Hannah Dennison will be reading from her home in Devon, England. A member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the Willamette Writers, and British Crime Writers’ Association, Hannah is the author of five books in the Vicky Hill Mystery series and six books in her Honeychurch Hall Mystery series. She has recently published Death at High Tide, the first book in her new Island Sisters series. Coincidentally, her mother is a docent at Greenway, Agatha Christie’s summer home, which has been turned into a museum.

Jan Bono is author of the Sylvia Avery mystery series, set on the Long Beach peninsula of the Washington coast, but at the next WordFest, Jan will be reading from her new collection of poems, Fisher Girl, Fisher Wife, Fisher Poet, in preparation for this year’s Gathering of Fisher Poets, February 25-27, in Astoria, Oregon. Due to Covid-19, the popular event will be available on Zoom for the first time.

WordFest coordinator Alan Rose will read from his new novel at the next “WordFest on Zoom” event, Tuesday, January 12, 2021, 7:00-8:00 pm. Released on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020, by Amble Press, As If Death Summoned tells the stories of people caught in the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s. Alan, who worked at Cascade AIDS Project in Portland from 1993 to 1999, captures the pathos, resilience and the death-defying humor of those years. Foreword Reviews calls the book “as heartwarming and hope-giving as it is heartbreaking,” 

Dayle Olson, a poet and short story writer living in Wahkiakum County, will read “What Sets Us Free,” which first appeared in Seaside Libraries’ 2019 short story anthology.

Dayle’s short stories were selected two years running by Seaside Libraries for publication in their annual anthology. She lives with her husband David and two opinionated cats in Cathlamet.  Her poem, “Water Highway/SR 4 at Stella,” was one of eight chosen statewide for inclusion in Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna’s Washington Poetic Routes broadsheet project. In addition to writing poetry during the pandemic, Dayle has been researching the stories of early residents buried in the local Pioneer Cemetery.

Naturalist, essayist and poet Robert Michael Pyle is now also the subject of “The Dark Divide,” a film based on his personal story. Bob will talk about the making of the film and also read from The Tidewater Reach, a collection of his poetry accompanied by the photographs of Judy VanderMaten that celebrates the beauty, history and mystery of the lower Columbia River region.

Bob is the author of more than 20 books, including Wintergreen, Sky Time in Grays River, Chasing Monarchs, and Where Bigfoot Walks. A Yale-trained ecologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, he lives in rural southwest Washington.

Jan Bono reads from Oyster Spat, the fifth in her Sylvia Avery Mystery series set on Washington’s Long Beach peninsula. Jan discusses her planning, research, and writing process that creates these fun and funny “cozy mysteries.”