcomin with a UK press, and is working on two book length pieces of Creative Nonfiction. Her poetry appears in many journals, including Silverbirch Press, Ovunque Siamo, Red Fern Review, House Mountain Review, and the Laurel Review. She teaches Creative Writing, Literature, and Composition at Elgin Community College, Elgin Illinois and is the new Prose Editor for Ovunque Siamo.
All Genre Industry Professionals
Cathie Hedrick-Armstrong returns! She is an agent at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. She represents Contemporary and Historical Romance, Upmarket Women’s Fiction, Mysteries, Thrillers, and Young Adult Fiction. She also has her own writing career as an author of issue-driven young adult and women’s fiction, include the young adult novel, Roam, and the women’s fiction title, The Edge of Nowhere.
An Oklahoma native transplanted to Minnesota for nearly 30 years, Cathie holds a B.A. in Journalism with a minor in History and is a rabid fan of OU Sooners Football.
A prolific reader of many genres, Cathie looks for manuscripts that catch her attention within the first few pages. Evoke an emotional response in the opening pages—make her laugh out loud, cause her pulse to race, make her cry—you’ve got a winner. https://www.marsallyonliteraryagency.com/
Photo by K. Murphy Photography
Tina P. Schwartz founded The Purcell Agency, LLC in 2012 following 12 years of marketing her own traditionally published books and helping several other authors publish theirs. With a background in advertising, radio Sales and marketing she turned to her true passion, selling manuscripts.
Tina is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI), Chicago Writer’s Association, Author’s Guild, and the American Association of Literary Agents.
“My favorite part is meeting new people and building relationships! I look forward to continuing to build fruitful relationships with editors, publishers, and authors around the globe.”
Genre Interests: Women’s Fiction (mostly book club), Realistic Fiction—Coming-of-Age, Dystopian, Sports, Romance, Friendship, Family—Nonfiction, some Memoir. Also interested in Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult.
Websites: www.tinaPschwartz.com; https://www.thepurcellagency.com/
All Genre Writing Retreat Mentor
SJ Rozan is the multi-award-winning author of Mysteries and Paranormal Thrillers, and an anthology editor. A native New Yorker, she has written 18 novels and six dozen short stories. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. She’s twice received the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award, and recently the Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. “Bronx Noir,” a short story anthology SJ edited, was chosen NAIBA’s “Notable Book of the Year.” She also co-edited with Jonathan Santlofer, the anthology Dark End of the Street, and edited Crime Hits Home, the Mystery Writers of America anthology.
SJ served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. She speaks, lectures and teaches, and runs a summer writing workshop at the Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy.
A former architect in a practice that focused on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, SJ Rozan lives in lower Manhattan. As you can probably tell, she loves to travel. Also, to play basketball, read, and walk. SJRozan.net. SJ is part of the very fabric of Novel Bookcamp and we are so lucky she has embraced the organization.
All Genre Book Coach
Claire Harris is a literary agent at PS Literary with a passion for a wide range of fiction and non-fiction for adults. She enjoys the creative process of working with authors and collaborating closely with them throughout all stages of their careers. In fiction, she’s looking for adult rom-coms, horror, psychological thrillers, contemporary fiction, women’s fiction, and cozy mysteries—all for millennial audiences, specifically. Claire is happiest when reading manuscripts with unexpected endings or new twists on classic genre tropes. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Claire has a sweet spot for stories set in the Midwest. You can see her clients’ books on a variety of bestseller lists, including The New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and others.
Speculative Fiction Bookcamp Instructors
Mary Anne Mohanraj happily returns to Bookcamp again. She is a multi-genre author and the founder of the Hugo-nominated and World Fantasy Award-winning speculative literature magazine Strange Horizons. A Clinical Associate Professor of Fiction and Literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Mohanraj founded and serves as Executive Director of the Speculative Literature Foundation (speclit.org) and DesiLit (desilit.org), a South Asian Arts Foundation she helped establish.
She is the author of the novella The Stars Change, Jump Space, a compilation of interlinked stories originating in her Jump Space universe, and multiple Speculative Fiction stories for George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Escape Pod, Lightspeed, and other Speculative Fiction publications. Mohanraj also is a prolific writer of Literary Fiction, Poetry, Essays, and a cookbook on her native Sri Lankan cuisine. MaryAnneMohanraj.com
Kelly Van Sant is KT Literary’s contracts manager and a literary agent seeking Middle Grade, Young Adult, and limited women’s fiction across all genres, including fantasy, science fiction, adventure, historical, and contemporary. Her background includes stints with the literary agencies Writers House and Harold Ober Associates, and publishing groups Llewellyn Worldwide and Quarto Publishing Group USA, gaining expertise in subsidiary rights management, with focuses on audio rights, foreign rights, and permissions.
Residing in Minnesota, Kelly has worked as a freelance editor with various publishers and is a teaching artist at the Loft Literary Center. She also blogs about writing and the publishing industry at Pub(lishing) Crawl and co-hosts its weekly podcast. KTLiterary.com. Kelly is a favorite with Novel Bookcamp alumni. Welcome back, Kelly!
Hank Schwaeble is a horror, thriller and suspense writer whose credits include Damnable (Berkley/Jove), which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, Diabolical (Berkley/Jove), and The Angel of the Abyss, which was re-released by Esker & Riddle in 2021. He is also the author of the horror-noir collection American Nocturne, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker award, and Moonless Nocturne, which was released in 2022 and has been optioned for TV/film by the producer of The Equalizer movies. His short fiction has appeared in various publications such as Weird Tales Magazine and numerous anthologies such as the recent sci-fi western offering from Baen, High Noon On Proxima B. A graduate of the University of Florida and Vanderbilt Law School, Hank is a practicing attorney and a former Air Force officer and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. He was a distinguished graduate from the Air Force Special Investigations Academy, graduated first in his class from the Defense Language Institute’s Japanese Language Course, and was an editor of the law review at Vanderbilt where he won four American Jurisprudence Awards. In addition to reading and writing, Hank enjoys keeping in shape and playing guitar. Hank and his wife, fellow writer Rhodi Hawk, make their home near Houston, Texas. He is currently working on his next novel. HankSchwaeble.com
Speculative Fiction Industry Professionals
Jennifer Goloboy Jennie Goloboy joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2017, after six years at a Twin Cities-based literary agency. She has a PhD in the History of American Civilization from Harvard, and published a book based on her dissertation, Charleston and the Emergence of Middle-Class Culture in the Revolutionary Era, in 2016. Her novel, Obviously Aliens, was published by Queen of Swords Press in 2021. Jennie is particularly looking for fun, innovative, diverse, and progressive science fiction and fantasy for adults. She thinks that one of the most important jobs of science fiction is to imagine a future we want to live in. As a fan of character-driven novels, she wants to be desperate to know what happens to your hero by the time she’s finished your writing sample. Romance and humor are always a plus. Jennie is an alumni favorite and we are so excited to have her back!
Miriam Cortinovis Born and raised in Italy, Miriam (they/she) moved to Chicago as a teenager and has since earned a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Writing & Publishing from DePaul University. After an excellent internship at Aevitas Creative Management, for which she also freelance read, she landed at ArtHouse Literary as an intern. They became Associate Agent through intense months of professional growth and supported learning. When not reading or writing SFF fiction of their own, Miriam enjoys playing videogames with their partner and scheming on Dungeons & Dragons with her friends. https://arthouselit.com/who-we-are
Speculative Fiction Writing Retreat Mentor
Sue Burke began writing professionally as a teenager for her local newspaper. By then she was also an avid science fiction fan. She’s worked for newspapers and magazines as a reporter and editor, and began publishing fiction in 1995. She has also written essays, poetry, and translations. Among her non-writing jobs, she taught English to Spanish teenagers in Madrid, Spain.
She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; lived briefly in Austin, Texas, y’all; spent 17 years in Madrid, Spain; and now lives in Chicago, Illinois. She’s married and has no children or pets, just houseplants who have trained her well.
Her novel Semiosis was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Locus Best First Novel Award. Its sequels are Interference and Usurpation. She has also written the novels Immunity Index and Dual Memory, and has been called a “modern science fiction and fantasy master.” She’s published more than 40 short stories, along with a million words of journalism and other non-fiction (she counted); and translations from Spanish into English of short stories, novels, poetry, and historical works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. She won the 2016 Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation from the American Translators Association. https://sueburke.site/
From alumni instructor, Sue Burke: “They say that as a skilled worker, you’re only as good as your tools. My goal as a mentor and instructor is to help you leave Bookcamp with more tools in your writing toolbox: more choices you can make as you develop your novel, more techniques, more possibilities, more potential solutions to problems, more ideas, and more ways to generate ideas. There are no rules in writing, but a lot of craft goes into making great artistry.”
Speculative Fiction Book Coach
Nicole Whisler is a developmental editor and book coach with a particular interest in working with writers of Speculative Fiction and especially fantasy novels. Nicole is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association, the Professional Editors Network, and is rated a top coach by the Coach Foundation.
In 2010, Nicole graduated summa cum laude from Southwest Baptist University with a B.A. in English Education working four years in the English Department’s Writing Center, helping fellow students organize content, transition between ideas, clarify language, and use correct grammar. For the next six years she taught high school and middle school English and creative writing classes and analyzing thousands of student writing.
She joined the Jefferson City Novelist Group in 2017, which supports mid-Missouri writers through critiques. “This decision changed my life. Writing became a public rather than private pursuit, and I assessed manuscripts on a regular basis while drafting my fourth fantasy novel. I evolved into a co-organizer of the critique group and helped develop and lead its sprinting cohort in 2021. Currently, I lead a critique group for fiction writers at the Fayetteville Public Library.”
In 2020 she opened her editing business, Whisler Edits. “I’m a bit of a monomaniac. I read, I write, I read about writing, and I write about reading. It never gets old to me.”
Originally from Illinois, Nicole now lives with her husband and three daughter in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her website, Whisler Edits, is Developmental Editing and Book Coaching for Fantasy Writers.
Administrative Staff
David J. Rank is a published author, editor, recovering journalist, founder and director of the nonprofit Novel Bookcamp educational programs since 2014. His more than 30 dark fiction short stories have been published in regional literary publications, various online magazines, and four anthologies. His hobby is scheming to get a Big Five Publisher to notice his novels.
Dave is a supporting member of the Horror Writers Association and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, organizing the HWA-Wisconsin Chapter in 2018. Through the Novel Bookcamp he has memberships in the Chicago Writers Association, HERstory Writing Community, the Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, and the Wisconsin Writers Association. He was president of the WWA from 2013 to 2016 and judged the WWA’s Jade Ring Fiction Contest in 2022.
Dave and his wife of 50 years live in West Bend, Wisconsin. He enjoys reading, making guacamole and chili, and sharing life with his three grown children and four grandchildren. www.novelbookcamp.org
Deborah L. King – Assistant Director Though Deborah has been a writer and storyteller her whole life, publishing her first short story at seven years old, she took 32 years to complete her first novel. She is the author of three award-winning women’s fiction books. Most recently, Glory Unbound was announced as the winner of the Literary Global Independent Author Award in the women’s fiction category. Deborah loves the work of Octavia Butler, Peter David, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the illustrations of Dan DeCarlo. She loves storms, champagne, Old Time Radio, and 70s Blues and Soul; and refuses to believe the 1980s is historical. Thanks to an interesting childhood, she’s afraid of escalators, bill collectors, and sometimes fresh produce.
In 2018, Deborah won the Chicago Writer’s Association’s first chapter contest and has been an annual book-camper since 2019. She joined the NIP board in 2023, and accepted assistant directorship for the 2025 season.
“I don’t know if I can fill Lisa Lickel’s shoes, but I’m gonna try. I hope to be a big help to Director Dave Rank and I encourage all the writers to never forget that this is summer camp. Relax, write, and have fun!“
