Historical Novel Society
New York City Chapter
Our Leadership
Events are made possible by our team of Leaders, listed alphabetically here by last name.
Interested in getting involved? Contact us at info@hnsnyc.org
​
​
Christina Britton Conroy, MA, CMT, LCAT, Membership Outreach, Benefits Committee (she/her)
Award-winning novelist/screenwriter/singer/actor/Irish harpist/Certified Music Therapist/Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, Christina Britton Conroy has many passions. Her first novel and audiobook, One Man’s Music, received critical acclaim. Her 4-book Victorian novel series, His Majesty’s Theatre including 1. Not From the Stars, 2. But From Thine Eyes, 3. Truth and Beauty, and 4. Beauty's Doom won the International Book Excellence Award. Her non-fiction, How to have Fun with Your Aging Parents was an Amazon bestseller, and National League of American Pen Women competition winner. Her screenplay adaptation of From the Shadow was produced in Hong Kong. She is also a classically trained singer/actor and has performed around the globe. Her nonprofit, Music Gives Life, won her NY1 TV News’ NYer Of The Week. Her steamy novel, One Man's Music book & audiobook and other books can be found on her website:
www.ChristinaBrittonConroy.com
Stephanie Cowell, HNS-NYC Chair is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart and Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet. She is the recipient of an American Book Award. Her next novel (June 2023) is The Boy in the Rain, an Edwardian love story of two men, a shy young artist and a rising socialist speaker. Her work has been translated into nine languages. Stephanie’s website is www.stephaniecowell.com
​
Loretta Goldberg, Member Outreach, Benefits Committee
Author of an award-winning debut novel, The Reversible Mask: An Elizabethan Spy Novel, published by MadeGlobal Publishing, Australian-American Loretta Goldberg came to the USA after earning a BA (Hons.) in English Literature, Musicology and History at the University of Melbourne. Her first career was as a musician. Her CDs are in over 700 libraries. Her published non-fiction consists of arts reviews and political satire. For HNS-NYC, she started the chapter’s published writer public reading series at the Jefferson Market Library in 2018. Website: www.lorettagoldberg.com
​
Faith L. Justice, Promotions and Member Outreach writes award-winning fiction and articles in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared in such publications as Salon.com, Writer’s Digest, and The Copperfield Review. Her most recent book of ten is Becoming the Twilight Empress a prequel novella to her Theodosian Women biographical historical series. She’s past Chair of the New York City Chapter of the Historical Novel Society (2017-2022) and Associate Editor for Space and Time Magazine. For fun, Faith likes to dig in the dirt—her garden and various archaeological sites. Sample her work, check out her blog, or ask Faith a question at her website: www.faithljustice.com/
Sarah Relyea, Promotions is the author of Playground Zero, a coming-of-age novel about the 1960s. Sarah grew up in Berkeley and Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. She would soon swap California's psychedelic scene to study English literature at Harvard. A PhD who has taught at universities in New York and Taiwan, she has long addressed questions of identity in her writing, including in her book of literary criticism, Outsider Citizens: The Remaking of Postwar Identity in Wright, Beauvoir, and Baldwin. Along the way, she has worked as a literary manager for an Off-Broadway theater, a GRE test developer for the Educational Testing Service, and an English tutor for Japanese professionals in New York. Sarah lives in Brooklyn, New York, and continues to spend time in Northern California, where she and her partner enjoy the redwood canyons. Visit Sarah at: www.sarahrelyea.com.
​
Ursula Renée, Member Outreach, Benefits Committee writes historical fiction set in the early to mid-twentieth century, when people began challenging society's conventions and expressing their individuality. Her first novel, Sweet Jazz, has been called “a sweet romantic story that like jazz has propulsive rhythms played out in harmonic freedom" and its sequel, Bitter Blues, is considered “a realistic plot that a lot of people can relate too.”
Besides writing, Ursula enjoys stone carving and photography.
​
Julieta Almeida Rodrigues, Member Outreach, Benefits Committee became a multi award-winning author with her debut novel, Eleonora and Joseph. Passion, Tragedy, and Revolution in the Age of Enlightenment (New Academia Publishing). Besides being a Book Excellence Award Nominee in the Europe category 2024, she is also the Fiction Winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award December, 2023, the Historical Fiction Winner, Maincrest Media Book Award, 2023, and the Fiction Winner, Hollywood Book Festival, 2023. In 2022, she won the Grand Prize, Goethe Awards for Late Historical Fiction, which recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in Post-1750s Historical Fiction. Among others, Eleonora and Joseph has been highly praised by Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly. Born and raised in Portugal, Rodrigues earned a PhD at Columbia University, where the renowned Margaret Mead was her dissertation sponsor. Rodrigues is the author of two collections of short fiction, The Rogue and Other Portuguese Stories and On the Way to Red Square (both also by New Academia Publishing). The latter is a fictionalized account of her life in the diplomatic circles of Moscow in the 1980s. She also published a narrative work about Sintra, Portugal, titled Hora Crepuscular/Drawing Dusk/La Hora Crepuscular (Agir, Execução Gráfica). She is a member of the Pen Club of Portugal and the Fulbright Commission Team of Evaluators in Portugal (2014 Prize for International Cooperation, the Prince of Asturias Foundation). She has taught at the University of Lisbon and at Georgetown University, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the New School (twice). She has spoken at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, The Chawton House Library in the United Kingdom, The International Conference on the Short Story, The American Portuguese Studies Association, the Historical Writers of America, and The Chanticleer International Conference, among other institutions and cultural societies. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Historical Novel Society New York City Chapter and co-managed its Guest Speaker Program at the Jefferson Market Library from 2016 to 2020. She divides her time between Portugal and the United States.
​
Susan Wands, Steering Committee, Promotions, is a writer, tarot reader, and actor. She graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in theater and women's studies and has acted professionally across the United States and on Broadway. Her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was produced at the Cornish Institute in Seattle and she has written plays, screenplays, and skits, produced several indie films and was a company member in Rumble in the Red Room, an off-Broadway troupe, for four years. As a member of the Steering Committee of the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, she helps produce monthly online book launches and author panels. She has lectured at two Occulture Conferences in Berlin on the subject of tarot and in London, she has lectured at Watkins Books for their Recorded Authors series, and at Atlantis Books. Ms. Wands' writings have appeared in Art in Fiction, Kindred Spirits magazine, and The Irving Society journal, First Knight. Some of her podcast interviews include: "Morbid Anatomy", 'Biddy Tarot', ‘Imaginary Worlds’, ‘Bad Ass Bitches Tarot’, and the ‘Spirited Tarot’ YouTube channel. She lives in NYC with her husband, actor Robert Petkoff, and two cats, Flora and Flynn. Her identical twin sister, Cynthia, lives in Los Angeles. Her first book in a series, Magician and Fool, Book One Arcana Oracle Series, will be published in May 2023 by SparkPress. High Priestess and Empress, is the second in the series and Emperor and Hierophant, the third book, is in final edits.
​
Lisa J. Yarde, Programming Chair, writes fiction inspired by the Middle Ages in Europe. She is the author of the Order of the Dragon, the first book in a new series that explores the family of the real Dracula. She has also written a six-part series set in Moorish Spain, Sultana, where rivalries and ambitions threaten the last Muslim dynasty to rule Moorish Spain. The first title of the series is available in several languages.
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@lisajyarde