Tall Poppy Writers: Raising Up Strong Women’s Voices in Fiction

Kathryn Craft is the award-winning author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy, and the author of chapters in Author in Progress and The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing from Writers Digest Books. Her fourteen years as a freelance developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic for The Morning Call newspaper. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she is an active member of Pennwriters and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, serving as its 2020 Guiding Scribe. Kathryn leads writing workshops and retreats, mentors novelists through her Your Novel Year program, teaches for Drexel University’s MFA program, and is a regular contributor to top writing blog WriterUnboxed. She lives in Doylestown, PA. Find out more at www.kathryncraft.com.

Sadeqa Johnson is the award-winning author of four novels: And Then There Was Me, Second House from the Corner, Love in a Carry-on Bag, and the forthcoming Yellow Wife (Jan. 2021). Her accolades include being the recipient of the National Book Club Award, the Phillis Wheatley Award and the USA Best Book Award for best fiction. She is a Kimbilo Fellow and a former board member of the James River Writers. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children. To learn more, visit www.sadeqajohnson.net.

Jessica Strawser (jessicastrawser.com) is the author of the book club favorites Almost Missed You (a Barnes & Noble Best New Fiction pick), Not That I Could Tell (a Book of the Month bestseller), and Forget You Know Me (now in paperback). Her latest, A Million Reasons Why, is forthcoming in March 2021. She is Editor-at-Large for Writer’s Digest, where she served as editorial director for nearly a decade, a contributing editor at Career Authors, and a popular speaker at writing conferences and book festivals nationwide. Her work has appeared in The New York Times’ Modern Love, Publishers Weekly, and other fine venues. She lives with her husband and two children in Cincinnati, OH, and loves connecting with readers on social media. Read more at https://jessicastrawser.com.

The Tall Poppy Writers is a marketing collective of 40 award-winning and best-selling authors, from across the country and representing a variety of genres, whose mission is to lift up women’s voices in the publishing industry and support literacy through our charitable partner, Room to Read. We do this through strategic partnerships—among them Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Book Trib, and Bedside Reading—as well as our Facebook group for readers, Bloom (www.areyouinbloom.com, nearing 10K members), and other social media initiatives. Founded by Ann Garvin (anngarvin.net) of Madison, WI, the group won the 2019 Wisconsin Innovation Awards for Collaboration and People’s Choice). Read more at www.tallpoppies.org.