The Killing Holiday

Kindra M. Austin is an author and co-founder of Indie Blu(e) Publishing. Austin is an advocate for mental health awareness, sexual trauma survivors, and for the LGBTQ community. She writes from the state of Michigan, where she was born and raised. Her debut novel was released in 2017; she has since written and published two other novels, as well as four poetry collections. Other Indie Blu(e) publications include contributions to We Will Not Be Silenced, and SMITTEN; Austin has also written for The Mansfield Pride magazine, an annual periodical out of Ohio. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes and Noble online, and at other major online retailers.

Candice Louisa Daquin is of Sephardi French/Egyptian descent. Born in Europe, Daquin worked in publishing for The U.S., Embassy / Chamber of Commerce before immigrating to the American Southwest to study and become a Psychotherapist, where she has continued writing and editing whilst practicing as a therapist. Daquin has worked at Jewish Community Centers and Rape Crisis Centers both in Texas and Ontario, Canada. Her area of specialization is adults sexually abused as children. Prior to publishing her own poetry collections, Daquin regularly wrote for the poetry periodicals: Rattle and The Northern Poetry Review. Daquin is Senior Editor at Indie Blu(e) Publishing, a feminist micro-press. Writer-in-Residence for Borderless Journal. Editor of Poetry & Art for The Pine Cone Review. Editor, for Blackbird Press. Daquin's poetic work takes its form from the confessional women poets of the 19th and 20th century as well as queer authors writing from the 1950's onward. Her career(s) teaching critical thinking and practicing as a psychotherapist, have heavily influenced her work, with explored key themes including; sexual-abuse, parental-relationships, mental illness and queer-identity. Daquin's work is also significantly imprinted by Audre Lorde, Françoise Sagan, Angela Carter, activist Egyptian physician Nawal El Saadawi, Navdanya seed bank creator/campaigner Vandana Shiva, Pablo Neruda, Israeli PM Golda Mier, Toni Morrison and feminist philosophers bell hooks, Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray.As a queer woman of mixed ethnicity and passionate feminist beliefs concerning equality, Daquin's poetry is her body of evidence.