Category Archives: Adult Authors

Lynne Diebel and Pat Dillon are independent writers.  Dillon formerly wrote a regional travel colum and worked in advertising in Milwaukee and Chicago.  Diebel previously taught English at Stoughton High School and is coauthor of ABCs Naturally, Paddling Northern Minnesota and Paddling Southern Minnesota.   They are coauthors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin: Environmentally and Socially Responsible Travel. Ride your bike to a southeastern Wisconsin llama farm and learn to spin wool right off the sheep’s back. Find out where the blue heronshide in the Mississippi backwaters from an expert naturalist. The authors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin will show you small footprint fun, with green lodgings, local fare, silent sports ,low impact events, and more.

Pat Dillon and Lynne Diebel are independent writers.  Dillon formerly wrote a regional travel colum and worked in advertising in Milwaukee and Chicago.  Diebel previously taught English at Stoughton High School and is coauthor of ABCs Naturally, Paddling Northern Minnesota and Paddling Southern Minnesota.   They are coauthors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin: Environmentally and Socially Responsible Travel. Ride your bike to a southeastern Wisconsin llama farm and learn to spin wool right off the sheep’s back. Find out where the blue heronshide in the Mississippi backwaters from an expert naturalist. The authors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin will show you small footprint fun, with green lodgings, local fare, silent sports,low impact events, and more.

Sarah C. Lange has been a magazine editor for 10 years, most recently at The Writer, which is dedicated to dispensing advice and inspiration for writers at every level. The magazine, owned by Kalmbach Publishing Co. in Waukesha, covers the craft and business of freelance writing, fiction writing, copywriting, screenwriting and more, and has won multiple awards for editorial excellence from Folio magazine. As the associate editor of The Writer, she assigns articles to freelance writers and works directly with them to ensure the pieces meet the needs of the publication’s national audience of published and aspiring writers. Her short articles and author interviews appear in the magazine, and she blogs about writing news and tips at writermag.com/blog.

Paula Anderson publishes Echoes, a small press hand-stitched semi-annual poetry journal. Her publishing company Durnford’s Landing has published Idlewild by Ann Arntson, also Aubade and In the First Place by Judy Kolosso.

Paula’s own poems have appeared in Icarus International, Centrifugal Eye, River Oak Review, Plainsongs, and others. She writes with the Stone Kettle Poets and wanders the moraines in Wales, WI.

M. Scott Douglass is the Publisher and Managing Editor of Main Street Rag Publishing Company founded in 1996 ( North Carolina). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he was the recipient of a NC Arts & Science Emerging Artists Grant in 2001. His work has appeared in such places as The Asheville Poetry Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, and Southern Poetry Review (among others). His four collections of poetry include Auditioning For Heaven, Balancing On Two Wheels, STEEL WOMB Revisited and Dip Says Hi and his newest collection, Hard to Love, to be released in Fall 2011. He has taught Graphic Design at Central Piedmont Community College; his design work has earned him two PICA Awards and was nominated for a 2010 Eric Hoffer Award.

Michael Gordon is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  He teaches courses in American Labor History, the History of Wisconsin, the 1950s, and local history, and serves as the Co-Coordinator of the department’s Public History Program, which helps prepare History graduate students for careers in museums and other historical agencies. Professor Gordon earned a B.S from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. He has published articles on labor, public, and oral history, and helped produce a play at Milwaukee’s Theatre X on the Patrick Cudahy strike (1987-1989).  His book, The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871, was published by Cornell University Press. Prior to coming to UW-Milwaukee in 1987, Professor Gordon was an oral historian and archivist at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Elizabeth Zanichkowsky is an Associate Professor of English at UW-Waukesha.  She will be appearing at the Festival with colleagues Margaret Rozga and Janet LaBrie to discuss the special topic Recovering Women’s Voices. This panel will present a discussion of an inclusive range of more established writers and talk about how each serves in a different way as a model of recovering women’s voices.  In addition,  LaBrie, Rozga and Zanichkowsky will talk about how these writers can serve as models for writers who may be audience members.

Somchintana is a native Thai anthropologist and business manager.  She received her graduate degrees in Medical Anthropology and Business Management in the United States.  In both fields, her geographical area of specialty is Southeast Asia.

Somchintana taught Medical Anthropology and Linguistic Anthropology at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand.  She also taught Indonesian language at Thammasat and Chulalongkorn Universities in Thailand.  Her academic publications are in both Thai and English.  Presently she is doing her Medical Anthropology research and teaching Thai and Cooking Courses at University of Wisconsin-Waukesha.  She also runs her own catering and bakery business.

Michael A. Black graduated from Columbia College, Chicago in 2000 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Fiction Writing.  He previously earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Northern Illinois Univeristy.  Despite his literary leanings, he has often said that police work has been his life.  A former Army Military Policman, he entered civilian law enforcement after his discharge, and for the past twenty-seven years has been a polic officer in the south suburbs of Chicago.

The author of over forty articles on subjects ranging from police work to popular fiction, he has also had over thirty short stories published in various anthologies and magazines, including Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  His first novel, A Killing Frost, featuring private investigator Ron Shade was published by Five Star in September 2002, with endorsements from such respected authors as Sara Paretsky and Andrew Vachss.  The novel received universally excellent reviews and was subsequently release in trade paperback. Other titles include:  Hostile Takeover, I Am Not A Psychic (with Richard Belzer), Windy City Knights and Random Victim.  www.michaelablack.com  

During a 40-year journalism career, Hofmann has covered every major Wisconsin sport as well as numerous national and international events ranging from the Olympics and the Super Bowl to the Final Four, the World Series and the US Open golf tournament. He was a Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks beat reporter before becoming a columnist for the Milwaukee Sentinel and later the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A member of the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame, he was named one of the nation’s top ten sports columnists in 1998, and he has won a number of other state and national writing awards including one for a series filed from Saudi Arabia leading up to Desert Storm.

Agatha, Anthony and Macavity winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is on the air at Boston’s NBC affiliate. She’s won 26 EMMYs and dozens of other journalism honors.  Her debut, PRIME TIME, won the Agatha. FACE TIME is a BookSense Notable Book; AIR TIME an AGATHA and ANTHONY nominee. Her latest, DRIVE TIME , is an Anthony, Agatha and Daphne nominee. Hank’s story “On the House” won the AGATHA, ANTHONY and MACAVITY. On the NE board of SinC and national of MWA.   www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

David Thome has written 20 screenplays. Four of them were optioned by companies in Hollywood and elsewhere–one of them twice–without his ever moving from Wisconsin.   Past President of the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum, recognitions include  scripts which reached the semifinals of the Slamdance Screenplay Competition and the Maui Screenwriting award.

He is currently work on a romance novel and  blogs the details of his experience and “the lessons I’m learning as a man writing for a female audience.”  The blog has regular readers all over the U.S., plus Canada, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands.   http://manwritingaromance.blogspot.com/

Fred Schepartz writes science fiction, fantasy and horror. He has one published novel, Vampire Cabbie. He recently completed his next novel, Guitar God and just started yet another, Solidarity Moon. Fred also publishes and edits Mobius: The Journal of Social Change.

John Klima previously worked at Asimov’s, Analog, and Tor Books before returning to school to earn his Master’s in Library and Information Science. He now works full time as a librarian. When he is not conquering the world of indexing, John edits and publishes the Hugo Award-winning genre zine Electric Velocipede. As of 2010, the magazine has also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award four years in a row. In 2007, Klima edited an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories based on spelling-bee winning words called Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. In 2011, Klima edited an anthology of retellings of fairytales for Night Shade Books. He and his family live in the Midwest.

Swati Avasthi has a BA from The University of Chicago and an MFA from The University of Minnesota.  Her first novel, SPLIT, received the International Reading Association’s Young Adult Award, a CYBILS Award, and a Silver Parent’s Choice Award.  It was included on YALSA’s a Best Fiction for Young Adults in 2011 and is being translated into three languages.  In other words, Swati’s feet haven’t touched the ground since it was released.  Her second novel, CHASING SHADOWS, is due out from Knopf in 2012 and please visit her at www.swatiavasthi.com

RAYMOND BENSON is the author of 25 published books.  He wrote six original James Bond novels, three film novelizations, and three short stories—all published worldwide.  Three 007 titles each are collected in the recent anthologies CHOICE OF WEAPONS and THE UNION TRILOGY.  His series of “rock ‘n’ roll thrillers” include DARK SIDE OF THE MORGUE and A HARD DAY’S DEATH.  As “David Michaels” Raymond wrote two NY Times best-sellers in TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL series.  Raymond is also the author of two METAL GEAR SOLID novelizations and the recent HOMEFRONT—THE VOICE OF FREEDOM (co-written with John Milius). This September brings the first entry of a new series called THE BLACK STILETTO—check out the promo video at www.theblackstiletto.net!  Visit Raymond at www.raymondbenson.com

James Lowder has worked extensively on both sides of the editorial blotter. His publications include the bestselling, widely translated dark fantasy novels Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose, short fiction for such anthologies as Shadows Over Baker Street and The Repentant, and comic book scripts for DC, Devil’s Due, and Moonstone. He’s written hundreds of feature articles, columns, film reviews, and book reviews for publications ranging from Amazing Stories and The Comics Journal to Milwaukee Magazine and The New England Journal of History. As an editor, Lowder has directed book lines or series for both large and small houses, and has helmed more than a dozen critically acclaimed anthologies, including Curse of the Full Moon, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, and the upcoming Triumph of the Walking Dead. His work has received five Origins Awards and an ENnie Award, and been nominated for the International Horror Guild Award and the Stoker Award. He can be found online at www.jameslowder.com

Photo By Scott Payne

Kevin Guilfoile is the bestselling author of Cast of Shadows, which was named one of the Best Books of 2005 by the Chicago Tribune, and The Thousand, which the New York Times called “original and gripping” and Entertainment Weekly dubbed a “must read.” His novels have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Ken Miyamoto interned with director Randall Kleiser (Grease), worked as a studio liaison at Sony Studios, and then as a studio script reader/story analyst for Sony as well, before leaving to take on his own writing career.  He is currently a represented and working screenwriter.  He’s had a development deal with Lions Gate films, meetings with nearly all major studios, studio writing assignments, and recently visited the set of his upcoming miniseries which is now in post production, Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Eric LaSalle, Sean Patrick Flanery, Brian Bloom, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Bruce Boxleitner, etc.  Ken relocated back to Wisconsin to raise his family close to home and flies back to L.A. on business when needed.  He is also the president of the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum (www.wiscreenwritersforum.org), a non profit support group for screenwriters worldwide.

Alex Bledsoe grew up in West Tennessee an hour north of Graceland (home of Elvis) and twenty minutes from Nutbush (birthplace of Tina Turner). He now lives in a century-old yellow house in a Wisconsin town famous for trolls.  His books include The Hum and the Shiver, Dark Jenny, Burn Me Deadly and The Girls with Games of Blood.

Photo by Kaity Ryan

Carol Sklenicka’s biography of short story writer and poet Raymond Carver, Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life, was named one of the Best 10 Books of 2009 by the New York Times Book Review. A former instructor at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Marquette University, she now resides in northern California where she is writing a biography of Alice Adams.

Mike Drew has won prestigious writing awards and was recently inducted into the Millwaukee Press Club Media Hall of Fame. He has written a nationally syndicated column, taught and lectured widely and led two national associations of newspaper critics and columnists. As a Milwaukee Journal theater critic, he visited London and, annually Broadway, where he reviewed, reported and interviewed.  While reviewing films, he traveled widely for interviews with actors, producers and directors. His 31 years as Journal television critic and columnist included six weeks each year in Los Angeles and New York to report on that industry.

He just concluded a media column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which ran, in various forms, for 43 years.

As a longtime music critic Drew  now contributes Journal Sentinel reviews and interviews in the jazz and classic pop areas. Married, he lives in Shorewood, Wi., not far from his two children and three of his five grandchildren, He writes, edits and lectures, escorts authors, serves on several nonprofit boards and volunteers extensively.

For recreation, he reads, seeks out jazz, races his sailboat, plays tennis, golf, swims, practices yoga and bicycles.

Roman Author Aulus Gellius

Dr. Stephen M. Beall is an Associate Professor of Classics at Marquette University.  He earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988. He has published articles on the theory and practice of translation in Roman Antiquity and on modern translations of the Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church. He translated a Latin commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by Peter Martyr Vermigli, a 16^th-century Protestant philosopher and theologian. He is currently preparing a Latin and English text of the Libellus of Paolo Giustiniani, a Camadolese monk and reformer of the 15^th century.

Suzanne Alexander, MD, has lived in Madison for over twenty-five years. After working many years as a general internist, she decided to focus on her family and writing. In addition to seeing her teenagers off to college, she is working on a growing collection of short stories and a novel. She is the director of Madison’s book club for the poor and homeless, and blogs about it at www.streetsofmadison.blogspot.com.

Douglas W. Jacobson is an engineer, business owner and World War Two history enthusiast who has traveled extensively in Europe researching stories of the courage of common people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. His debut novel, Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two, won the 2008 “Outstanding Achievement Award” from the Wisconsin Library Association. Doug writes a monthly column on Poland’s experience during WW2, and has published articles on European resistance and escape organizations during the war. Doug’s second historical novel, The Katyn Order, is a story of intrigue and danger, of love and human courage in the aftermath of one of history’s most notorious war crimes.

Robert Grede, BA, MBA, is a graduate of DePauw University and The Emory University School of Business.

Grede has been on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Carroll College, and Marquette University, a syndicated columnist and frequent contributor to magazines, and has authored the best selling Naked Marketing – The Bare Essentials and several other books on marketing and strategic planning.

He recently published his first novel, The Spur & The Sash, a true story of love, passion, and betrayal amid the anarchy of Middle Tennessee in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

Books

Naked Marketing – The Bare Essentials [Prentice Hall, 1997]
Naked Marketing – The Bare Essentials, 2^nd Ed. [Marquette University Press, 2005]
The 5 Kick-Ass Strategies (Every Business Needs) [SourceBooks, 2006]
The Spur & The Sash – A Novel [Three Towers Press, 2010]

Michael is the author of three critically acclaimed crime novels, The Chicago Way, The Fifth Floor and The Third Rail. His fourth novel, We All Fall Down, will be published by Knopf in the summer of 2011. Michael is also a documentary producer and co-creator, producer and executive producer of A&E’s groundbreaking forensic series, Cold Case Files.

Michael’s investigative journalism and documentary work has won multiple Emmys and CableACE awards, numerous national and international film festival awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination.

Michael holds a law degree with honors from Duke University, a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelors degree, magna cum laude, in classical languages from Holy Cross College.

Michael was born in Boston and lives in Chicago. He owns an Irish bar in Chicago, The Hidden Shamrock.

Dr. Craig W. Hurst has been a member of the UW-Waukesha faculty since January 1993.  In addition to his teaching duties, he also serves as Chair of the UW Colleges Music Department.  Hurst enjoys music of all genres, reading, cooking, bird watching, and professional football and baseball.

Dr. Phil Zweifel began teaching English at UW-Waukesha in 1976, and since 1995 he has also served as Associate Campus Dean.  His special interests include poetry, creative writing, the works of Mark Twain, golf, and the music of Bob Dylan.

Susan Masino is the author of Let There Be Rock -The Story of AC/DC, which is now published in ten languages. Susan has been a rock journalist for over thirty years. She also teaches a continuing education program on the History of Rock and Roll for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Susan appears in the Van Halen DVD, The Early Years. For interview and review requests, please contact Wes Seeley at wseeley@halleonard.com.

Robin L. Flanigan is an award-winning freelance writer whose work has appeared internationally. She lives with her husband and daughter in Rochester, New York, where she finds peace in practicing her personal mantra: Know what you want. Work hard to get it. Accept what comes next. (www.thekineticpen.com)

Amaud Jamaul Johnson’s first collection of poetry, Red Summer (Tupelo 2006), was selected by Carl Phillips as winner of the 2005 Dorset Prize. Educated at Howard University and Cornell University, his honors include a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, a Robert Frost Fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and three Pushcart nominations. His work has been published in New England Review, VQR, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, Quarterly West, Eleven Eleven, and elsewhere.  He is currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin Public Radio’s Distinguished Senior Broadcaster, is host and executive producer of Here on Earth: Radio without Borders.  Feraca has received several honors including  the Nation’s Discovery Award and two Hopwood Awards.  Recipient of an Ohio State and Gabriel Award for her Women of Spirit radio series on female leaders in the early Christian Church, she also received the National Telemedia Council’s Distinguished Media Award for her radio advocacy of people with mental illness.  She is author of three collections of poetry South From Rome:  Il Mezzgiorno, Crossing the Great Divide; and Rendered into Paradise.  Her newest publication is I Hear Voices:  A Memoir of Love, Death and Radio.

Amanda Barnett has been in the publishing industry in one guise or another for over a decade.   The various hats she’s worn have been book reviewer, columnist, editor, public relations, published author and senior editor. She has been on the executive board for The Wild Rose Press since July of 2008 and with the company since 2007.  If there’s one thing she truly hates to see in a manuscript it’s head-hopping She loves to read romance just like a regular reader, and when it
comes to her personal take me away books, Amanda has several shelves of favorites in her home in the South.

Susan Elbe is the author of Eden in the Rearview Mirror (Word Press), which won Honorable Mention for the 2007 Council for Wisconsin Writers Posner Poetry Book Award, and a chapbook, Light Made from Nothing (Parallel Press). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including Blackbird, diode, MARGIE, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Salt Hill, A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-five Years of Women’s Poetry (Calyx Books), and On Retirement: 75 Poems (University of Iowa Press). Among her awards are the inaugural Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize (Calyx), the Council for Wisconsin Writers Lorine Niedecker Award, Third Place in the Poetry Center of Chicago’s 14^th Annual Juried Reading, and fellowships to Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can learn more about her at www.susanelbe.com.

Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, a Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope is the story of the improbable friendship between Lisa Paul, an American college student, strong in her Catholic faith, and Inna Kitrosskaya Meiman, a Soviet-Jewish dissident, which takes place in the repressive 1980s Moscow, just before Soviet Union came apart at the seems.

Swimming in the Daylight has received a positive review from Booklist Review and has been recommended by Anne Garrels of National Public Radio. Ms. Paul has been featured on MPTV’s I remember Milwaukee and has been interviewed by Jean Feraca on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Here on Earth.

Raised in Appleton, Ms. Paul lived in Moscow from 1983-1985. After obtaining a Russian Studies degree from the University of Minnesota in 1986, she worked for two organizations committed to improving U.S.-Soviet relations. She then attended Marquette University Law School and is now a civil litigation attorney in Milwaukee, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

Libby Fischer Hellmann, an award-winning crime fiction author, has published seven novels. Her most recent, SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE, is a stand-alone thriller, goes back, in part, to the late Sixties in Chicago. She also writes two crime fiction series. The first, which includes the hard-boiled EASY INNOCENCE (2008) and DOUBLEBACK (2009,) features Chicago P.I Georgia Davis. In addition there are four novels in the Ellie Foreman series, which Libby describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24.”  Libby has also published over 15 short stories in NICE GIRL DOES NOIR and has edited the acclaimed crime fiction anthology, CHICAGO BLUES. She has been nominated twice for the Anthony Award, and once for the Agatha. Originally from Washington DC, she has lived in Chicago for 30 years and claims they’ll take her out of there feet first. More at her website: www.libbyhellmann.com

Peter Geye received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and his PHD from Western Michigan University, where he was editor of Third Coast. He was born and raised in Minneapolis and continues to live there with his wife and three children.  Safe From the Sea is his first novel.

Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator and teacher and found they are very much alike. She is the inimitable creator behind Ernie Pook’s Comeek, the seminal comic strip that was syndicated scross North America in alternative weeklies for two decades. She is the author of the books One! Hundred! Demons!, The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and The Good Times are Killing Me. She invented a genre with the bestselling and acclaimed creative how to-graphic novels What It Is (for which she received Eisner and R.R. Donnelly awards) and Picture This.

What It Is and Picture This are based on Barry’s workshop “Writing the Unthinkable” which is a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or remember. Lynda explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself. Barry currently offers her workshop “Writing the Unthinkable” all over the place.

Born in Wisconsin in 1956, Lynda studied at Evergreen State College.

After being an “at-home” mom and attending college part-time until she graduated, Alice pursued her career at the University of Wisconsin. Twenty years later she retired from her position as senior editor and publications director at the La Follette School of Public Affairs. In retirement she leads writing workshops for adults and serves in a number of volunteer capacities. In her spare time, she pedals the scenic roads of southern Wisconsin and plans tours on other parts of the continent.

Each year for the last 28, Alice has spent one week of her summer vacation on a bicycle tour, always somewhere in North America. Following retirement, she was thrilled to realize her long-time dream of pedaling across America. The book she and co-author Bobbi Montgomery wrote about that adventure is now available through Terrace Books, the trade division of the University of Wisconsin Press or online from Amazon. Visit them at www.AliceandBobbi.com.

Clare O’Donohue is the author of MISSING PERSONS, the first in the Kate Conway Mysteries, as well as three Someday Quilts Mysteries (THE LOVERS KNOT, A DRUNKARD’S PATH & THE DOUBLE CROSS.  Clare began her writing career as a newspaper reporter for a small weekly paper outside Joliet, Illinois. She covered everything from school board meetings to murder trials, and wrote a weekly column. For the last thirteen years she has worked in television, writing and producing for shows on HGTV, truTV, The History Channel, Food Network, A&E and others. She continues to work as a producer and lives in Chicago, IL.

Stephanie Kuehnert got her start writing bad poetry about unrequited love and razor blades in eighth grade. In high school, she discovered punk rock and produced several DIY feminist ‘zines. Stephanie received her MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and was named to Newcity’s Lit 50 in 2008. Her debut young adult novel, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, a raw, edgy emotional tale about growing up punk and living to tell, is titled after a Sleater-Kinney song and was published by MTV Books in July 2008. Stephanie’s second book, Ballads of Suburbia, published by MTV Books in July 2009, is set in her hometown of Oak Park, Illinois, and has been called “an intensely real and painfully honest novel of high-school anxiety” by Booklist. Stephanie is also an award-winning columnist for the Forest Park Review. She currently lives, works, and writes in Forest Park, IL and you can find her online at www.stephaniekuehnert.com.

David Mulroy holds a BA from Georgetown and a PhD in Classics from Stanford.  He is now a professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he has worked since 1973.  He has published four books of translations of ancient Greek and Latin Poetry, Early Greek Lyric Poetry (Michigan 1992), Horace’s Odes and Epodes (Michigan 1994), The Complete Poetry of Catullus (Wisconsin 2002), and most recently Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (Wisconsin 2011).  His work on contemporary education, The War Against Grammar (Heinemann-Boynton/Cook) appeared in 2003.  His hobbies are working out and playing softball.  He is married with two children and two granddaughters.

Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli is a writer who writes—constantly.  She is a book reviewer with the alternative newspaper, The Northern Express, in Traverse City, Michigan.

Her short stories have appeared in many journals.  She has had essays turned into stage pieces and performed.  Her first mystery novel, Gift of Evil, was published by Bantam. Her novels Dead, Dancing Women; Dead Floating Lovers; Dead Sleeping Shamam, from Midnight Ink, are in bookstores now.  Another in the Emily Kincaid mystery series: Dead Dogs and Englishmen, recently given a starred Kirkus review, will be out this July.

Hallie Ephron’s new suspense novel “Come and Find Me,” from William Morrow, follows her “Never Tell a Lie” which was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and for the Salt Lake Libraries Readers Choice Award, and won the David Award for best mystery of 2009. It was made into the movie “And Baby Will Fall” for the Lifetime Movie Network. A book lover, Hallie is also the author of “The Bibliophile’s Devotional” and “1001 Books for Every Mood,” and reviews crime fiction for the “Boston Globe.”  Her  “Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel” was an Edgar Award finalist.

Editor and award-winning author J.R. Turner is a huge fan of all things fun and thrilling. She gets a kick out of surprising her kids and loves to tell goofy jokes—that aren’t always funny. She lives in Wisconsin, a state known for cheese, bratwurst, and beer—and 1001 recipes for Cheesy Bratwurst Beer Soup. Between writing and editing books, enjoying the outdoors, cooking exotic recipes like Kitty Litter Cake, and trying her hand at all types of arts and crafts, her life is one adventure after another.  Visit http://www.jennifer-turner.com to learn more.

Wayne Breitbarth is co-owner and co-president of M&M Office Interiors in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.  Prior to his involvement in the office furniture business, he spent nearly twenty years in the automotive industry.  He received his BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and his MBA from Marquette University.  Wayne is also a Certified Public Accountant and spent the early years of his career as an auditor and small business consultant with Arthur Andersen & Co.

Throughout his career, Wayne has been involved with a number of philanthropic organizations including  serving on the board of directors for Make A Difference-Wisconsin and Community Warehouse, a nonprofit organization that serves the Milwaukee community by providing affordable home and facility improvement materials.  He is a member of the Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Accounting Careers Advisory Board and has served as a youth leader and teacher at Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee.

Wayne’s work with urban youth has been applauded by the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and he proudly accepted the 2009 WICPA Public Service Award.

Wayne began moonlighting as a LinkedIn trainer in early 2009 and has now led seminars for over 10,000 business professionals.  He has inspired audiences both locally, at many of Milwaukee’s most prominent companies and organizations, and nationally, at conventions, industry association events, and corporate training sessions.  Wayne’s diverse business experience, pragmatic teaching style, and infectious sense of humor have earned him the praise of the press and the distinction of being referred to as the “LinkedIn Guru.”  His book, “The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success:  Kick-Start Your Business, Brand and Job Search,” published by the Greenleaf Book Group, will be available in book stores in March 2011.

Wayne resides in Mequon, Wisconsin with his wife of 30 years.  They have three daughters.

DAVID J. WALKER is the author of ten published mystery/suspense novels. His most recent book is Too Many Clients, a 2010 release from Severn House.  This is the fifth book in his “Wild Onion, Ltd.” series, featuring a wife/husband private eye team.  The sixth book in that series, The Towman’s Daughters, will be released in October, 2011.

Walker is the author of a 2008 stand-alone suspense novel, Saving Paulo, and his short story, “A Weekend in the Country,” was published in the popular 2006 anthology, Chicago Blues.

One of Walker’s Wild Onion, Ltd. books was short-listed for the Society of Midland Authors best novel award, and he has been an EdgarÒ nominee.  He has served on the Board of Directors of Mystery Writers of America.  He is also a member of Private Eye Writers of America, and has been a judge for both the Edgarâ and Shamus awards.

Walker is a life-long Chicagoan.  He has been a parish priest in Chicago, an investigator with the Chicago Police Department, and an attorney.  At present, he is a full-time writer and lives with his wife just north of the city.

Terence Faherty is the author of the Edgar-nominated Owen Keane series, which follows the adventures of a failed seminarian turned metaphysical detective.  He also writes the Shamus-winning Scott Elliott private eye series.  Two new titles were published in the Elliott series in 2011, a short story collection, THE HOLLYWOOD OP (Perfect Crime Books), and a novel, DANCE IN THE DARK (Five Star).  Faherty’s short fiction appears regularly in mystery magazines and anthologies and has won the Macavity Award from Mystery Readers International.  His work has been reissued in the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and Germany.  He lives in Indianapolis with his wife Jan.

D.E. (Dan) Johnson, a graduate of Central Michigan University, is a history buff who has been writing fiction since childhood but had to hit his midlife crisis to get serious about it. His first novel, a historical mystery entitled The Detroit Electric Scheme, was published in September 2010 by St. Martin’s Minotaur Books. The Detroit Electric Scheme has garnered excellent reviews (including a starred review in Booklist) and also won a 2011 Michigan Notable Book Award.

Motor City Shakedown, the first sequel to The Detroit Electric Scheme, will be published by St. Martin’s in September 2011. Dan is married, has three daughters, and lives near Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Sam Reaves has written seven Chicago-based crime novels, most recently Mean Town Blues. As Dominic Martell he has penned a European-based suspense trilogy.  Reaves has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East but has lived in the Chicago area most of his life.  He has worked as a teacher and a translator.

List of Titles:

A Long Cold Fall (Putnam:  New York, 1991)
Fear Will Do It (Putnam:  New York, 1992)
Bury It Deep (Putnam: New York, 1993)
Get What’s Coming (Putnam: New York, 1995)

Dooley’s Back (Carroll & Graf:  New York, 2002; Carroll & Graf:  New York (trade paper) 2007)
Homicide 69 (Carroll & Graf:  New York, 2007)
Mean Town Blues (Pegasus:  New York, 2008; Pegasus:  New York, (trade paper) 2010)

Jess Lourey is the author of the Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month mysteries set in Battle Lake, Minnesota, and featuring amateur sleuth, Mira James. November Hunt, the seventh in the series, hit shelves March 2012. In a starred review, Booklist says, “It’s not easy to make people laugh while they’re on the edge of their seats, but Lourey pulls it off!” Jess has also been teaching writing and sociology at the college level since 1998.

When not raising her wonderful kids, teaching, or writing, you can find her gardening, traveling, and navigating the niceties and meanities of small-town life. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, The Loft, and Lake Superior Writers, and serves on the national board of Mystery Writers of America.

Amy Knupp lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two sons and five cats. She graduated from the University of Kansas with degrees in French and journalism and feels lucky to use very little of either one in her writing career. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, buying books in excess, traveling, breaking up cat fights, watching college basketball and playing addictive computer games. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, Mad City RWA, and Wisconsin Romance Writers.

Born in California and raised in the Midwest, Carrie Lofty met her English husband while studying abroad–the best souvenir! Since completing her master’s degree in history, she has been devoted to raising their two precocious daughters and writing full time.

Carrie’s historical romances for Zebra and Carina Press have all received four stars from RT Book Reviews, which declared: “Lofty writes adventure romance like a born bard of old.” In October she’ll embark on a globe-trotting Victorian series from Pocket, beginning with Flawless–in which a suave viscount and his estranged wife must make a diamond company profitable or forfeit her inheritance.

In addition, Carrie recently began life as Ellen Connor, the name she shares with writing partner Ann Aguirre. Nightfall, the first of their “Dark Age Dawning” trilogy of hot-n-dirty apocalyptic romances, will be available in June from Berkley Sensation, to be followed in 2011 by Midnight and Daybreak.

Photo by Tom Bamberger

R. M. Ryan is the author of Vaudeville in the Dark, a recent book of poems.  The NY Times said Ryan writes ” . . . like the best poets . . . at the junction of rapture and rupture.”  In addition, Ryan is the author of a novel, The Golden Rules, and another book of poetry, Goldilocks in Later Life.  He is also the lyricist for a northern California rock-and-roll band.

Photo by Malone & Co.

Mary Helen Stefaniak’s second novel, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia (W. W. Norton), has been awarded a 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction.  The Anisfield-Wolf awards “recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures.” Juror Rita Dove described the novel as “a rollicking tale that manages to speak seriously to the tragedy of ignorance and the damage caused by fear.” The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia was also selected by independent booksellers as an Indie-Next “Great Read” in September 2010.  Stefaniak’s first novel, The Turk and My Mother, won the 2005 John Gardner Book Award and has been translated into several languages.  Her first book, Self Storage and Other Stories, received the Banta Award for Literary Excellence from the Wisconsin Library Association. A native of Milwaukee and graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Stefaniak is currently an Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at Creighton University in Omaha.

James Klise is the author of LOVE DRUGGED, published by Flux Books in September 2010. This debut novel received a 2011 Stonewall Honor Award, and also was selected for the 2011 ALA Rainbow List. Booklist called LOVE DRUGGED “an excellent novel for both classroom and GSA discussion,” and VOYA suggested the book as “a great choice for teens who like a little twist in their mystery.” By day, James works as a high school librarian in Chicago, where he also advises the teen book club, literary journal, and gay-straight alliance. For more info, please visit www.jamesklise.com.

Scott Stoll asked himself a question: “If I could do anything, what would I do?”  His answer resulted in a quest for happiness and the meaning of life around the world on a bicycle (25,742 miles, 4 years, 50 countries, 6 continents & 4 moments of enlightenment.)  His adventures are chronicled in his entertaining book “Falling Uphill” a tale described as having moments from pure survival to pure enlightenment.  After returning home and seeing the sparkle of wonder and the fruits of inspiration is so many people, Scott hopes to create a life filled full of entertaining and inspiring tales about his adventures of self-discovery and the magic and mysteries of life.

Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University–before being kicked out for radical activities.  After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at free-lance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota.  He currently makes his living as a full-time author.  He’s been married for over 38 years to a marvelous woman who is an attorney.  He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota.  His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe.  His work has received a number of awards including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize.  The tenth book in his series, Vermilion Drift, released in 2010, was a New York Times bestseller.  The next book, Northwest Angle, will be published in September.   He does all his creative writing in a little St. Paul coffee shop whose identity he prefers to keep secret.

Awards

Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, 1998
Minnesota Book Award, 1999
Anthony Award for Best First Novel, 1999
Barry Award for Best First Novel, 1999
Friends of American Writers Prize, 1999
Minnesota Book Award, 2002
Readers Choice Award, 2003
Anthony Award for Best Novel, 2005
Anthony Award for Best Novel, 2006
Minnesota Book Award, 2007
Midwest Booksellers Association Honor Award in Fiction, 2007
Minnesota Book Award, 2008
Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, 2008
Dilys Award, 2008

Denise Swanson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Scumble River mystery series. After coming face-to-face with evil, Denise quickly decided she would rather write about villains than encounter them in her daily life. She was shocked to discover that getting a book published was nearly as difficult as vanquishing scoundrels. Her series features Skye Denison, a school psychologist-sleuth. Denise writes from her experiences as a school psychologist and small town resident. Her most recent book, Murder of a Bookstore Babe, debuted March 1, 2011.

Denise lives in Illinois with her husband, classical composer David Stybr, and their cool black cat Boomerang. www.deniseswanson.com

Anthony and Barry Award winning author Julie Hyzy writes two mystery series: the White House Chef Mysteries (the fourth title in the series, Buffalo West Wing, came out in January), and the Manor House Mysteries (the second title in that series, Grace Interrupted, just came out this month!). Julie lives in the Chicago area with her husband, three daughters, and two cats. Learn more about her at JulieHyzy.com.

Robert Root is the author of two works of creative nonfiction, Recovering Ruth: A Biographer’s Tale and Following Isabella: Travels in Colorado Then and Now, and the editor of Landscapes with Figures: The Nonfiction of Place. He is also the co-editor of The Fourth Genre, a textbook now in its sixth edition, and the author of The Nonfictionist’s Guide: On Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction. A collection of his essays, Postscripts: Retrospections on Time and Place, will be published next year. A past winner of the Council of Wisconsin Writers Award in Short Nonfiction, he teaches nonfiction in the Ashland University MFA Program in Creative Writing. He lives in Waukesha.

Ann & Amanda Angel

Amanda Angel, a playwright and teacher in Brookfield, Wisconsin, has experienced a few roles in the adoption triad including searching as an adoptee and becoming a birth parent herself. Her desire to help birth parents work successfully within the adoption triad drew her to co-edit a collection of literary essays on the topic for Catalyst Books Press.

When Michael J. Trinklein moved from Iowa to Idaho, his relatives had a hard time grasping that these were actually different states. He soon learned that many Idahoans wanted to split from their poorly-formed state and create “Lincoln,” America’s 51st state. Fascinated, Trinklein began collecting stories and maps of other statehood hopefuls (including several involving Wisconsin)—the result of his quest is his new book, “Lost States.”

Trinklein has written about maps and geography for the  Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.  He wrote and produced the PBS documentaries The Oregon Trail, The Gold Rush, and Pioneers of Television.  A university professor for 20 years, Trinklein’s undergraduate degree is from UW-Oshkosh. He lives in Cedarburg, Wisconsin…. (which nearly became Cedarburg, Charlotina).

Michael Schumacher is the award-winning author of ten books, including biographies of Allen Ginsberg (Dharma Lion), Phil Ochs (There But for Fortune), Francis Ford Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life). Eric Clapton (Crossroads), George Mikan (Mr. Basketball) and most recently, Will Eisner (Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics).  He is also the author of two books about notable Great Lakes shipwrecks (Mighty Fitz: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Wreck of the Carl D.: A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea).  He is currently at work, with comics artist and publisher Denis Kitchen, on a biography of Li’l Abner comic strip creator Al Capp.

John Koethe was born in San Diego in 1945 and educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities.  He has published eight books of poetry, including FALLING WATER (HarperCollins, 1997), which received the Kingsley Tufts Award, and NINETY-FIFTH STREET (HarperCollins, 2009), which received the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets.  He is also the author of books on Wittgenstein and scepticism, and a collection of literary essays.  In 2005 he was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, in 2008 he was the Elliston Poet in Residence at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2010 he was the Bain-Swiggett Professor of Poetry at Princeton University.  He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Stephen D. Sullivan is the award-winning author of more than 30 published books and has worked on more comics and game material than he can easily count.  He has been in publishing since 1980, when he moved to Wisconsin to join the Dungeons & Dragons development team. Steve has worked on projects ranging from D&D to Star Wars to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the Simpsons and many, many more.  His adaptation of the movie Iron Man was nominated for a Scribe Award.  Steve’s comic series The Twilight Empire ran in Dragon Magazine for fifty issues. Together with Jean Rabe, he created the Blue Kingdoms fantasy world, a setting both authors continue to use in their stories and other work.  Steve hosted 42 episodes of Uncanny Radio–a show devoted to monsters and the supernatural–with his friend Linda Godfrey.  When not writing, Steve keeps busy doing artwork and running his own small publishing company, Walkabout Publishing.  His books are available on Amazon.com (including for Kindle) and at better booksellers everywhere.  Steve’s latest work includes the Dungeons & Dinosaurs story “Kidnapped by Saurians,” the mythological romp “Thor Loser,” and the steampunk story  “Automata Futura,” featured in the Hot & Steamy anthology.  You can find out more about Steve and his work at: www.stephendsullivan.com

John Galligan is the author of The Wind Knot (February, 2011), fourth in a series of mysteries featuring a wandering trout bum who becomes a reluctanct sleuth when bodies turn up on the stream. The first in the series, The Nail Knot, is “a real treat” (Library Journal) set in Black Earth, Wisconsin. The second, The Blood Knot, is a “superbly told tale” (Kirkus) and winner of Crime Spree Magazine’s 2005 Book of the Year. The third novel in series, The Clinch Knot, is a “stunning…excursion into the wilds of human frailty” (Publisher’s Weekly). Galligan’s debut novel, Red Sky, Red Dragonfly (2000) is a “smart and fast-paced novel” (Capital Times) and a “humorous and original tale spanning two continents…a winner” (Japan Times). He lives and teaches college writing in Madison, Wisconsin.

ELLEN M. KOZAK is a Milwaukee copyright, publishing and media lawyer and the author of several pseudonymous novels, many articles, and three nonfiction books:  From Pen to Print: The Secrets of Getting Published Successfully (winner of the Council for Wisconsin Writers Award for best 1990 non-fiction book),  Every Writer’s Guide to Copyright and Publishing Law, now in its third edition from Henry Holt & Co., and her third and newest book, The Everything U.S. Constitution Book, just out from Adams Media.   A graduate of Barnard College and the University of Wisconsin Law School, she also holds a Certificate in Law of the Media from the NYU School of Law.  She has served as the chair of both the Intellectual Property Law Section and the Sports & Entertainment Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin.

Chuck Stebelton works as Literary Program Director at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. He is author of Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005). Recent print objects and chapbooks include ‘Tis’ (The John Riepenhoff Experience, 2009); A Maximal Object (Mitzvah Chaps, 2008); Flags and Banners (Bronze Skull Press, 2007); and Precious (Answer Tag Home Press, 2005). Newer writing appears in the current issues of The Cultural Society, Lungfull!, Cannot Exist, and Kadar Koli.

Called the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post and a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan, Reed Farrel Coleman is the former executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America. He has published thirteen novels in three series and one stand-alone, Tower, co-authored by award-winning Irish author Ken Bruen. Reed has been a three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Novel and has been twice nominated for the Edgar© Award. He has also received the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He was the editor of the short story anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn and is the co-editor of the poetry journal The Lineup. His short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in Long Island Noir, Dublin Noir, The Darker Mask, Crimespree Magazine, The Cincinnati Poet’s Collective, Poetry Bone, and several other publications. Reed is an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University, teaches a creative writing seminar for gifted high school students, and helped develop MWA U. He lives with his family on Long Island. Visit his website: www.reedcoleman.com

Michael Giorgio got his start in writing in what many consider a dead, or at least a lost, art: Radio Drama. His first work won a national scriptwriting contest and a love of writing was born. Since then, he has had over a dozen audio scripts produced in Newark, Los Angeles, Akron, San Francisco, and Tennessee.  An Active Member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Short Fiction Mystery Society, Michael has had both mystery and mainstream short stories published in magazines such as The Strand, Mystery Time, Up Dere?, Prose Ax, My Legacy, Fighting Chance, and Lunatic Chameleon. His fiction has also been anthologized in The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road (Carroll and Graf), The Mammoth Book of On the Road (Robinson), It’s That Time Again: The New Stories of Old Time Radio (BearManor Media), and Who Died in Here? (Penury Press).  Michael also teaches online for Writers Digest.

Paul Salsini is a veteran Milwaukee journalist, having been a reporter, state editor and staff development director at The Milwaukee Journal. He now teaches writing courses in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University. He was the Wisconsin correspondent for The New York Times for twenty years and his travel essays have appeared in The Times and elsewhere.

He is the author of three historical novels that make up “A Tuscan Trilogy.” The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany is the story of a group of villagers trapped in a farmhouse during WWII. The book received First Place in Fiction from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association. Sparrow’s Revenge: A Novel of Postwar Tuscany describes a partisan’s relentless search for a collaborator of a Nazi massacre, and the just-published Dino’s Story: A Novel of 1960s Tuscany is about a boy who comes of age helping the poor and destitute during the devastating flood in Florence in 1966.  He is the 2011 winner of the Sons of Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci Award for Excellence in Literature.

Mike Konopacki is a political/labor cartoonist living in Madison, Wisconsin. He began labor cartooning for the Madison Press Connection, a local daily created by striking newspaper workers in 1978. After the paper folded in 1980, Mike began syndicating his labor cartoons through the labor news service, Press Associates, Inc. In 1983 he and Gary Huck, cartoonist for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), created Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons, syndicating their cartoons to the labor press in the U.S. and Canada. Since that time they have published six collections of labor cartoons, Bye! American, THEM, MAD in USA, Working Class Hero, Two Headed Space Alien Shrinks Labor Movement, and the latest, American Dread.

Mike is co-author and illustrator of Howard Zinn’s graphic history A People’s History of American Empire published in 2008. He earned his Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in 2009 and his MFA in 2010. Mike is presently an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Extension School for Workers and a guest lecturer in Labor Studies at the University of Illinois.

Isabel Sharpe was not born  pen in hand like so many of her fellow authors.  After she quit work to stay home with her first-born son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing.   Yes she was the clichéd bored housewife writing romance, but it was either that cliché or seduce the mailman, and her mailman was unattractive.  After more than twenty five romances for Harlequin, and three women’s fiction novels for Avon/Harper, Isabel admits her new mailman is gorgeous, but she is still happy with her choice.

Luisa Buehler writes the Grace Marsden Mystery Series.  Reviewers have called her series “a cold-case-sizzle”.  The stories follow the cold trail of bygone crimes using a blending of a traditional whodunit with a hint of romance and a touch of the supernatural.  The series won The Readers Choice Award for best traditional amateur sleuth in 2008.The seventh and last book in the series, The Re-Enactors:  A Staged Death, will be out January 2011.  Luisa lives in Lisle, IL with her husband Gerry, their son Christopher, and the family cat Martin Marmalade.