Ear­li­er this week, Emi­ly Liebert wrote about how her fas­ci­na­tion with secrets led to her career in fic­tion. With the pub­li­ca­tion of her lat­est nov­el, The Secrets We Keep, she is guest blog­ging as this week’s Vis­it­ing Scribe on The ProsenPeo­ple.

Jen­nifer Weiner

She’s a num­ber one New York Times best­selling author. She’s the author of twelve nov­els. She throws down with Jonathan Franzen. And she live tweets The Bach­e­lor. What’s not to love? I’ve long been a fan of Jennifer’s — her sar­don­ic wit, her flawed yet authen­tic char­ac­ters, and her writ­ing style, which is bold, yet relat­able. But what I admire most about Jen­nifer is her con­fi­dence. She refus­es to be bul­lied and that’s a mes­sage worth spreading.

Ger­a­lyn Lucas

When I first met Ger­a­lyn she was can­cer-free. I worked as an intern for her at 20/20 on ABC the sum­mer she was diag­nosed. To date, I have nev­er seen some­one fight can­cer with such eter­nal opti­mism and such an open heart. It’s with this same spir­it that she wrote her first book, Why I Wore Lip­stick to My Mas­tec­to­my, which was not only poignant and pow­er­ful, but fun­ny at the same time. That’s Ger­a­lyn. Most recent­ly, she wrote her sec­ond book Then Came Life, a trib­ute to sur­vivors of all kinds. Ger­a­lyn is also a wife, moth­er, an award-win­ning pro­duc­er, and a women’s health advo­cate. If that’s not inspir­ing, I’m not sure what is.

Lau­ra Dave

A crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed nov­el­ist who wrote a book about wine coun­try? Now that’s my kind of girl! I was recent­ly intro­duced to Laura’s nov­els through a mutu­al friend and was instant­ly hooked. Lau­ra has a unique tal­ent for devel­op­ing both her char­ac­ters and her sto­ry so that you’re drawn in from the first page. She also leaves you des­per­ate for more once you’ve fin­ished. Not to men­tion that her work has been pub­lished in fif­teen coun­tries and three of her four books have been optioned for the big screen.

Elyssa Fried­land

This is one smart lady. A grad­u­ate of Yale under­grad, Elyssa worked as a lawyer after grad­u­at­ing from Colum­bia Law School. She also wrote for some major mag­a­zines before pen­ning her debut book Love and Miss Com­mu­ni­ca­tion which asks read­ers to imag­ine life with­out the Inter­net. And with­out social media. She had me there. But once I found out she loves, French fries, ice cream, piz­za, wine, and Scrab­ble, I thought per­haps I’d stum­bled upon my soul mate.

Susan Jane Gilman

I hate doing read­ings. For one, I’m more of an off-the-cuff kind of gal. But beyond that, I feel like it’s always bor­ing for my audi­ence. Not so with Susan. I attend­ed a read­ing of hers short­ly after she pub­lished The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street and was mes­mer­ized. It was noth­ing short of bril­liant, as is her writ­ing. I imme­di­ate­ly bought all of her oth­er books and devoured them. And I’d strong­ly rec­om­mend you do the same!

Emi­ly Liebert is the best­selling author of You Knew Me When, When We Fall, Face­book Fairy­tales, and Those Secrets We Keep, pub­lished Sum­mer 2015.

Relat­ed Content:

• Janis Cooke New­man’s Top 5 (Recent) His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion Novels
• Nora Gold: Feed­ing Oth­er Writ­ers, and Myself
• Ellen Feld­man: Am I a Jew­ish Writer or a Writer Who Hap­pens to Be Jewish?