Board of Directors & Advisors

…is an International author whose first novel Plan C: Just in Case, published by Bloomsbury (January 2012) was a #1 best-seller in the UK. It remained in the top three for e-book fiction (Amazon) that entire year before selling hardcover into foreign translation markets. In America, (July 2014) her novel again reached #1 on the Nook “Daily Deal” outselling both James Patterson and Donna Tart.   

Ms. Cahall’s second novel Court of the Myrtles (Bloomsbury) was hailed as “Tuesdays with Morrie on estrogen,” by Ladies Home Journal.

In 2015 Ms. Cahall Founded the 1^st annual Palm Beach Book Festival which brings in New York Times best-selling and celebrity authors. James Patterson is the Festival’s Honorary Chairman. In 2018, an annual Children’s festival was added: The Young Readers of the Palm Beach Book Festival.  In 2020 she was named Creative Director of Development for James Patterson Entertainment (JPE.)

Ms. Cahall has written for women’s magazines – including Redbook, Seventeen, SELF, Marie Claire, Ladies Home Journal, Reader’s Digest, Men’s Journal, and Bon Appetit. In the UK she’s written for RED, GQ and Psychologies magazines, and for the London Times. In 2010 Ms. Cahall pursued her mission of addressing issues in women’s daily lives as a host of TV’s ABC News’ Top Priority and occasional host of GMA Now.  Locally to Palm Beach, she wrote multiple profiles for the Palm Beach Post.

Ms. Cahall resides in New York, although her spiritual home is London.  But most importantly, she can do the Hula Hoop non-stop for an hour, and clear a Thanksgiving table in just under ten minutes. 

is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military and more than seventy million dollars to support education, as well as  endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. The National Book Foundation recently presented Patterson with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and six Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.

relocated to America from London, England to continue his role as Director of Technology at Barclays in New York City. In a career spanning over twenty years in international Finance and Technology, he has held numerous leadership positions at global financial institutions, as well as being Principal of his own successful technology consulting practice.

Mr. Burditt recently purchased a home in El Cid, West Palm Beach where he hopes to become more involved in philanthropic and community pursuits.

is currently president of Royal Palm Management, a commercial property management firm in Palm Beach. He was born in Memphis, TN. After graduating from the Woodberry Forest School and Vanderbilt University, he began his business career at Presidential Bank in Sarasota, and later joined his father, Edward in business in Palm Beach. Mark serves on the boards of Hospice Foundation of Palm Beach, Hospice of Palm Beach County Foundation, Town of Palm Beach United Way, Max Planck Florida Foundation, South Florida PBS, Palm Beach Civic Association and the Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adults.

currently serves as the Principal of the Polo Park Middle School in Wellington.  He formerly served the western-most community of Palm Beach County, “The Glades Community,” as the Principal of Pahokee Middle Senior High School, in Pahokee, Florida, a Title I, International Baccalaureate High School.

His innate ability to be an innovative and effective leader has brought him through the ranks from classroom teacher, to the position of Assistant Principal, to Principal. His goal as an educator is to increase student achievement to make a better tomorrow for the entire world.

During his first year as the Principal of Pahokee Middle-Senior High School-middle school campus, he raised the school letter grade from a ‘D’ to a ‘C’ and he continues his pursuit of breaking barriers for all students.

In 2017, he was honored by the Glades Community where he received the prestigious Community Service Award. He has received the distinction of being chosen to present at the Marzano-Learning Science International, where he shared his expertise on low-performing schools. His schools have been chosen as Marzano Demonstration sites by Learning Sciences International, where teachers from across the country are brought to visit.

Aronson currently serves as a member of the Palm Beach County Administrators Association, the Florida Association of School Administrators (FASA), and the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Mr. Aronson is “elated” at the opportunity to be a part of the Palm Beach Book Festival’s Board of Advisor’s in his quest of providing literacy for all students.

has loved books since early in childhood and the days of Ludwig Bemelman’s Madeline.  But there was 101 Dalmations, too…or pretty much any book that allowed her to escape to underdogs and far off places that caught her attention.  Dr. Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go! was a book she read repeatedly for tongue twisters and rhymes.   In high school it was the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series and Dewey the Cat about a small town library cat who touched the world.  In college there was Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, a young adult novel that tells the story of a High School freshman ostracized by her peers.    So it only seems fitting that Maxine would join her mother, a.k.a. Founder of the Palm Beach Book Festival, in heading the Young Readers Festival, an annual event for impoverished middle school children in which celebrity authors come in to ‘get kids reading!’  

For almost a decade, Maxine has been a motivated, enthusiastic and caring multitasker delivering exceptional guest relations across a variety of roles in hospitality. She started at The Breakers Resort in Palm Beach and has spent the past several years at The Colony Hotel where she’s been promoted to Guest Services Manager.  She’s won Employee of the Month several times as well as voted @ 88% of the Forbes List of all hotel employees.    Maxine loves her community of Palm Beach County and looks forward to growing the children’s festival with Board  members Michael Aronson, High School Principal; Lois Cahall, Founder & Creative Director; and James Patterson, our Honorary Chairman. 

has authored 13 books, including two with veteran actor Robert Wagner: The New York Times bestsellers You Must Remember This (published March 2014) Pieces of My Heart (published 2008), and the Times bestseller John Wayne: Life and Legend.

Among his other books are Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille, which won the 2011 Richard Wall Memorial Book Award, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford, Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, and The Speed of Sound (all Simon & Schuster).

He has lectured extensively around the world, most frequently at the National Film Theater in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moscow Film Theater. He’s done the commentary tracks for many DVD’s, including “Trouble in Paradise,” “My Darling Clementine,” and “Stagecoach.”

Scott also writes book reviews for The Wall Street Journal, and has written for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant. He’s the former literary and art critic for The Palm Beach Post; he and his wife, Lynn, live in West Palm Beach.

is the author of eight New York Times and international best-selling thrillers. He is also the co-author of five number one bestsellers with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury and Lifeguard. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.Gross‘s recent books have been historical thrillers, with The One Man based on family stories in the Holocaust, and The Saboteur fictionalizing an Allied raid to prevent Nazi Germany’s development of an atomic bomb. Button Man, based on his grandfather’s experiences in New York’s garment industry during the Depression, is his latest novel.

Leigh Haber is Books Editor for O, the Oprah Magazine and oprahmag.com.  She is a curator/coordinator of Oprah’s Book Club with Apple. As a lifelong member of the book industry, Leigh has worked as an editor and publicity director.  Among the authors she’s worked with are Al Gore, Steve Martin, Alice Walker, Terry Gross, Lou Reed, Jimmy Buffett, Gloria Naylor, Bill Maher, and many others.  She began her career as a copy aide for the book reviewing section of The Washington Post. She lives in Maplewood New Jersey and is the mother of two.

President, Saffer Retail Inc.

In 1968 Morris founded Saffer Advertising, which grew to be North America’s largest agency specializing in retail advertising and marketing. Morris Saffer co founded the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) in Chicago and served as its Chairman for 25 years.He also founded the Retail Advertising Club of Toronto.

In 1977 Morris was the youngest, and only Canadian, to be inducted into the American Retail Advertising Hall of Fame.  He was named ‘Marketer of the Decade’ in 1990.  The Retail Council of Canada’s Marketing division honored Morris with its inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

In 2000 Morris became an investor, and acting CMO, in the 7 store David’s Bridal retail chain in the USA, helping guide it to over 300 stores and a 47% share of the US bridal market.

He is a Board Certified Matrimonial and Family Law Attorney. In addition to his law practice, Mr. Shalhoub teaches several legal courses at Palm Beach State College. Mr. Shalhoub is a frequent lecturer at seminars on business valuations and custody concerns and an author on parent alienation syndrome and other family law issues. Mr. Shalhoub has been listed in the top 5 percent of Law and Leading Attorney’s in Florida. He is in Who’s Who in American Law from 1992 through present. He has also received the highest rating for an attorney by Martindale Hubble as well as being recognized for high professional legal standards and ethics by the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.

Mr. Shalhoub has won several awards including The Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award from the 15th Judicial Circuit in 1992, Outstanding Young Men of America Award, The Juvenile Law Award from the Palm Beach County Bar Association and Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County in 1989. In 2000, he received the first ever “…And Justice for All” award from the Legal Aid Society for his contribution to the community, its residents and to the Law.

My love of reading was apparent at an early age when my mother’s nightly exhortations to “turn off the light” were invariably met with “just let me finish this sentence…”, which actually meant the whole book.

I began my career as a copywriter for Sheraton Hotels and went on to become Group Creative Head at Saatchi & Saatchi, Bermuda where I enticed people into all manner of vacation fun and frivolity with my witty and captivating copy for American Airlines and the Bermuda Department of Tourism. In 1993 I moved to Palm Beach, FL where as Chief Creative Officer of Wilesmith Advertising & Design I continued to dazzle with advertising that made an endless cornucopia of products and services irresistible – sometimes irrationally so – to the consumerist masses. I must have done something right because my work has won over 300 awards that are now in storage somewhere. My better self is on the board of the Arts Creation Foundation For Children in Jacmel, Haiti, FL, a SCORE volunteer (Mentors to America’s Small Businesses), a Guardian ad Litem in training, and author of “Not Just for Fortune 500 Companies Anymore: The Importance of Branding for Non-Profits” published in the PR News Guide to Best Practices in Nonprofit Communications. My “What’s It all about, Alfie?” moment prompted me to earn my Masters of Science in Strategic Communications at Columbia University in New York City. I was their token senior citizen. I plan to go into the sunset teaching young communications aspirants what it took me 30 years to learn. (As a guest lecturer at Cal State U, I was called “wicked awesome!”)

On a Proustian note, my favorite past time is standing in drugstores reading magazines. My pet peeve is people who leave the supermarket cart in the parking lot. My motto is “Brevity is the soul of wit” although you wouldn’t know it from this bio. My favorite punctuation is the ellipsis…

…was an avid sailor, pilot, and best-selling & award winning writer of multiple books. His non-fiction includes: Blue Water and Green Skipper, which was an account of his Irish experience and the transatlantic race.

The British publisher of Blue Water and Green Skipper sold the American rights to W.W. Norton, a New York publishing house, who also contracted to publish his novel, on the basis of two hundred pages and an outline, for an advance of $7500. “I was out of excuses to not finish it, and I had taken their money, so I finally had to get to work.” He finished the book and it was published in March of 1981, eight years after he had begun it. The novel was called Chiefs.

Though only 20,000 copies were printed in hardback, the book achieved a large paperback sale and was made into a six-hour television drama for CBS-TV, starring Charlton Heston, at the head of an all-star cast that included Danny Glover, Billy Dee Williams and John Goodman.

Chiefs established Woods as a novelist. The book won the Edgar Allan Poe prize from the Mystery Writers of America. He was awarded France’s Prix de Literature Policiere, for Imperfect Strangers.  He published many NYT best-sellers. Woods lived in Key West, Florida, on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and occasionally in a New York City pied-a-terre. (Of a warm nature, he said. He wa’s always looking for 70 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Alexis Hurley started her career in 1998 and has been at InkWell since its inception in 2004. Alexis works in the dual capacity of Co-Director of Foreign Rights and agent of domestic works in the areas of literary and commercial fiction, memoir, narrative non-fiction and more. She is a native of the Berkshires and a graduate of Dickinson College where she received her BA in English and Art History and a minor in Italian.