If you missed them the first time around you can catch up on the various authors featured in our weekly updated WRiter Spotlight Column in February, below.

Sophie Kinsella
If you enjoy a nice British setting, romance, comedy, or any combination of the three, you will love Sophie Kinsella. Her novels are, for the most part, light and fun. They almost always feature a female main character who finds herself in an extraordinary pickle because of one small thing that snowballs out of control. Her heroines are not meant to be supermodels or living otherwise luxurious lifestyles, but are written as normal women, with normal problems. One is addicted to shopping for things she can’t afford. Another tries running away from the world when she makes a mistake at work. Yet another spills all of her secrets to a perfect stranger, who might not really be a stranger after all. The inner monologues of all of these characters is just as funny as their experiences with other characters. Kinsella writes in a way that makes you picture the perfect chick flick, which is probably why most of her novels have had the film rights sold (although only one has actually been produced)...
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Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott led a colorful life as a girl in nineteenth century New England. Her family was usually poor and she started working at an early age. She worked as a seamstress, a governess, teacher, and wrote sketches that were published in several magazines. When the American Civil War broke out, she worked as a nurse, and the letters that she sent home were published to much critical acclaim. She was a firm feminist and the first woman in Concord, Massachusetts to register to vote. Her family even hid escaped slaves in their home for a while. The Alcott family frequently spent time with famous writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, because their father was a close friend of his. Having so many writers and other academics in and out of their home is probably what helped foster Louisa May‘s love for writing...
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Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson is, first of all, a brilliant story teller. She has a gift for taking what would normally be a typical teen story and making it something exotic and memorable. A girl reconnecting with her father is nothing new, but set it on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea where they are searching for a sunken ship, and it becomes fresh. Best friends turning on each other in high school? Could be a typical spat over popularity… or, one of them could have made a deal with a demon. See what I mean? Maureen knows what she‘s doing. Second of all, and this was a big selling point for me, is that she knows how to write sarcastically. Sarcasm can be difficult for some people to pull off on the page. The tone doesn‘t always come across correctly. Maureen, though, is a master at it. She knows how to throw in dry jokes, witty come backs, even her characters‘ internal musings can be laced with subtle hints of it. This sarcasm is evident in Maureen‘s own personality (if you follow her on twitter or have read the FAQs on her website, you know what I mean), and I love that this little part of her is so evident in her style. It makes her novels unique...
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Charles Dickens
Even though some of his writing can be difficult to dissect, Charles Dickens wrote brilliantly, and often helped his readers along. His work is known for its detail. He compared people to pieces of furniture, could spend whole pages describing their dress, and gave them names that would help to evoke the attitude the reader was supposed to have in connection with the character. He has also created some of the most memorable characters in all of literary history, at least, so far. Ebenezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield all sprang from his imagination...
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