Shelly X. Leonn

Shelly X. Leonn is the author of The Broken Series. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Shelly worked at her hometown newspaper in Washington, MO, as the web and youth editor. During her time advising the youth staff, Shelly realized her true calling was to teaching. She applied and was accepted to Teach For America St. Louis as a member of the 2008 corps. Her nine years in St. Louis City education have been spent in middle school and high school language arts classrooms as well as in mid-level administration. She is also an adjunct professor. She and two boys reside in Affton, and she enjoys reading, writing, outdoor activities, anime, video games, and other dorky pastimes. Shelly is represented by Stephanie Hansen at Metamorphosis Literary Agency.

Shelly Books

The Broken Series is a young adult thriller trilogy. Its three installments are The Ghost and the Wolf, Children in the Cage, and Shadows of the Last Fire. A group of teens with damaged pasts seek solace from the real world by exploring abandoned buildings across the city of St. Louis. Forming an organization called The Broken, they use an app to track their locations and progress. However, an unknown foe, much closer to them than they realize, threatens to tear the organization apart. The members will have to fight for their own lives and the lives of their friends before they learn what it truly means to be one of The Broken. 

A spin-off story is currently in progress, as well. Working title The Nefarious Nine, this young adult paranormal novel focuses on one of the main character's siblings and her efforts to save her school for an evil cult attempting to resurrect a thousand-year-old bird deity.

LL Montez 

LL Montez is the author of 2017 Watty winner ARC10. Montez attended a small liberal arts school where she began as a computer science major and swiftly shifted into creative writing after she failed all of her Java classes. While working on her degree, she discovered her love for performance storytelling and was lucky enough to win a few competitions that lured in audiences for her inane torture. After graduation, she interned with Chicago's Free Street Production Company where she toured the inner-city park districts, holding improv workshops for kids. She stumbled into teaching and fell in love. Chicago lost its appeal when winter came around, so Montez absconded to Hawaii where she spent the next six years in the classroom. Eventually, she left the island and returned to Chicago because. . . to be honest, she has no idea why she came back. She still teaches English, but now she's cold all the time. She has a husband and a dog and an insatiable desire to own a bat 🦇.

L Books

LL Montez is the author of ARC10 and is currently working on the second book of the ARC10 trilogy. Captain Janika Lorn wishes for freedom from the binding contract that forces her to participate in her dying civilization's eugenics program. As a last-ditch attempt to skirt the initiative, she enlists as the leader of a refugee ship that will lead the people of Earth to a new planet. Captain Lorn soon realizes that not everything in the safe, unified military-state is what it's chalked up to be.

The second book in the series, HMS Valediction is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2018.

ARC10 is seeking representation.