Nellie Wilson

June Lehrer needs to shut off her brain for a week to make a huge decision. Having taught middle school through a global pandemic, she is reconsidering the career she spent years working towards just in time to accompany 150 students to their annual retreat at Camp Peek-n-See. The last thing she needs is to make out with the new camp director Colin on the first night of camp, but when have the last three years ever gone according to plan? Tucked away in the aspens, June and Colin find a connection that neither of them expected to burn as bright as it does. But camp is just for five days, and the real world is waiting down the mountain... Featuring camp fires, a large grey cat, good coffee, and a healthy bit of steam, this story is about chasing what feels right and figuring out your path, even when it feels inconvenient and overwhelming.

Emmy Bonaire has built a successful career as a historian by anticipating the worst outcome and avoiding it at all costs. What she couldn’t foresee was her history museum having to combine with the science museum across campus. Even worse, Emmy now has to share an office and design an exhibition with an annoyingly attractive fellow curator, Dr. Ryan Andersson, a paleontologist whose optimism is only topped by Emmy’s skepticism of him. Ryan considers himself a likeable guy. That is, until he meets Emmy. She seems immune to his midwestern charm and attempts at professional collaboration. Not one to let something go, Ryan embarks on a personal campaign for Emmy to like him. For the museum’s sake, of course. Not at all because the gruff historian piques his interest. As Emmy and Ryan evolve from begrudging co-workers to steamy stolen kisses in the archives, their academic work benefits as well. But when their collaborative exhibition becomes critical to both of their successes—while their career goals become further unaligned—extinction seems imminent.

Phoebe Whitford has mostly drifted through life, grateful that without a set plan, she completed graduate school, settled into a career, and become the go-to advice giver for her people. But after first watching her brother and then her best friend fall in love, she’s wondering when - or if - it will ever be her turn. One night, at the bar she’s been frequenting for years, Phoebe asks her favorite bartender a question that changes everything. Declan McFadden loves his bar. It may not have been the dream his family had for him, but he’s built a life he’s proud of, cobbled together like the tattoos on his body. Six years ago, he asked Phoebe out and she responded with silence. Content with being friends, he still gets a buzz every time she visits. When Phoebe proposes an arrangement between them, he agrees, grateful for any time with her can get. Maybe away from the bar, they could become something more. The more time they spend together, the more Phoebe and Dec learn about their individual desires and struggles. How can two independent people rely on each other to help them make their best futures? And does that future include each other? Educated is a story about figuring out what it means to be an adult as a millennial, setting boundaries with careers, friends, and family, and being open to doing it with a partner by your side.

I’m used to people writing me off as a joke, a peppy blonde with a Southern accent who couldn’t possibly know anything. But this is my spring. I’ve got a fully-funded two weeks to chase tornadoes and no one is getting in my way. Everything is organized and perfect until Julian Lehrer shows up as my co-pilot all summer. We’ve bounced in and out of each other’s lives for almost a decade, and if I know two things, it’s that I’m a damn good scientist and he is the second coming of Satan. It doesn’t help that I have a history of both wanting to strangle and kiss him. Violet Franklin is the pink and glittered star of my nightmares. We disagree about everything except the fact that we cannot stand each other. I did not anticipate spending two weeks chasing tornadoes with her. I also didn’t realize we’d end up teaming up against our two idiot funders and that watching her drive an SUV would turn me on so much. It’s harder and harder to remember why we started fighting in the first place, and easier and easier to remember how we’ve ended up half naked with each other in years past. When mistakes and miscommunication begin to pile up, Violet and Julian are drawn closer and closer – anyone can see that a storm is coming.