Fiction 2026
Founding Honorary Chair
Photo by Nina Subin
Alafair Burke
Founding Honorary Chair
Alafair Burke is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novels include THE NOTE, FIND ME, THE BETTER SISTER, THE WIFE, and THE EX which was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
THE BETTER SISTER, her electric thriller, is now a series on Prime Video starring Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel. She is also co-author of the bestselling UNDER SUSPICION series with Mary Higgins Clark.
Alafair currently serves as the President of Mystery Writers of America, the first woman of color to be elected to that position.
A former prosecutor, she teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan and East Hampton. For more information, visit alafairburke.com
Guests of Honor
Mike Stoner Photography
Jack Carr
Guest of Honor
Jack Carr is a former Navy SEAL who led special operations teams as a team leader, platoon commander, troop commander, and task unit commander. Over his twenty years in Naval Special Warfare, he transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper to a junior officer leading assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in the southern Philippines, to commanding a special operations task unit in the most Iranian influenced section of southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of US Forces.
Jack retired from active duty in 2016 and lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah.
He is the author of THE TERMINAL LIST, TRUE BELIEVER, SAVAGE SON, THE DEVIL’S HAND, IN THE BLOOD, ONLY THE DEAD, RED SKY MOURNING, and TARGETED: BEIRUT. His debut novel, THE TERMINAL LIST, was adapted into the #1 Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated Danger Close podcast.
Follow Jack on Instagram, X, and Facebook @JackCarrUSA
Attica Locke
GUEST OF HONOR
Attica Locke is a New York Times best-selling author whose sixth novel GUIDE ME HOME, the finale of her Edgar-Award winning Highway 59 trilogy, joins BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD and HEAVEN, MY HOME.
She is also the author of PLEASANTVILLE, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction; THE CUTTING SEASON, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and her debut BLACK WATER RISING, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer.
Her credits include Empire, When They See Us, and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir From Scratch for Netflix. She is currently in a multi-year development deal with Universal Television, working on adaptation of her Highway 59 series, among other shows.
She has served on the board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, been an advisor at the Sundance Labs, and a visiting writer at several universities. She is currently a judge for the 2025 National Book Awards.
Photo by Brian James
Lisa Unger
GUEST OF HONOR
Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty-two novels. Her next novel, SERVED HIM RIGHT, will be published by Park Row Books in March 2026.
With books published in thirty-three languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense. Her critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists by the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly,
People, Amazon, Goodreads, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many other media outlets.
She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards, including The Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations in the same year, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie.
Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, NPR, and Travel+Leisure.
Lisa is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family. Lisa can also be seen on Tampa Bay’s Morning Blend. Find out more www.lisaunger.com and follow her on Instagram @launger and Facebook @authorlisaunger
Featured authors
Julie Clark
Featured Author
Julie Clark is the New York Times bestselling author of THE GHOSTWRITER, THE LIES I TELL, and THE LAST FLIGHT. Her books have been #1 international bestsellers, have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and have been praised by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, People, and many more.
She lives in Los Angeles with her family and her dogs.
May Cobb
Featured Author
May Cobb is the bestselling author of THE HUNTING WIVES, now a hit Netflix series, as well as ALL THE LITTLE HOUSES (coming in January 2026), THE HOLLYWOOD ASSISTANT, MY SUMMER DARLINGS, A LIKEABLE WOMAN, and BIG WOODS.
Her books have received attention from Book of The Month, The Today Show, O, The Oprah Magazine, and more. She has an M.A. from San Francisco State University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Texas Highways, and more.
She lives in Austin with her family.
Carrianne Photography
Charlie Donlea
Featured Author
Charlie Donlea is the USA Today, IndieBound, and #1 internationally bestselling author of critically acclaimed, propulsive thrillers including TWENTY YEARS LATER, THE GIRL WHO WAS TAKEN, THOSE EMPTY EYES, GUESS AGAIN, and the forthcoming BEHIND EVERY FACE (August 2026).
Published in nearly 40 countries and translated into more than a dozen languages, his books have sold nearly 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. Donlea has been praised for his “soaring pace, teasing plot twists” (BookPage) and talent for writing an ending that “makes your jaw drop” (The New York Times Book Review).
He was born and raised in Chicago, where he continues to live with his family. Visit him online at CharlieDonlea.com.
David Ellis
Featured Author
David Ellis is a judge and a #1 New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of eleven novels of crime fiction, as well as eleven books co-authored with James Patterson. His novels have been translated into more than ten languages worldwide.
He has served as a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court since 2014. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children.
Sulari Gentill
Featured Author
Sulari Gentill is a USA Today bestselling author of THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY and THE MYSTERY WRITER. She lives with her husband, Michael, and their sons, Edmund and Atticus, on a small farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, where she grows French Black Truffles and writes.
In addition, Gentill was a Mary Higgins Clark Award winner in 2024, an Edgar Award nominee in 2023, a 2-time Ned Kelly Award winner, a #1 LibraryReads Selection in June 2022, and a LibraryReads Selection in March 2024 and August 2025.
Photo by Melissa Hurwitz
Gregg Hurwitz
Featured Author
Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 26 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages.
Gregg currently serves as the Co-President of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he’s written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, and is an award-winning documentary producer. Gregg also wrote comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, and poetry.
Currently, Gregg is working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he’s penned dozens of op-eds and pieces for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark, Salon, and others, and pieces of creative content which have won numerous industry awards and achieved several hundred million views on digital TV platforms. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup.
Irina Peschan Photography
Alex Segura
Featured Author
Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of SECRET IDENTITY, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and an NPR Best Mystery of the Year.
He’s also the author of the acclaimed Pete Fernandez series, as well as the Star Wars novel, POE DAMERON: FREE FALL, and the YA Spider-Verse adventure, ARAÑA/SPIDER-MAN 2099: DARK TOMORROW. In 2024, he published a sci-fi/espionage novel, DARK SPACE, co-written with Rob Hart; the graphic novel THE LEGENDARY LYNX, illustrated by Sandy Jarrell; ENCANTO: NIGHTMARES AND SUEÑOS; and ALTER EGO, a standalone sequel to SECRET IDENTITY.
ALTER EGO was an instant USA Today bestseller, featured in Cosmopolitan, Parade, The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and described as “thrilling” by the Wall Street Journal.
In addition to his prose writing he has written a number of comics for Marvel and DC, including STAR WARS: BATTLE OF JAKKU, SPIDER-SOCIETY, and THE QUESTION: ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER. With Michael Moreci he is the writer behind the noir re-launch of DICK TRACY. He lives in New York City with his family.
Photo by David Bickley
Brendan Slocumb
Featured Author
Brendan Nicholaus Slocumb was raised in Fayetteville, NC, and holds a degree in music education (with concentrations in violin and viola) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
For more than twenty years he has been a public and private school music educator and has performed with orchestras throughout northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. He is currently based in DC.
Kate White
FEATURED AUTHOR
Kate White is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of eleven standalone psychological thrillers, including the upcoming I CAME BACK FOR YOU (March 2026), and eight Bailey Weggins mysteries, including SUCH A PERFECT WIFE, which was nominated for an International Thriller Writers Award.
Kate, the former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, is also the author of several bestselling books on career success. Her books have been published in over 30 countries.