Watershed Authors

New authors coming soon ...

Avery Carpenter Forrey

Avery Carpenter Forrey is the author of Social Engagement, which was a GMA Buzz Pick and featured by Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Buzzfeed, and other publications. As Managing Editor at theSkimm, she cowrote the #1 New York Times bestseller How to Skimm Your Life. Her writing has also appeared in The Cut, GQ, and Lit Hub. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU and lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter.

Jacqueline Friedland

Jacqueline Friedland is the USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of both historical and contemporary women’s fiction. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced as a commercial litigator for as long as she could stand it. She then returned to school to earn her Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has been writing ever since.

Jackie’s books have been awarded the 2020 and 2021 gold medals in fiction from Readers’ Favorite. Her novels have also been named the 2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Book of the Year, the SheReads Best Book Club Pick of 2021, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star finalist for 2022. She regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer. Her fifth novel, Counting Backwards, was released by Harper Muse in March 2025.

Jackie lives in Westchester, New York with her husband, four children, and two dogs.

Eileen Flood O'Connor

Eileen Flood O’Connor is a writer and mother of four, the oldest of whom has an autism spectrum disorder. She writes about the challenges and joys of life with a special needs child- and of life in general. Her work has appeared in The Week, The Huff Post, Grown & Flown, The Mighty and other publications. Eileen grew up in Forest Hills, New York. She graduated from the University of Virginia, attended Columbia University’s School of Journalism and holds an MA in English Literature from the University of London. She lives in Rye with her husband, Bill, not so little kids and very large Black Lab, Leo. Her collection of essays, eating, pizza backwards and other adventures, was published on June 24th.

Paula Fung

Paula Fung lives in Rye, NY, along with her husband, and three daughters. She produces Writes & Bites in Rye, a reading salon in her hometown. She also produces a show on public access television, Rye Views, and co-hosts a podcast; Cook and the Comic. Her personal essays are on the things she knows, which are; cooking, sailing, and family life. Her work has been published at the blog Sailing Anarchy and Read 650; “The Kids are Alright”, “Holidays”, “ On Mothers”, and “Jew-ish. Paula is one of the directors of the Literary Festival.

Andrea Atkins Hessekiel

Andrea Atkins Hessekiel is an editor at the Rye Record. She is a journalist working in both the newspaper and magazine industries, has freelanced for more than 30 years for national print and digital publications. Hundreds of her articles and essays have appeared under the byline Andrea Atkins in O, The Oprah Magazine; AARP, The Magazine; The Washington Post, Better Homes & Gardens, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, NextAvenue.com and EverydayHealth.com to name just a few. Over the last decade, Andrea has taught personal essay writing to adults at the Scarsdale Adult School and coached hundreds of high school students on their college essays through her company My College Essay Coach.

Barbara Josselsohn

Barbara Josselsohn is a best-selling author of nine historical and contemporary novels. Her newest book is The Secret Orphanage (Bookouture, 2025), a multigenerational story about an American schoolteacher who becomes embroiled in the French Resistance and a present-day librarian intent on discovering her grandfather’s wartime secrets. Barbara teaches novel and memoir writing at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Westport Writers Workshop, and Scarsdale Library, and has also published hundreds of articles and essays in major and regional publications about family, home and relationships. A member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, she helped found and now coordinates the Scarsdale Library Writers Center, which promotes and supports local writers. Other than writing, her biggest passion is her family: her husband, her three adult kids, and her rescue pup, a mini-schnauzer named Albie. She is currently at work on a new historical novel, with a touch of magical realism, that is scheduled for release in Summer, 2026.

Betsy Lerner

Betsy Lerner is the author of the recently released novel, Shred Sisters (Grove Press, October 2024). She is also the author The Bridge Ladies, The Forest for the Trees and Food and Loathing. With Temple Grandin, she is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions. She received an MFA from Columbia University in Poetry where she was selected as one of PEN’s Emerging Writers. She also received the Tony Godwin Publishing Prize for Editors. After working as an editor for 15 years, she became an agent and is currently a partner with Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency.

Nicole Graev Lipson

Nicole Graev Lipson is the author of the forthcoming memoir-in-essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. Her work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and has been shortlisted several times for The Best American Essays. You can find her at www.nicolegraevlipson.com.

Ann Magalhaes

After completing her BA in Japanese Language and Literature and Spanish Studies at the University of Toronto, and an MBA from Ivey Business School in Canada, Ann spent time working in marketing and consulting. Since 2010 she has been working as a parent educator, most recently with the London-based The Parent Team. She is on the Board of 5 Steps to Five, is a Trustee for Wainwright House and has served on the Heard in Rye committee. She loves meeting with her writing group - The Ten - each week. Ann has lived in Rye since 2013 and is thrilled to be part of the Watershed organization team.

Annabel Monaghan

Annabel Monaghan is the author of two novels for young adults, A Girl Named Digit and Double Digit (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012, 2014). She is also the author of Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big? (Fischer Press 2016), a collection of essays based on her column that appears in The Rye Record. Her first novel for adults, Nora Goes Off Script, was published in June 2022 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, and her second, Same Time Next Summer was published earlier this year. She lives in Rye, NY with her husband and three sons.

Kiera Moran

Kiera Moran is a writer, actor, and comedian born in Rye, New York, and raised in Hong Kong. After attending Rye Middle and High School, she graduated from Wesleyan University in 2024. Her play, LIKEWISE, headlined the Wesleyan Theater Capstone Festival with a fully sold-out run. In 2025, LIKEWISE was selected as a SheNYC Festival Semifinalist and was produced with the New York Theater Festival—making her Off-Broadway acting and playwriting debut. Kiera has performed stand-up and improv at West Side Comedy Club, The Delight Factory, and Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC.

Caren Osten

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a writer, certified positive psychology life coach, meditation teacher, and TedX speaker. For over two decades, she’s been contributing to The New York Times, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, and others, covering health, wellbeing, travel and parenting.

Currently working on a memoir, Caren is also the co-editor, and a contributor to, Drinking Diaries: Women Serve their Stories Straight Up.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Caren holds an MA from New York University, where she is a former professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Based in Larchmont, NY, when she’s not writing, coaching or teaching, Caren is likely hiking, doing yoga, cooking, playing pickleball, and spending time with her husband, dog, and three adult kids.

Alison Cupp Relyea

Alison Cupp Relyea is a writer and educator. She works as the Director of Education and Programming at the Rye Historical Society. In her personal writing projects, she writes personal essays and some fiction and poetry. Alison's first essay collection, Soundtrack: Liner Notes from a Pandemic Mixtape, comes out in Fall 2023 (Mascot Books). Her work can be found at ryehistory.org/stories, The Write Launch, and on her Medium site. Alison loves finding ways to thread humor into her work and bring small moments to life in ways that connect with others. She lives in Rye, NY with her husband and three children. Alison is one of the directors of Watershed.

Sian Roath

After completing her law degree at Durham University, Sian initially worked in publishing as an editor. She subsequently became a human rights lawyer, working with refugees and asylum seekers. Since moving to Rye in 2012, Sian has been been an active member of the Rye Arts Center’s Gallery Committee, a co-chair of their art tours, and a regular contributor to the Rye ex pat newsletter. She is one of the directors of the Literary Festival.

Lee Sandford

Lee is from Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Rye in 2002. Many of you will know her as Lee Sandford, from her outdoor fitness classes at Rye Town Park and the Health and Fitness column she wrote for the Rye Record for fifteen years. As a Chartered Accountant in her twenties, she expressed a desire to write a novel, that has only taken thirty years to fulfill!

Publishing The Glass Pass has meant that 2025 has been ridiculously hard work, but very gratifying. She has been touched at how proud and supportive family and friends have been, in making her publishing dream come true.

Water in Motion: Writing for Stage and Screen

Stuart Zicherman

Stuart Zicherman is a New York based filmmaker who has written on acclaimed TV series such as THE AMERICANS, THE AFFAIR, THE SHRINK NEXT DOOR and SWEETBITTER. He is currently shooting the new season of FX's AMERICAN CRIME STORY about the life of football player Aaron Hernandez. Mr. Zicherman has also written feature films that include Marvel's ELECTRA and the Sundance comedy A.C.O.D. He is currently adapting the hit French movie PAPA AU MAMAN for Netflix, starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman.