Donald Michael Platt was born and raised inside San Francisco. He graduated from prestigious Lowell High School and received his B.A. in History from the University of California at Berkeley. While in graduate school at San Jose State, one of his short stories was published in the college’s literary magazine, THE REED, and won the following awards in the annual SENATIOR PHELAN LITERARY CONTEST: 1st & 2nd in Plays; 1st & 2nd in Essays; 1st & 3rd in Free Verse.

After teaching English and Creative writing at Los Gatos Union High School, he moved to southern California and began his professional writing career. He sold to the TV series, MR. NOVAK, ghosted YOUR HAIR AND YOUR DIET for health food guru, Dan Dale Alexander, and wrote for and with diverse producers, among them as Harry Joe Brown, Sig Schlager, Albert J. Cohn, and Al Ruddy as well as Paul Stader Sr., dean of Hollywood stuntman and stunt/2nd unit director. Also, options were taken on his unpublished WWII fighter ace novel and several treatments.

While living in Hollywood, he married Ellen, who is from Brazil, and he taught creative writing and Advanced placement European History at Farifax High School where he also was Social Studies Department Chairman. After living in Florianópolis, Brazil, setting of A GATHERING OF VULTURES, they moved to Florida where he wrote as a with: VITAMIN ENRICHED, pub.1999, for Carl DeSantis, founder of Rexall Sundown Vitamins; and THE COUPLE’S DISEASE, Finding a Cure for Your Lost “Love” Life, pub. 2002, for Lawrence S. Hakim, MD, FACS, Head of Sexual Dysfunction Unit at the Cleveland Clinic.

Currently, Donald and Ellen reside in Winter Haven, Florida. A GATHERING OF VULTURES, his first novel, was published by DARKHART PRESS in 2007. His magnum opus historical novel, ROCAMORA, set in 17th century Spain and Amsterdam during their Golden Ages, was published by RAVEN'S WING BOOKS on November 30, 2008, and he is working on the sequel to ROCAMORA.

 
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel is the Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian for the Mohegan Tribe. Her great-aunt, Medicine Woman Dr. Gladys Tantaquidgeon, trained her in Tribal oral tradition, traditional lifeways and spiritual beliefs.

After receiving a B.S.F.S. in history/diplomacy from Georgetown University and an M.A. in history from the University of Connecticut, she traveled throughout New England as a storyteller for the Tribe. In 1992, she won the first annual Non-Fiction Award of the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, for her manuscript The Lasting of the Mohegans (Mohegan: Little People Publications, 1995).

Shortly after that, Zobel became the first American Indian appointed by Governor Weicker to the Connecticut Historical Commission. In 1996, she received the first annual Chief Little Hatchet Award, granted for contributions to the success and survival of the Mohegan people.

Zobel has written several books (some under her maiden name Melissa Jayne Fawcett), including Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon (University of Arizona Press, 2000) and a traditional Mohegan children’s story co-authored with Joseph Bruchac, entitled Makiawisug: The Gift of the Little People (Mohegan: Little People Publications, 1997), Oracles: A Novel, a futuristic novel in which the fictional Yantuck Indians must find a way to preserve the natural environment that survives on their reservation. Fire Hollow is her latest novel and will be officially released by RAVEN'S WING BOOKS on February 1, 2010.