(With apologies to Five For Fighting for inspiring the subject line.) It's Friday, ladies and gentlemen! Our first newsletter of the year went out yesterday, and we know lots of you are stopping by to see what's new on the site. So why not bring you a few presenters to celebrate the weekend? And yes, for those of you who wondered, each presenter is added to our speaker list - clickable on the left side bar - as I blog them. The full roster will appear there over the next couple of weeks as I introduce them here.

So here we go! Five for Friday, I promised you, and I won't let you down.

Meet Hallie Ephron, Susan Juby, Jill Marr, Jeffery McGraw, and Luke Ryan.

Hallie Ephron is an avid reader, author, and award-winning book reviewer for the BOSTON GLOBE. Her suspense novel NEVER TELL A LIE is a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and has been optioned for film. Her new suspense novel, COME AND FIND ME, came out in the winter of 2011 from William Morrow/HarperCollins. Hallie's WRITING AND SELLING YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL: HOW TO KNOCK 'EM DEAD WITH STYLE (Writers Digest Books) was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards. She is also the author of two books about books, including THE BIBLIOPHILE'S DEVOTIONAL. Welcome to SiWC 2011, Hallie!

Susan Juby’s novels have been published all over the world and nominated for many awards, including the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, an Arthur Ellis Award by the Crime Writers of Canada and for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.

Terrific SiWC board meeting last night. A little SiWC tidbit for you: Did you know that SiWC is run mostly by volunteers? They're an amazing bunch and give a huge amount of time and energy to make SiWC what it is.

On the way home in the car after the meeting, I was switching radio stations, looking for something I felt like listening to, and I happened across an interview with one of the actors from a brand new movie that's connected to one of our presenters this year. So instead of reaching in my hat for a name to bring you today, I decided to take my cue from that interview and introduce you to Luke Ryan.

Luke Ryan is the Senior Vice President of Production at MGM.

He arrived in Hollywood in 2000 and has had a diverse career, working as a screenwriter, producer, instructor at UCLA extension, and studio executive at New Line Cinema and MTV Films before arriving at MGM in 2008 where he is Sr. Vice President of Production. His currently slate of films includes Robocop with Darren Aronofsky, The Three Stooges with the Farrelly Brothers, Poltergeist with Vadim Perelman. 

When he sent me this bio, Luke was sitting on a mixing stage preparing for the release of Hot Tub Time Machine -- which comes out after this bio but long before this conference.  He hopes you buy a full priced ticket and find it worth every penny.  He will still feel this way when you see him in the future.

Welcome, Luke!