Veena Rao was born and raised in India but calls Atlanta home. A journalist by profession, she is the founding editor and publisher of NRI Pulse, a popular Indian-American newspaper. Although her day job involves news reports, interviews, and meeting press deadlines, she devotes her spare time to creative writing and long walks in the woods.  Purple Lotus, her debut novel, is the winner of the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest. https://www.veenaspulse.com/

Dr. Veronica Slaughter was born in the Philippines to an American father and a Filipino mother in 1951. At eight, she, along with her siblings, were kidnapped by their father and brought to the United States. In spite of her turbulent childhood, she was able to achieve the American Dream through her resilience and determination. In 2017, she retired from her thirty-five-year chiropractic practice in California and moved to the beautiful island of Maui, where she continues to live with her many animals. She has one son; he lives in Northern California and is the love of her life. https://veronicaslaughter.com