Meet the Shadows and Secrets Team
Shadows and Secrets began when we (Kerry and Sam) wanted to make the writing retreat that we wanted to attend, so we decided to make it happen. (This is what happens when you put two creative people with manager brains who love the same things in a room together!)
We are both book coaches and writers who love reading and coaching mystery, thriller, and suspense, aka scary stories that keep us up at night. We love haunted house stories (and haunted houses), Gothic horror, books about serial killers, and delicious murder mysteries.
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A voracious reader of all kinds of fiction, Kerry Savage (she/her) is an Author Accelerator certified book coach who works with novelists from the planning stages through revision, helping writers get their best book ready for the world. She is also a journalism school grad and recovering project manager, as well as being hard at work on her second novel.
She serves as a volunteer mentor for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and Sisters in Crime (SinC). She loves good wine, cheese, and trying to keep her succulents alive.
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A fan of the scary, mysterious, and suspenseful, Samantha Skal (she/her) is the Executive Director of ThrillerFest, and an Author Accelerator certified book coach who specializes in coaching mystery, thriller and suspense authors from novel planning through the delightful hell that is revision. Her superpower as a coach is brainstorming twists without ground-up rewrites, and she recently released a standalone mini-course for blocked thriller writers: Find Your Final Twist.
An enthusiast of homemade sourdough and cheese of all kinds, Sam is an agented author who writes stories that keep her up at night and lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.