The Authors

These authors were confirmed to attend the 2007 Southern Festival of Books
(NOTE: this is NOT the list of authors for the 2008 Southern Festival of Books)

To browse by author's last name:
A - D | E - H | I - L | M - P | Q - T | U - Z

  • Kay Abella is a published author, journalist, and editor who lives in Connecticut with her Cuban-American husband, Luis. Author website: www.kayabella.com. Fighting Castro: A Love Story
  • Tasha Alexander attended the University of Notre Dame, where she signed on as an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse to spend all her time reading. Following graduation, she played nomad for several years, eventually settling with her family in Tennessee. When not reading, she can be found hard at work on her next book. A Poisoned Season and Elizabeth: The Golden Age
  • Aliki was born in Philadelphia and now divides her time among London, New York and Switzerland. My Five Senses was one of the first children's books she wrote and illustrated. She has since written and illustrated over fifty books, on topics ranging from Greek mythology and prehistoric times to Egyptian tombs, aquariums, zoos, music, Shakespeare and feelings. In A Play's the Thing, she shares a special teacher's passion for learning and zest for life. A Play's the Thing
  • Lisa Alther is the author of five best-selling novels, which have been published in fifteen languages and sold over six million copies worldwide. She divides her time between Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City. This is her first work of nonfiction. Kinfolks: Falling off the Family Tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors
  • Daniel Anderson is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bogliasco Foundation. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Yale Review, Harper's and The Best American Poetry. He is a professor in the English Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Drunk in Sunlight
  • Ann Angel is the author of six author biographies and works of criticism. She graduated from Vermont College's M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults program and currently teaches writing at the college level. She lives in Wisconsin. Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty (Editor)
  • Tina McElroy Ansa is a novelist, publisher, filmmaker, teacher and journalist. Her fifth novel, Taking After Mudear, a sequel to her bestselling Ugly Ways, will be published in October. She is the founder of the Sea Island Writers Retreats and DownSouth Press, a new publishing company. Taking After Mudear
  • Edward Arnold holds an M.A. in Sociology and has published seven previous novels. He lives with his family in Nashville, Tennessee. George's Flag
  • Darnell Arnoult is the author of the novel, Sufficient Grace. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in Southwest Review, Southern Cultures, Southern Exposure, Asheville Poetry Review, and Nantahala Review, among other journals. She lives with her husband on a small farm outside Nashville, Tennessee, and teaches creative writing throughout the Southeast. Sufficient Grace: A Novel
  • Avi is known for his unconventional vision and quirky creative style. He has penned scores of children's books and been awarded the Newbery Award and two Newbery Honors. He has also won an O'Dell Award, a Christopher Award, an ALA Notable Award, and many Children's Choice Awards. He lives with his family in Denver, Colorado. Iron Thunder
  • Joe Bageant writes an online column, www.joebageant.com, that has made him a cult hero among gonzo-journalism junkies and progressives. He has been interviewed on Air America and comments on America's long history of religious fundamentalism in the BBC/Owl documentary, The Vision: Americans on America. Until recently he worked as a senior editor for the Primedia History Magazine Group. Bageant and his wife recently downsized their lives in America so that Joe could spend half the year in Belize, where he writes and sponsors a small development project with the Black Carib families of Hopkins Village. Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
  • John Baldwin, a relative of Conway Whittle, is a magazine writer, lecturer, and the author of two novels. At seventeen, Baldwin was apprenticed to the ship's carpenter on a merchant vessel sailing the ports of Africa. Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship
  • Stephen Lyn Bales is a naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has been writing the "Neighborhood Naturalist" for the farragutpress since 1999 and is a regular columnist for the Hellbender Press. Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley
  • Brian Barker received the Tupelo Press Editors' Prize for The Animal Gospels. His awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize and a finalist recognition for the Campbell Corner Poetry Prize. He is an assistant professor and Director of Creative Writing at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. The Animal Gospels
  • William Barney is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Making of a Confederate: Walter Lenoir's Civil War
  • Bruce Barry is a professor of management and sociology at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace
  • Hester Bass is a children's author who loves to bring words to life. She writes early reader and picture books, as well as middle grade and teen novels, and has years of experience as a performer. Hester lives at the foot of a mountain in Alabama with a dog, a cat and her family. Her book, So Many Houses, is a colorful trip around the world. Author website: www.hesterbass.com So Many Houses
  • William Bass is a world-renowned forenic anthropologist, who founded the University of Tennessee's Body Farm — the world's first and only laboratory devoted to human decomposition. He is a bestselling author, co-writing novels under the psuedonym Jefferson Bass. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, who has been named National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Beyond the Body Farm
  • Albert Bates is Director of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee, where he has taught sustainable design, natural building, permaculture and restoration ecology to students from around the world. Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook
  • Tamara M. Baxter's collection of fiction, Rock Big and Sing Loud, won the Morehead State and Jesse Stuart Foundation's First Author Award for Fiction. Her short fiction, poetry, and essays have been widely published in journals and anthologies. She has received more than a dozen awards for her writing. Baxter is an Associate Professor of English at Northeast State Community College and is an editor for the literary magazine, Echoes and Images. Rock Big and Sing Loud
  • Robert Benson is an acclaimed author and retreat leader who writes and speaks often on the subject of prayer and the meditative life. Known for his warmth and creativity, in very accessible terms he invites readers to think meditatively about spiritual things and better connect with God. He lives with his wife Sara in Nashville, Tennessee. Digging In: Tending To Life in Your Own Back Yard
  • Lynne Berry graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in Biology and from Vanderbilt University with a Ph.D. in Cell Biology. She left the world of petri dishes and microscopes in 1997 to write for children. Her first book, Duck Skates, was called "A lovely treat for the lap-sit crowd" by Booklist. The Curious Demise of a Contrary Cat
  • Andrew Billingsley is a professor of sociology and African American studies and senior scholar in residence at the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina. He served as a professor and chair of the Department of Family Studies and a professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Maryland, as president of Morgan State University, and as provost at Howard University. Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families
  • Kelly Bingham was a story artist and director for Walt Disney Feature Animation before receiving her M.F.A. in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College. Shark Girl is her first novel. She lives in Georgia. Shark Girl
  • Robert J. Blake was born in Springfield, New Jersey. After high school, he attended the Ringling School of Art in Florida and then graduated from the Paier School of Art in Connecticut. He later attended the Art Student's League in New York. He created his first picture book, The Spider's Dance, in 1979. He has won many awards, including the Outstanding Science Book Award, the Washington State Children's Choice Award, the Virginia Young Reader Award, the Texas Bluebonnet Award, the North Carolina Children's Book Award, and many more.
  • Ralph Bland is a longtime resident of Nashville, Tennessee. After wasting away his youth in riotous living, he is now happily married and resideing on the outskirts of Music City disguised as a normal guy. Where or When is his second novel. Past Perfect
  • Harry Bliss grew up in upstate New York in a family of successful painters and illustrators, so it wasn't any surprise when he, too, went on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and illustration at the University of the Arts and Syracuse University. He is the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin. He is also an award-winning, internationally syndicated cartoonist and cover artist for the New Yorker magazine. He lives in Vermont with his son. Diary of a Fly
  • Roy Blount is the author of nineteen previous books, most recently Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans. He is a panelist on NPR's Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me, a columnist for Oxford American, a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly, and president of the Authors Guild. Time puts him squarely "in the tradition of the great curmudgeons like H.L. Mencken and W.C. Fields." He lives in western Massachusetts. Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South
  • James O. Born is a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He has been a deputy marshal with the U.S. Marshals Service and an agent with the DEA. He served as the technical consultant for the TV series Karen Sisco. He lives in Lake Worth, Florida. Field of Fire
  • Jean Lufkin Bouler is a former reporter for The Birmingham News. Exploring Florida's Emerald Coast: A Rich History and a Rare Ecology
  • Virginia Boyd is a graduate of Duke University and has a Masters in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University. She teaches creative nonfiction for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University and has taught workshops on fiction and creative nonfiction. A native North Carolinian, she lives in Durham with her husband Alan. One Fell Swoop
  • Bobby Braddock is a country music songwriter who has written country hits such as: "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones, "D.I.V.O.R.C.E." by Tammy Wynette, and "I Wanna Talk About Me" by Toby Keith. Down in Orbundale: A Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida
  • Michael R. Bradley taught U.S. history at Motlow State Community College in Tullahoma, Tennessee for thirty six years. He earned a master's degree and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He has written extensively on the Civil War, including five books, and in 2004 he was awarded the Jefferson Davis Medal in Southern History. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort and Staff
  • Rick Bragg has written two bestselling memoirs and is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
  • Sonny Brewer founded Over the Transom Bookstore in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the author of Poet of Tolstoy Park and A Sound Like Thunder. He is the editor of the acclaimed anthology series Stories from the Blue Moon Café, the latest volume under the title of A Cast of Characters and Other Stories. Cormac: Tale of a Dog Gone Missing
  • John David Briley Career in Crisis: Paul "Bear" Bryant and the 1971 Season of Change
  • Bill Brown is a part-time lecturer at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He is the author of three poetry collections, three chapbooks and a textbook. Winner of many writing awards and fellowships, his new work appears in North American Review, Louisville Review, South Carolina Review, Prairie Schooner, English Journal, and the 50th Anniversary Anthology of Southern Poetry Review. Tatters
  • Marcia Bryan is a native of Columbus, Mississippi and attended Mississippi College for Women (now known as Mississippi University for Women). She and her husband reside in Memphis, Tennessee. They have four children and ten grandchildren. Dandy Lion is her first book.Dandy Lion: The Adventure Begins
  • Paul Bures has been a civil engineer and businessman for thirty years. A graduate of Cleveland State University, his interests include studying energy subjects. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. America: The Oil Hostage
  • Georgia Byng's first stories were in comic strip. The Sock Monsters was her first published book in 1995. She lives in a very messy house in London and is the author of Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism and two other Molly Books.
  • Tim Callahan has coached junior high and high school basketball and volunteered in his church as a youth worker and adult sports coach. This is the first book in a planned series entitled Kentucky Summers. Author website: www.timcallahan.net. The Cave, the Cabin and the Tattoo Man
  • Toni McGee Causey lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with her husband; they have two sons. A Louisiana native, and Cajun, she's published non-fiction, placed in top-tier screenwriting contests, and edited a popular regional magazine. Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very very) Bad Day
  • David Cazden is the poetry editor for Miller's Pond Magazine. His poems have appeared in literary magazines including Midwest Quarterly, The Comstock Review and The Louisville Review. Moving Picture
  • Michelle Chambersis a singer/songwriter based in Nashville. Her influences include Madeline Peyroux, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Rhonda Vincent, Terri Clark, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and Alabama.
  • Marshall Chapman has released eight critically acclaimed albums and written songs that have been recorded by a wide variety of artists including Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Cocker, and Wynonna. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller
  • Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Alabama. He has lived in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, California, and Costa Rica, and currently lives in New York City. One Mississippi
  • Casey Clabough teaches in the English Program at Lynchburg College in Virginia. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English from the University of South Carolina. He has received fellowships from the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The Warrior's Path: Reflections Along an Ancient Route
  • Joshua Clark, founder of Light of New Orleans publishing, edited Louisiana in Words, French Quarter Fiction, and other books, and his writing and photographs appear in many newspapers and magazines. He covered New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath for Salon.com and National Public Radio. A portion of royalties from the book will benefit KARES, Katrina Arts Relief and Emergency Support. Heart Like Water
  • Erskine Clarke is Professor of American Religious History and Director of International Programs at Columbia Theological Seminary. He received the Bancroft Prize in American history in 2006. Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic
  • Robert Cochran completed his residency in internal medicine and neurology at the University of Texas and Duke University. In 1963, he established his private medical practice in Nashville, where he continues to work today. Serving as the co-director of the Pain Center at Centennial Hospital in Nashville in the 1990s, Dr. Cochran built a reputation as a leader in chronic pain treatment. Understanding Chronic Pain: A Doctor Talks to His Patients – Expanded Second Edition
  • Judith Ortiz Cofer is a native of Puerto Rico. She is a poet, essayist, and novelist whose books include The Latin Deli and The Line of the Sun, which the Los Angeles Times called "magical." She is the Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Georgia. Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer
  • Buth Beaumont Cook is a freelance writer. She lives in Birmingham with her husband, Barney. Guests Behind the Barbed Wire: German POWs in America: A True Story of Hope and Friendship
  • Floyd Cooper was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He studied fine art at the University of Oklahoma, and after graduation he spent many years illustrating advertisements and working for Hallmark. His first picture book was Grandpa's Face, written by Eloise Greenfield. He has gone on to illustrate many more books and win many awards, including three Coretta Scott King Honors. Tough Boy Sonatas
  • Jacques Couvillon was born and raised on a farm in Cow Island, Louisiana. Although he has lived in different cities, he will always consider Cow Island his home. He will not say which, but some of the events in his first book, The Chicken Dance, may actually have happened to Jacques. The Chicken Dance
  • Bob Cox, a retired chemical engineer, is a history columnist with the Johnson City (Tennessee) Press, producing a weekly feature entitled "Yesteryear." Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman: An East Tennessee Old-Time Music Pioneer and His Family
  • Curtis Crisler has recently been published in The Fourth River, Black Arts Quarterly, and Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami. He has a chapbook entitled Burnt Offerings of a City, which won the Kathryn Young Chapbook Award. He has appeared on Urban Life's 2003 calendar for winning the Sterling Plumpp's First Voices Prize. He is published in the genres of fiction, drama, review and poetry. Tough Boy Sonatas is a collection of poems that move audiences ranging from teens to adults. Tough Boy Sonatas
  • Moira Crone is the author of a novel and two short story collections. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Image, and Ploughsares, among many others. A resident of New Orleans, she teaches at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. What Gets Into Us
  • Lonnie Cruse is the author of the Metropolis Mystery Series and the new Kitty Bloodworth/'57 Chevy series. She resides in Metropolis, Illinois, the setting for her mysteries. Murder beyond Metropolis
  • Beto Cumming has over ten years experience as an editor and graphic designer. He works for the Iris Publishing Group, Inc. and its imprints, Iris Press and Tellico Books. For more information visit www.irisbooks.com. Jack the Healing Cat
  • Austin Cunningham has written or co-written songs for top recording artists, such as Hank Williams, Jr., Martina McBride, Dolly Parton, Wynonna, Chris Knight, and Del McCoury. He has released three CDs and performs regularly in Nashville and in Texas.
  • Robert Dalby is a native of Mississippi and lifelong patron of the Piggly Wiggly. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi. Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly
  • Quinn Dalton is the author of the novel High Strung and the story collection, Bulletproof Girl. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two daughters. Visit her website at www.quinndalton.com.
  • Rosemary Daniell is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and memoirist. She founded the Zona Rosa writers' group, which is a national network of women's writing groups. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. Secrets of the Zona: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women's Lives
  • Jennifer Davis was born and raised in Alabama, where she grew up exploring the banks of Lake Martin and the Tallapoosa River. She has lived and worked in Montana, Denver, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Washington state and New Orleans. In 2001, she received her M.F.A. from the University of Alabama. Recently, she taught fiction in the M.F.A. program at Eastern Washington University, where she served as editor of Willow Springs. Davis' stories have been published or are forthcoming in such journals as Grand Street, Paris Review, Epoch, Georgia Review, One Story, Oxford American, Fiction, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Our Former Lives in Art
  • Sandra Davis That Special Touch: A Maker's Mark Bourbon Cookbook
  • Diane Diekman is the author of Navy Greenshirt: A Leader Made, Not Born and A Farm in the Hidewood: My South Dakota Home. A retired U.S. Navy captain, she was acquainted with Faron Young for the twenty-six years before his death in 1996. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story
  • Bob Doershuck has been a professional music journalist for thirty years, with articles published in Billboard, No Depression, Relix, Harp, Guitar Player, Interview, and other magazines. A former editor of Musician magazine, he is currently editor of CMA Close Up, published by the Country Music Association. He has written several books on music, including Playing from the Heart. The Country Music Reader
  • Lisa DuBois earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Master's degree in biomedical communications from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. A native of Greenville, South Carolina, DuBois has been an award-winning freelance writer for more than twenty years. A former Nashville Banner reporter, DuBois has penned stories for newspapers, magazines, radio, and video. More Than a Place: The Origins of a Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
  • Pamela Duncan holds an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Her first novel, Moon Women, was a Southeast Booksellers Association Award Finalist, and her second novel, Plant Life, won the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. Visit her website at www.pameladuncan.com. The Big Beautiful
  • Susan Eaddy was an art director for fifteen years, during which time she won international 3D illustration awards and a Grammy nomination. She has illustrated over eighty books and covers in the educational market, and her work can currently be found on products such as wall borders, greeting cards and puzzles. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her art professor husband and two cats. Papa Fish's Lullaby is her first children's picture book. Author website: www.susaneaddy.com. Papa Fish's Lullaby
  • John T. Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. The SFA documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. He is also author of a number of books. Foodways, New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
  • Elizabeth Edwards, a lawyer, has worked for the North Carolina Attorney General's office and at the law firm Merriman, Nichols, and Crampton in Raleigh, and she has also taught legal writing as an adjunct instructor at the law school of North Carolina University. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
  • Leigh Edwards is a writer and eighth-generation Floridian based in Tallahassee. She is the author of the book Johnny Cash's Contradictions: Race and Masculinity in American Popular Culture and of another book on reality TV. She has published numerous articles on popular culture, is a staff writer for the magazine PopMatters (at popmatters.com), and is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida State University. Literary Cash
  • Lynnell Edwards is a poet from Kentucky. The Highwayman's Wife
  • John Egerton is a journalist and author whose books include the award-winning Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History and Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Ali Dubyiah and the Forty Thieves
  • Brian "Fox" Ellis has been entertaining audiences with his special style of storytelling for more than twenty-five years. From "A Storyteller's Tour of the Louvre" in Paris to a campfire in the mountains of North Carolina, from the Historic Sandwich, Illinois Opera House to an International Conference on Wetlands Conservation in Washington, D.C., Ellis brings audiences together through the sharing of tales. The Web at Dragonfly Pond
  • J.T. Ellison is a thriller writer based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her short stories have appeared in Demolition magazine, Flashing in the Gutters, Mouth Full of Bullets and Spinetingler magazine. She blogs at Murderati.com and is a founding member of Killer Year. All the Pretty Girls
  • Karlen Evins is co-host and partner in Bart Evins Broadcasting, through which she co-moderated the politically-oriented Teddy Bart's Roundtable for eighteen years. She also co-created and hosted Country Music Soulmates on TNN. She founded the non-profit The Public Forum, and lobbied extensively for a statewide network to cover Tennessee's Capitol Hill. She recently received her Masters in Divinity from Vanderbilt University. She lives in Nashville. Author website: www.ididntknowthat.biz. I Didn't Know That: From Ants in the Pants to Wet behind the Ears The Unusual Origins of the Things We Say
  • Sherry Fair is a teacher, writer and storyteller. She has a Bachelor's degree in English from Columbia College. She shares her characters and stories in a book series that features her Sheltie, Stonerhaven Carolina Spatz. Sherry and Spatz make their home in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains and the South Carolina Midlands with Sherry's husband Dr. Hal Fair.
  • Blas Falconer is a poet and teacher of English at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Indiana Review, Green Mountains Review, and Cimarron Review. His chapbook of poems, The Perfect Hour, was published by Pleasure Boat Studio in 2006. A Question of Gravity and Light is his first book-length collection of poems. A Question of Gravity and Light
  • James C. Floyd is a screenwriter, storyteller and poet. Some Gentle Moving Thing
  • Keith Flynn is the founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review. The Golden Ratio
  • Jennifer Ford is head of special collections and associate professor at the J.D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi, where the where the collection containing Lt. Nelson's letters and other family documents is held. The Hour of Our Nation's Agony: The Civil War Letters of Lt. William Cowper Nelson of Mississippi
  • Tom Forehand lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is a student of Robert E. Lee's life and travels widely giving presentations on Lee's life and words. Robert E. Lee's Lighter Side: The Marble Man's Sense of Humor
  • Cindy G. Foust is the president and author of Alpha-kidZ. She has released ten children's books featuring the letters A-J, and she will release sixteen more books (featuring the remaining sixteen letters) in February of 2008. She has traveled extensively, presenting to more than 400 schools and libraries during an eighteen-city book tour. She is a member of the Publisher's Association of the South, the Association for Children's Book Authors and Illustrators, the Southeast Book Seller's Association, and the Northeast Louisiana Reading/International Reading Association. Alpha-kidZ: Reading Adventures A-Z
  • Kinky Friedman is a former country music star, a former Texas Monthly columnist, and an author of a successful mystery series. He lives on a ranch in Medina, Texas. You Can Lead a Politican to Water, but You Can't Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics
  • Bill Friskics-Warren is the author of I'll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence, which Sojourners magazine called "a definitive popular culture study for the new millennium." The book was published in paperback by the Continuum group in September. Friskics-Warren has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Village Voice and the Oxford American. He is a Senior Editor at No Depression and has had his work reprinted in three volumes of Da Capo Best Music Writing. I'll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence
  • Frye Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, was also a founding editor of Novello Festival Press. Among his books are Watermelon Wine: Remembering the Golden Years of Country Music, and Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America. Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy
  • Jack Gantos is the author of the popular Rotten Ralph series of picture books and the critically acclaimed Joey Pigza books about a child with attention deficit disorder. He has won a number of awards, including the Newbery Honor. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award. His memoir, Hole in My Life won the Michael L. Printz Honor for distinguished contribution to young adult literature and a Robert F. Sibert Honor for informational books from the American Library Association. Hole in My Life and I Am Not Joey Pigza
  • William Gay's fiction has appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines. He has won the William Peden Award and the James Michener Memorial Prize. He lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee. Twilight
  • Charles Ghigna is the author of more than thirty award-winning books of poetry for children and adults. His books have been featured on Good Morning America and the Rosie O'Donnell Show and have been selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Animal Tracks: Wild Poems to Read Aloud
  • Virginia Gilbert, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is the 2001 Alabama Poet of the Year and is the recipient of a 2006 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Alumni Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to China. She has taught English in Iran, from which she was evacuated in 1979, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. Her books include That Other Brightness, The Earth Above, and Greatest Hits.
  • Karin Gillespie is a biweekly columnist for the Augusta Chronicle and is the author of Bet Your Bottom Dollar and A Dollar Short. She lives in Augusta, Georgia. Dollar Daze
  • Mike Glasgow is a native of Nashville. He has a B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. degree from the University of Tennessee. He is currently working on his next book — a true crime story set in both Nicaragua and Nashville. An Unfinished Canvas, a Story of Love, Family,and Murder
  • Robin Preiss Glasser actually wore tiaras and tutus when she danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet for eleven years. Now she happily spends her days in jeans and glasses, drawing such bestsellers as Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor and America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney. Robin lives in Southern California with her husband, Bob, children Sasha and Benjamin, and their puppy, Boo, whom they still love even after she ate the living room sofa. Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy
  • Phyllis Gobbell, a resident of Nashville, writes both fiction and non-fiction. She has published stories, articles, and three books. In 2006 she received the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship. An Unfinished Canvas: A Story of Love, Family and Murder
  • Melody Golding's photographs of the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina have been shown in solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC and at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. He work is featured in numerous public and private collections. Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember
  • Dwonna Goldstone is a professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Integrating the 40 Acres: The Fifty-Year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas
  • Robert Goolrick worked for many years in advertising. He lives in New York City. This is his first book. The End of the World as We Know It (Scenes from a Life)
  • Connie Green is a writer of novels, stories for young people, and poetry. She teaches writing at the University of Tennessee. Slow Children Playing
  • Wayne Greenhaw is the author of three novels, a collection of short fiction, eleven non-fiction books, and two plays. He has taught journalism and creative writing at Auburn University and Alabama State University. Ghosts on the Road: Poems of Alabama, Mexico and Beyond; King of Country
  • Lauren Groff was born in Cooperstown, New York, and has an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her short stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Best American Short Stories, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, among others, and she was the Axton Fellow in Fiction at the University of Louisville. Her first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, will be published by Voice in February, 2008. Best New American Voices 2008
  • Vernell Hackett is a Nashville-based entertainment journalist who has covered the music business for twenty-five years. She is currently the prep writer and producer for Westwood One/Metro Radio Network. The Country Music Reader
  • John Hailman was wine columnist for the Washington Post and was nationally syndicated for over a decade by Gannett News Service. He has served as judge and panel chairman at numerous international wine competitions for over twenty years. He divides his time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi and Merignac in the Charente region of southwest France. Thomas Jefferson on Wine
  • Shannon Hale is the author of the companion books, The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, and River Secrets. She received a Newbery Honor for her New York Times bestseller, Princess Academy. Austenland, the story of a woman obsessed with the world of Jane Austen, is her first novel for adults. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and their son. Book of a Thousand Days and Austenland
  • Jimmy Carl Harris fought in two wars as a US Marine and earned two degrees from Chapman College. Upon retirement from the military, he completed a doctorate at the University of Alabama. He is retired and writes fiction full-time. Wounds That Bind: Stories
  • Craig Havighurst is a Nashville-based writer, editor, and producer whose company, String Theory Media, specializes in music documentaries. His short "WSM Snapshot" for Nashville Public Television won a regional Emmy Award in 2001. A former staff music writer for the Tennessean in Nashville, he is also an independent journalist whose music correspondence has appeared on NPR and in Billboard, The Wall Street Journal, Country Music Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly. Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City
  • Helen Hemphill holds an M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College and is an education Artist in Residence for the Tennessee Arts Commission. Her first novel, Long Gone Daddy, was published to considerable critical acclaim and was included in the New York Public Library's 2006 Books for the Teen Age. A native Texan, she currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas with her family. Runaround
  • Katherine Henninger is assistant professor of American literature at Louisiana State University. Ordering the Facade: Photography and Contemporary Southern Women's Writing
  • Frankie Henry sings with the Mt. Ararat Church Men's Chorus and Praise Divas, located in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
  • Lisa Hickman is a Memphis author and independent scholar who has written extensively on the life and work of Joan Williams and William Faulkner. Publications include literary criticism, creative nonfiction, essays and book reviews. She holds her Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi with specialization in American and Southern Literature. William Faulkner and Joan Williams: The Romance of Two Writers
  • Robert Hicks reached The New York Times bestseller list with Widow of the South. He was born and reared in South Florida. In 1974 he moved to Williamson County, Tennessee, moving to Labor in Vain, late-eighteenth century log cabin near Leiper's Fork, Tennessee in 1979. Widow of the South
  • Denise Hildreth is a novelist and international speaker. Her first novel, Savannah from Savannah, and her recent novel, Flies on the Butter were both featured in Southern Living. Three of her novels have been Pulpwood Queens Book Club Selections. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The Will of Wisteria
  • Cary Holladay, a native of Virginia, is the author of a novel, Mercury (Random House, 2002), and three collections of short stories, most recently The Quick-Change Artist: Stories (Ohio UP, 2006). Her awards include an O. Henry Prize, an NEA, and fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. One of her new stories is included in New Stories From the South: The Year's Best 2007 (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). She teaches in the Creative Writing program at the University of Memphis. The Quick Change Artist
  • Tim Hollis is the author of numerous books on Americana. The Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories
  • Sherre Hoppe is president of Austin Peay State University. She has coauthored a number of volumes in the New Directions for Teaching and Learning Series. Maxine Smith's Unwilling Pupils: Lessons Learned in Memphis' Civil Rights Classroom
  • Samuel Howard is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Phoenix Holdings, Inc. a personal investment holding company. He lives with his family in Nashville, Tennessee. The Flight of the Phoenix: Thoughts on Work and Life
  • Carolyn Howard-Johnson's the award-winning author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't, This is the Place, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered and Tracings. She is co-editor of The Complete Writer's Journal. She was a publicist for a New York agency and an editorial assistant for Good Housekeeping magazine. She currently is an instructor for UCLA's writers' program. The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success
  • Tung-Hui Hu lives in San Francisco, where he writes on film and new media. Previously, as a computer scientist, he worked on internet architecture. Mine
  • Don Huber Kick Butt: A Novel
  • Jack Hurst is a former journalist who has written for newspapers including The Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Nashville Tennessean. He is the author of Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography. A descendant of both Union and Confederate soldiers, he currently lives with his wife outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Men of Fire:Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign that Decided the Civil War
  • Steven James is a critically acclaimed author and one of the nation's most innovative storytellers. Since developing his skill as a performer at East Tennessee State University (M.A. in Storytelling), he has spoken more than 1,500 times throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Now harnessing his ability to build suspense with his vivid imagination and evocative writing, Steven is launching his first series of high-octane thrillers, the Bowers Files. Steven lives with his wife and daughters in the hills of Tennessee. The Pawn: A Patrick Bowers Thriller
  • Mark Jarman is a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Awards for his work include the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, three NEA grants, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He previously founded and published the magazine, The Reaper. He lives with his family in Nashville, Tennessee. Epistles
  • Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist, science writer, and documentary filmmaker. He is co-author of Death's Acre, and the producer of two successful National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm. Together, Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass are co-authors of the New York Times bestselling series of Body Farm novels. Beyond the Body Farm
  • John Sims Jeter retired in 2005 from his previous life as a mathematician and professional engineer. His stories have apperaed in The Louisville Review and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a member of Lifelong Writers at the University of South Florida. This is his first novel. and the angels sang
  • Dinah Johnson is the author of several children's books with Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. They include HAIR DANCE!, Quinnie Blue, and Sitting Pretty: A Celebration of Black Dolls. As Dianne Johnson, she is a professor of English at the University of South Carolina and a visiting professor in the Hamline University M.F.A. program in writing children's and young adult literature. She also serves on the advisory board for the Children's Defense Fund's Langston Hughes Library in Clinton, Tennessee. HAIR DANCE!
  • Greg Johnson is a professor of English and a faculty member in the graduate writing program at Kennesaw State University. A frequent reviewer for such publications as The New York Times Book Review, Georgia Review, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Johnson has published two novels, a study of Emily Dickinson, three critical works on Joyce Carol Oates, a book of poems, and three collections of short fiction. Women I've Known
  • Jim Johnson, now retired, was for many years a lands management biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. He oversaw thirteen wildlife management areas and refuges, primarily for waterfowl, in northwest Tennessee. Rivers Under Siege: The Troubled Saga of West Tennessee's Wetlands
  • Tim Johnson is a professor of history at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Johnson's research interests include the Mexican War and Civil War. His publications include A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign; A Fighter From Way Back: The Mexican War Diary of Lt. Daniel Harvey Hill and Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory. The Virginia Historical Society has named him an Andrew J. Mellon Research Fellow twice (1994, 2002). Yale University named him the Archibald Hanna, Jr. Research Fellow in American History for 2005, and he has been in residence at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on the Yale campus. Dr. Johnson has been featured on C-SPAN's BookTV and The History Channel. A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign
  • Roland Jones, a Nashville resident, is a former McDonald's corporate executive, franchisee, and leading founder of the National Black McDonald's Operators Association, a motivational speaker and business consultant.Standing Up and Standing Out
  • Marilyn Kallet has won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship in Poetry and was named Outstanding Woman in the Arts by the Knoxville YWCA. She is the poetry editor for New Millennium Writings and holds the Lindsay Young Professorship at the University of Tennessee, where she directed the creative writing program for seventeen years. Jack the Healing Cat
  • Les Kerr is a songwriter and author whose music often contains references to New Orleans, Mississippi and the Gulf Coast. He wrote nine of the songs on his new CD, Crawfish Caravan. Tennessee
  • Ronald Kidd is the author of Dunker, a winner of a Children's Choice Award; Second Fiddle, an Edgar Award nominee and Library of Congress Children's Book of the Year; and Sizzle & Splat, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. He is a two-time O'Neill playwright residing and working in Nashville, Tennessee. Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial
  • Tom Kimmel is a bestselling singer and songwriter based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Sweetest and the Meanest
  • Daisy King, known widely in the South as "Miss Daisy," is a well-established author whose cookbooks have combined sales of more than 1.5 million. An author, restaurateur, food consultant, and home economist, she lives in Franklin, Tennessee. Miss Daisy's Healthy Southern Cooking
  • Jeff Kinney has worked as a newspaper designer and computer programmer (and at other occupations that do not hinge on physical prowess). Diary of a Wimpy Kid is his first book. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
  • Carole Brown Knuth is a scholar on southern women writers at the University of New York, Buffalo. The Poetics of Healing
  • Ronald Koertge is the author of a dozen YA novels and half a dozen books of poems. His novel Stoner & Spaz won the P.E.N. Award, and most of his fiction is on an ALA list of some sort. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council for his work as a poet, and individual poems have appeared in two volumes of Best American Poetry. A teacher at Pasadena College for thirty-seven years, he now teaches only at Hamline University in their M.F.A. in Children's Writing program. He lives in Southern California with his wife. Shakespeare Bats Cleanup
  • Michael Kosser's an award-winning songwriter and currently senior editor at American Songwriter, where he has penned a column "Street Smarts" on the mechanics of the form for more than two decades. Kosser has also had more than 100 cuts recorded by a host of country stars from George Jones and Conway Twitty to Tammy Wynette and Barbara Mandrell. He received the Award for Best History from the 2007 Association of Recorded Sound Collections Association. How Nashville Became Music City U.S.A.: 50 Years of Music Row
  • Georgiana Kotarski holds degrees from The University of the South, Kennesaw State University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The director of the Sequatchie Valley campus for Chattanooga State Technical Community College, she lives in Dunlap, Tennessee. Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley
  • Robert Kurson earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, then a law degree from Harvard Law School. After working as a features reporter for The Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago magazine, he moved to Esquire as as a contributing editor. His award-winning stories have also appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. He lives in the Chicago suburbs and can be reached via the Internet at www.robertkurson.com. Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure and the Man Who Dared to See
  • Andy Landis is co-author of She Stays published by Thomas Nelson, writer of over 300 published songs, associate editor and contributing writer for New Leaf Magazine, and an award winning playwright. Recently, she was a guest playwright at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and is owner of Shiny Penny Productions, a Nashville-based creative company for writers and artists.
  • Millie Landis is a reverend who has practiced the art of healing in San Diego for more than thirty years. To Touch an Angel
  • Juanita Lane is the owner of Dulce Desserts in Nashville.
  • Michael Largo received a B.A. in English from Brooklyn College and an A.S. in Environmental Science. His varied careers included: English teacher in Harlem, editor of New York Poetry, field guide for a nature conservation center, East Village New York City tavern owner, deckhand on a sea-going tugboat, video producer, and certified builder. He also served on Board of Directors of the Miami Book Fair International. He has been collecting statistics and information on the American way of dying for over a decade. He is a member of The Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America amd Horror Writers of America. The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich and Powerful Really Died
  • Matt Lee and his brother, Ted, are co-proprietors of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalog, a mail-order source for southern pantry staples. They write about food, wine, and travel for the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Martha Stewart Living, and Food and Wine. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners
  • Ted Lee and his brother, Matt, are co-proprietors of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalog, a mail-order source for southern pantry staples. They write about food, wine, and travel for the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Martha Stewart Living, and Food and Wine. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners
  • Con Lehane has been a union organizer and a college professor, and was, for more than a decade, a bartender. After spending most of his life in and around New York City, he now works as a labor journalist and lives in a Washington, DC, suburb with his wife and two sons. This is his third novel in the Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery series; previous titles include Beware the Solitary Drinker and What Goes Around Comes Around. Please visit his Web site at www.conlehane.com. Death at the Old Hotel:A Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery
  • Lorraine Lopez is the author of the 2002 Mármol Prize for Latina/o Fiction Winner, Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee, where she teaches English at Vanderbilt University. She also won the IPPY Award for Multicultural Fiction for Soy la Avon Lady. Kirkus Reviews called the collection "a thoroughgoing delight." Her debut novel, Call Me Henri, is for a young adult audience. Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories
  • D. Anne Love is the author of several novels. She won the Writers' League of Texas Teddy Award for The Puppeteer's Apprentice, and she has been recognized by the American Library Association and the National Council of Teachers of English for her work. A former professor of children's literature, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is a popular speaker at writers' and educators' conferences. A native West-Tennessean, she currently resides in New Albany, Ohio. Picture Perfect
  • Bobby Lovett, a native Tennessean, received the Ph.D. and M.A. in history at the University of Arkansas. He is senior professor of history at Tennessee State University and author of The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History and The African American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780-1930, among several other books, scholarly articles, chapters, and encyclopedia entries. How It Came to Be: The Boyd Family's Contribution to African American Religious Publishing from the 19th to the 21st Century
  • Robert Macomber is an internationally recognized award-winning maritime novelist and lecturer. His Honor Series of naval fiction has captivated readers in ten countries, who have been eagerly anticipating his 2007 novel, A Different Kind of Honor. Visit his website at www.robertmacomber.com. A Different Kind of Honor
  • Kerry Madden's critically acclaimed novel, Offsides was selected by the New York Public Library for its 1997 "Books for the Teen Age" list. Her debut children's novel, Gentle's Holler (which received starred reviews in Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly), was the first in a series of Smoky Mountain novels featuring the Weems family. Louisiana's Song was published in 2007 and Jessie's Mountain will be published in 2008. Madden is currently working on a biography of Harper Lee for Viking's Up Close series for teens. Louisiana's Song
  • David Magee is the author of eight non-fiction books, including one called by Harvard Business Review "a provocative case study," and an award-winning columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He lives on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. MoonPie: Biography of an Out-of-this-World Snack
  • Maurice Manning, a native of Kentucky, won the 2000 Yale Younger Poets competition. He teaches English at DePauw University. Bucolics
  • Lainie Marsh, a singer/songwriter, was born and raised in West Virginia. He is the author of Meanest County, An Appalachian Folk Opera, which transforms the traditional music of the coal mining territories into a unique artistic statement. Meanest County, An Appalachian Folk Opera
  • Charles Martin, and his wife, Christy, live near St. John's River in Jacksonville, Florida with their three sons. Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
  • Christopher Brenden Martin is professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University. His articles have appeared in the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Museum News, and The Journal of Appalachian Studies. Tourism in the Mountain South: A Double-Edged Sword
  • Corey K. Martin grew up on a farm in Lincoln, Missouri. She attended Mississippi State University on a basketball and track scholarship. She me her husband, who played for the Mississippi State football team, while in college. Corey graduated with a degree in fitness management and currently works at Oktibbeha County Hospital as an Exercise Specialist. Andrew and Corey have two children, and Corey's main goal with her Go Mommy Go! book is to help make a difference in childhood and teen obesity. Go Mommy Go!
  • Bobbie Ann Mason has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Southern Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere. She lives with her husband in Kentucky. Nancy Culpepper
  • Alex Matthews is a clinical social worker who enjoys writing psychological mysteries, but has no urge to live the life of the great Cassidy McCabe. She lives with her husband and private practice partner in Illinois. You may visit her website at www.alexmatthews.com. Blood's Burden
  • Joanne Marshall Mauldin is an independent scholar. Her articles have appeared in Southern Exposure, The Thomas Wolfe Review, and Pembroke magazine. She is the owner of Levelheaded Editing Services. Thomas Wolfe: When Do the Atrocities Begin?
  • Sharon May's stories and interviews have appeared in Best New American Voices, The Chicago Tribune, Tin House, StoryQuarterly, Other Voices, Manoa, Concert of Voices: An Anthology of World Writing in English, Beyond Words: Asian Writers on Their Work, and elsewhere. She has received the Robie Macauley Award, the Julia Peterkin Award, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She is co-editor of In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia. Best New American Voices 2008
  • Steven Mayeux is a graduate of LSU and a former Marine officer. His work as an agricultural consultant in the central Louisiana area for the past thirty years has given him a great appreciation for the history and geography of the lower Red River. Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana and the Defense of the Red River
  • Michael McCall
  • John McLaughlin Run in the Fam'ly: A Novel
  • Stephan McLaughlin is founder of the HEAL organization, an educational non-profit that publishes boks and sponsors conferences, workshops and spiritual events that support positive change. He founded the Aikido Center in Memphis, Tennessee, where he continues to practice and teach. After a thirty-four-year career as a successful entrepreneur and small businessman, he was moved to work with non-profits on conflict resolution and intervention programs and processes. He lives with his family in Memphis, Tennessee. Seeking Self: an inner journey to healthy relationship
  • Margaret McMullan lives in Evansville, Indiana with her husband and son. She is an English professor at the University of Evansville. She was born in Newton County, Mississippi, which is near where How I Found the Strong is set, and the main character is based on her grandmother's great uncle. How I Found the Strong is her first novel for children, and the sequel, When I Crossed No-Bob, will be published in November of 2007. How I Found the Strong
  • Pat Meller is a technical and medical writer who has analyzed, designed, and written a wide variety of materials, including: articles in medical journals, training materials, policy and procedure manuals, installation, user and reference manuals for computer software and equipment, and user manuals for cardiac monitoring equipment. She earned an M.S. from the University of Alabama, and often speaks to groups about careers in technical writing.
  • Chris Milam was born in Virginia, raised in Memphis, and works in Nashville, Tennessee. He combines the country, blues, and rock influences of his youth to create a style all his own. Critics have lauded his knack for lyricism, deejays have praised his facility with melody, and fans across the South have targeted him as one of this generation's most promising songwriters.
  • J.L. Miles, author of the critically acclaimed Roseflower Creek, tours with the Dixie Divas, four nationally published Southern authors with a passion for promotion. Cold Rock River
  • Kirsten Miller is the creator of a series for young adults about a group of girls who protect New York's secret underground world, the Shadow City. She works in advertising in New York City when she's not drinking coffee, exploring the city and writing. Kiki Strike
  • William Lynwood Montell is the emeritus professor of folk studies at Western Kentucky University and is the author of several books. Grassroots Music in the Upper Cumberland
  • Perry Moore grew up in Virginia. He is the executive producer of the "Chronicles of Narnia" films, and his book about the making of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a New York Times best seller. Along with Hunter Hill, he recently wrote and directed his first feature film, Lake City, starring Sissy Spacek. Hero is his first novel. Hero
  • Robert Morgan has published a number of books of both fiction and poetry. He has won the James B. Hanes Poetry Prize, the North Carolina Award in Literature and the Jacaranda Review Fiction Prize. His novel Gap Creek won the 2000 Southern Book Award for Fiction and was a selection of Oprah's Book Club. Boone: A Biography
  • Curtis Morris is an accountability specialist for school accreditation and strategic planning for the Memphis City Schools. Creating Caring and Nurturing: Educational Environments for African-American Children
  • Vivian Gunn Morris is a professor of education and assistant dean for faculty development in The University of Memphis College of Education. Creating Caring and Nurturing: Educational Environments for African-American Children
  • Lisa Mullins was born in Rogersville, Tennessee where she currently teaches school, specializing in adult education. She earned a M.A. degree from East Tennessee State university in 2000, with a concentration in African American Studies. Diane Nash: The Fire of the Civil Rights Movement
  • Scott Muskin holds an M.F.A from the University of Minnesota and has published short stories in Beloit Fiction Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Red Rock Review, and Minnesota Monthly. He was a finalist for the 2006 Flannery O'Connor Award for his short story collection. The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama's Boy and Scholar
  • Lauren Myracle is the author of many popular novels for middle-grade and young adult readers, including ttyl, ttfn, l8r, g8r, and the darkly comic Rhymes with Witches, which Booklist said will put "creep-meters into overload." She holds an M.F.A. in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College and lives with her family in Denver, Colorado. Twelve and Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty
  • Sena Jeter Naslund is Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville, program director of the Spalding University brief-residency M.F.A. in Writing, and current Kentucky Poet Laureate. Recipient of the Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award, she is editor of The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-Lis Press. Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
  • Michael Nelson, formerly an editor of The Washington Monthly, a professor at Vanderbilt University, and a politcal analyst at WSMV-TV, is currently a professor of political science at Rhodes College. He is the author of numerous books on American politics and government. How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation
  • Derek Nikitas has published stories in The Ontario Review, Chelsea, and Ellery Queen Mystery magazine. He has a creative writing degree from UNC-Wilmington and is pursuing an English Ph.D. at Georgia State. Pyres
  • Patrick Oliver is founder of the "Say it Loud! Readers and Writers" Series, a literary arts program dedicated to promoting reading and writing as tools of empowerment. He is co-founder of the Harlem Book Fair Children's Pavilion and coordinator for the African Festival of the Arts Book Pavilion. His literary projects have been featured on CSPAN's BookTV, NPR, BET and NBC. His anthology, Turn the Page and You Don't Stop, features writings from such noted authors as Patricia Gaines and Janis F. Kearney. Turn the Page and You Don't Stop
  • David Olney's intelligent compositions have been recorded by Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury, Lonnie Brooks, James King, Slaid Cleaves, Dale Ann Bradley, Tom Rozum, Ann Rabson, Kevin Welch, Keiran Kane, Fats Kaplin and others. As I Lay Dying (Musical Interpretation)
  • Matthew Olshan's literary debut, Finn: A Novel, a modern telling of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with girls as protagonists, was recently selected by Recorded Books, LLC as a core novel in the national Plugged-In to Reading literacy program. Mr. Olshan's new novel, The Flown Sky, a fantasy for precocious readers aged 8-12, is an adventure story of high literary ambition and delightful nonsense. Mr. Olshan was educated at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Oxford Universities. A native of Washington, DC, he lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and daughter. The Flown Sky
  • Reza Ordoubadian is a professor in the English Department of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In these translations, Hafez, one of humanity's greatest poets, becomes easier accessible in a more authentic and faithful version to the English language reader. The Poems of Hafez (trans.)
  • Ann Packer received a Great Lakes Book Award and the Kate Chopin Literary Award for The Dive from Clausen's Pier. She lives in Northern California with her family. Author website: annpacker.com. Songs Without Words
  • Billie Pate is a gifted writer with published works in education and music. She has master's degrees in both social work and education. Her professional experience includes writing, editing, training, and executive management in national organizations. Please Take Me Home Before Dark: One Family's Journey with Alzheimer's Disease
  • Jay Patten has released four well received albums including his CBS CD Black Hat and Saxophone which made the national charts as well as being featured on VH-1. Other projects include Impressions of Christmas and his big band project, All In Blue Time, featuring his friend Buddy DeFranco. Watch for Jay's new CD Night Blue with eleven new songs by Jay as well as the classic "Harlem Nocturne." It's a gift of passion from a vital and diverse musical artist, Mr. "Blue" Jay Patten.
  • Tito Perdue was born in 1938 in Chile and raised in Alabama. He is the author of five novels, including Lee. Fields of Asphodel
  • Alice Hall Petry is professor of English at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. She is the author of A Genius in His Way: The Art of Cable's Old Creole Days and Understanding Anne Tyler, and the editor of Critical Essays on Kate Chopin and Critical Essays on Anne Tyler. On Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections, ed.
  • David James Poissant's stories and book reviews have appeared in Playboy, The Chicago Tribune, The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Willow Springs, and in the anthology Best New American Voices 2008. He is the winner of the 2007 Playboy College Fiction Contest, the George Garrett Fiction Award, and Second Prize in the 2005 Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest. He has been a finalist for the Nelson Algren Award, a Georges and Anne Borchardt Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati. Best New American Voices 2008
  • Kathy Pories is a Senior Editor at Algonquin Books and Series Editor of the annual anthology, New Stories from the South. New Stories from the South: The Year's Best 2007
  • Pat Price is a three-time National Junior Wheelchair Games weightlifting champion and remains an avid wheelchair racer. He is a magna cum laude graduate of David Lipscomb University. He volunteers at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and as a political campaign worker. Looking for Goodwill
  • Scott Price is vice president and general counselor for Eller and Olsen Stone Company in Nashville. He holds a master of law degree in taxation from George Washington University. A former United States Marine Corps Captain and Judge Advocate General's officer, he is a founding board member of the Spina Bifida Foundation and a past vice chair of the Lipscomb University Board of Trust. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Looking for Goodwill
  • Rita Quillen has published two books of poetry and a critical book, Looking For Native Ground. Her Secret Dream: New and Selected Poems
  • Linda Ragsdale The Amazing Step-By-Step Art Card Studio: Pet Pals You Can Draw and Zoo Buddies You Can Draw
  • Kristofer Ray is assistant professor of history at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. His articles have appeared in Ohio Valley History and the Tennessee Historical Quarterly. Middle Tennessee 1775-1825
  • Adam Rex is the illustrator of a number of children's books, and he wrote and illustrated Tree Ring Circus and the New York Times best-seller, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia. The True Meaning of Smekday is his first novel for young adults. The True Meaning of Smekday and Pssst!
  • Rob Riggan graduated from Haverford College, served as a medic during the Vietnam War, attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University, worked as a small-town police officer, newspaper reporter and editor, and television producer. His war novel, Free Fire Zone, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 1984. He lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. The Blackstone Commentaries
  • Gene Roberts is a journalism professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a reporter with The Goldsboro News-Argus and The Virginian-Pilot, and a reporter and editor with The News & Observer and The Detroit Free Press before joining The New York Times in 1965, where until 1972 he served as chief southern and civil rights correspondent, chief war correspondent in South Vietnam, and national editor. During his eighteen years as executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, his staff won seventeen Pulitzer Prizes. He later became the managing editor of The New York Times. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
  • Annabelle Robertson is an attorney, award-winning journalist and military chaplain's wife who has counseled dozens of newlyweds through the marriage process. She freelances for numerous publications, and has appeared on Good Day Atlanta and other television shows. The Southern Girls Guide to Surviving the Newlywed Years: How to Stay Sane Once You've Caught Your Man
  • Sallie Ann Robertson was born and raised on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, and is dedicated to sharing the richness of her native Gullah culture. She now lives in Savannah, Georgia. Cooking the Gullah Way: Morning, Noon and Night
  • Chris Roerden worked in niche publishing in New York City before going independent twenty-three years ago. In addition to editing thousands of manuscripts, she's written ten books and a game, often as ghost. She and her clients have won twenty-three honors and awards. Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up DOA
  • Marc Rosenthal is an acclaimed designer and sequential artist, and the illustrator of many books for children. In 2001, The New Yorker's Art Spiegelman asked Mr. Rosenthal to try his hand at comics, and the result was published in Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids. Mr. Rosenthal lives in the Berkshires with his wife, son and cat. Phooey!
  • Randy Rudder is an associate professor of English and journalism at Nashville State Community College and a freelance arts/entertainment writer and editor. He has written for The Washington Post, Country Weekly, Bluegrass Unlimited, The Nashville Business Journal, The Tennessean, The Nashville Scene, and many other publications. Country Music Reader
  • Paul Ruffin is a Regents Distinguished Professor of English at Sam Houston State University and director of Texas Review Press. He is the author of five collections of poetry, two novels, two books of essays, and three collections of short stories. Ruffin's work has appeared widely in literary journals, magazines and newspapers and has been featured on National Public Radio. Jesus in the Mist
  • Renee Russell, author of Kate's Pride, is a seventh generation West Tennessean. Her short stories have appeared in various publications and she freelanced for The Commercial Appeal in 2005. This is her debut novel. Kate's Pride
  • Marcus Sakey's novel, The Blade Itself has been called by CBS Sunday Morning the "first page turner of the year" and by The New York Times "a white knuckle story with a cool, commanding style." The novel has sold in several countries and earned comparison to the work of Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, and James Ellroy. The Blade Itself
  • Alex Sanchez received his Master's in guidance and counseling from Old Dominion University, and for many years he worked as a counselor of youth and families both in the United States and abroad. He received a "Flying Start" from Publishers Weekly for his work on Rainbow Boys, which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist as well as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. The God Box
  • Lara Santoro has worked as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek, traveling to twenty-two countries and covering eight conflicts, two famines and every major aspect of the AIDS epidemic. Mercy
  • Fred Sauceman is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University, and he teaches courses in the foodways of Appalachia. His weekly food column appears in The Kingsport Times-News, and he is a contributor to Marquee magazine. A member of the Board of Directors of the University of Mississippi's Southern Foodways Alliance, Sauceman also serves as a regular commentator on Inside Appalachia, which is produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting. The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South: From Bright Hope to Frog Level, Second Serving
  • Mary Saums' fourth novel, Thistle & Twigg, is the first in a new series from St. Martin's Minotaur. It's a comic Southern mystery about two widows, one British and one Southern, who save an uncut forest of natural and historical wonders. Thistle & Twigg
  • Scott Christian Sava is known throughout the entertainment industry for his versatility as a storyteller. He attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco and became a member of the New York Society of Illustrators at the age of 24. He has served as designer, art director and producer for such popular video games as StarCraft 64, X-Files, Alien vs. Predator, and Fight Club. He was lead animator for the Universal Film Casper and is a weekly contributor to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Digimon, Spider-Man and Nascar Racers. With his company, Blue Dream Studios, he now handles animation projects for Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and more. Pet Robots
  • Erika Schickel is a regular book critic for The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune and writes frequently for the LA Times' op-ed page. She is also a contributor to Bust Magazine, Self Magazine, and several blogs, most notably LA Observed.com, Hip Mama.com and Arianna Huffington's new comedy news blog, 23/6. You're Not the Boss of Me
  • Nicole Seitz The Spirit of Sweetgrass
  • Cindy Post Senning is co-director of the Emily Post Institute, Inc. and oversees its book program. Cindy's thirty years in education qualify her to address questions of etiquette for children, and she shares advice with kids and adults in her columns, curricula, seminars, and books. Emily's Magic Words
  • Paul Shepherd is a Writer in Residence at Florida State University. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Prairie Schooner, Omni, Portland Review, The Quarterly, Fiction, and St. Anthony Messenger. He is active in in Rainbow Rehab, a non-profit that renovates older homes for sale to low-income homeowners. He lives with his family in Florida. More Like Not Running Away
  • Thandiwe Shiphrah has taught poetry workshops independently and as part of the AmeriCorps-WritersCorps program. She is director of LogoRhythms, a "soul proprietorship" that applies the language arts toward the development of healthy individuals and communities. Leftover Light
  • John Simpson holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Oregon and is the author of S.A. Cunningham and the Confederate Heritage and Reminiscences of the 41st Tennessee. He is a public schoolteacher in Kelso, Washington. The Greatest Game Ever Played in Dixie: The Nashville Vols, Their 1908 Season and the Championship Game
  • E. Joan Sims, author of the Paisley Sterling Mysteries, lives in Atlanta, Georgia and works for the CDC in order to support her writing habit. The Cradle Robber
  • Michael Sims lived in Nashville for eighteen years. His new book is Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and in Imagination. He is the author of Adam's Navel, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a Library Journal Best Science Book, and author or editor of several other books. Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and in Imagination
  • George Singleton has published three collections of stories and one novel. He lives in Pickens County, South Carolina. Work Shirts for Madmen
  • Gary Slaughter has a knack for blending small-town life on the World War II home front, nasty German prisoners of war, and undercover moles into tasty literary morsels. Midwest Book Review documents him "as a master at creating lovable characters." Cottonwood Fall, the second in the Cottonwood series, was finalist for the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction. Cottonwood Fall
  • Susan Smith
  • Minton Sparks is a spoken-word poet. Her DVD, Open Casket, recently released in the US and the UK. After having toured with Rodney Crowell, Elizabeth Crook and Will Kimbrough, this year Sparks will participate in the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee for the first time. Desperate Ransom:Setting Her Family Free
  • Bruce Speck is provost and vice president for student and academic affairs at Austin Peay State University. He has co-authored and written books and articles on education. Maxine Smith's Unwilling Pupils: Lessons Learned in Memphis' Civil Rights Classroom
  • Matt Spruill is a retired army colonel who served as a licensed battlefield guide for the National Park Service at Gettysburg Battlefield Military Park. Echoes of Thunder: A Guide to the Seven Days Battles
  • Martha Stamps is the executive chef and owner of Martha's at the Plantation, a restaurant and catering company specializing in classical southern cuisine, located on the grounds of historic Belle Meade Plantation. Her menus emphasize local, seasonal foods from sustainable producers. Ms. Stamps is the author of five cookbooks including the just-released The New New Southern Basics. Her newspaper column on southern food and lifestyle appears weekly in The Tennessean. The New New Southern Basics: Traditional Southern Food for Today
  • Alison Stine is the author of Lot of My Sister (Kent State University Press). Her essay appears in Literary Cash: Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash (BenBella Books), and her poetry and prose has been in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast and others. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she lives in New York with her husband, where she is writing her first novel. Literary Cash
  • Roni Stoneman is a member of the Stoneman family, which performed on Hee-Haw for twenty years. She is a local performer and storyteller. Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story
  • Edward T. Sullivan's writing has appeared in such publications as Booklist, Horn Book Magazine, and School Library Journal. Expelled from high school, Ed earned his G.E.D. and went on to get a B.A. and two Master's degrees. He is currently an elementary school librarian. The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb
  • Richard Taylor is professor and resident Creative Writer at Kentucky State University. A former poet laureate for Kentucky, Taylor has written several books. Sue Mundy: A Novel of the Civil War
  • Elizabeth Terrell taught Special Education and Resource for twelve years before opting to pursue her writing career. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, and the Tennessee Writers Alliance. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Too Close To Evil
  • Sheila Thomas, publishing consultant for Favorite Recipes Press Publishing, has sixteen years in the book industry working primarily with custom publishers and self publishers. She raises Boer and Nubian goats in Collierville, Tennessee, and plans on producing artisanal cheese in the future.
  • J.B. Thompson is the current president of the Middle Tennessee chapter of Sisters in Crime. She writes crime fiction, movie reviews, book reviews for ReviewingtheEvidence.com, has written author profiles for Spinetingler magazine, and is scheduled to have a feature article on Killer Year in an upcoming issue of Crimespree Magazine. The Mozart Murders
  • Lynne Tolley is the great grandniece of Jack Daniel and the proprietress of Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House restaurant in Lynchburg, Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in home economics and nutrition, Lynne travels extensively as a talk show guest, sharing traditional southern recipes. Cooking with Jack: The New Jack Daniels Cookbook
  • Stephen Towne is assistant university archivist at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. His articles have appeared in Indiana Magazine of History, Journalism History, and Civil War History. A Fierce, Wild Joy: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Edward J. Wood, 48th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment
  • Clay Travis writes the popular column "ClayNation" for CBS SportsLine. He has been profiled in Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, and Time magazine, and has been featured on ESPN, CNN, NPR, and Good Morning America. A graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, Travis lives in Nashville with his wife, Lara. Dixieland Delight: A Football Season on the Road in the Southeast Conference
  • Carolyn Turgeon studied Italian literature at Penn State and received a Master's in Comparative Literature from UCLA. She lives in New York and is the author of two novels: Rain Village (Unbridled Books, 2006), which was a Book Sense pick for November 2006 and a Pulpwood Queens book club selection for April 2007, and Godmother (Three Rivers Press, forthcoming). Rain Village
  • Ford Turrell is an artist living in Nashville, Tennesse. His influences include the music of Otis Redding, and Van Morrison as well as the writings of T.S. Eliot, and William Blake. Ford's debut record was recorded during the Summer of 2007 for release in the Fall of 2007. Artist webistes: www.fordturrell.com, and www.myspace.com/fordturrellmusic.
  • Jane Van Ryan is an award-winning broadcast journalist and communications executive. Early in her career, she served as a talk show host, reporter and anchor at television stations in Charleston, South Carolina, Peoria, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky, before spending several years at a major network affiliate in Washington, DC Since 1987, Van Ryan has managed communications programs for trade associations, a large corporation specializing in research and engineering, and one of America's oldest and most respected research universities. The Seduction of Miss Evelyn Hazen
  • Sandra Van Winkle enjoys life as an illustrator, graphic designer and teacher. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Tennessee. Creating with a variety of media, her work has appeared on theatre stages, restaurants, book jackets, posters, greeting cards and even her son's bedroom walls. Jack the Healing Cat is her first published children's book. Jack the Healing Cat
  • Margaret Vandiver is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Memphis. Her main area of research interest is state and collective violence, ranging from the use of the death penalty in America to contemporary instances of genocide. Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South
  • Sara Varon Robot Dreams
  • Paula Wall is the author of the national bestseller, The Rock Orchard, as well as two collections of short pieces, My Love Is Free … But the Rest of Me Don't Come Cheap and If I Were a Man, I'd Marry Me. The latter was a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize. She currently lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee in a converted barn on 150 acres at the foot of the Highland Rim. Her nearest neighbor is one mile down the road, which, frankly, is a little too close for comfort. Visit her website at www.PaulaWall.com. The Wilde Women
  • Daniel Wallace is the author of Big Fish, Ray in Reverse, and The Watermelon King. His stories have been published in many magazines and anthologies, including the Yale Review, the Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah, Glimmer Train, New Stories from the South, and The Best American Short Stories. His illustrated work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times. He teaches at the University of North Carolina and lives in Chapel Hill. Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Musician
  • Kevin Watson is founder and co-owner of Press 53, a small independent publisher located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Press 53 publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry, with a fundamental part of its mission being to support, promote and create new markets for the short story. Kevin is also an award-winning short story author and poet whose works have appeared in several publications.
  • Julia Watts is the author of seven novels, including Phases of the Moon, Women's Studies, and the Lambda Literary Award-winning Finding H.F. Her newest — and most ambitious — novel is The Kind of Girl I Am. She is a native of Southeastern Kentucky. The Kind of Girl I Am
  • Sergio Webb is a well-known road and studio musician. He has recently released a debut solo album, Long Green Hour.
  • Carl Wedekind is a retired attorney and businessman active in a number of civic organizations working for civil liberties and the conservation of our natural lands. He is the author of The Second Grave: A Case for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, a book widely used in the abolition campaign in Kentucky. Politics, Religion and Death: Memoir of a Lobbyist
  • David Weintraub is Professor of Astronomy at Vanderbilt University, which in 2003 honored him with the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the College of Arts and Science. Is Pluto a Planet? A Historical Journey through the Solar System
  • Rosemary Wells has been creating children's books for more than three decades. She attended Boston Museum School and began her career in children's books as a designer at MacMillan in New York. She has published more than sixty books and given readers such wonderful characters as Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, and Yoko. Red Moon at Sharpsburg and Max Counts His Chickens
  • Tony Welty is a musician, writer, husband, father, athlete, preacher and pastor. A priest in the worldwide Anglican Communion, Reverend Welty graduated from Ole Miss and Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. He has served as a parish priest in Pennsylvania and Illinois. He currently lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area with his wife and their four children and serves as an Associate Rector at St. George's Episcopal Church. Ricardo the Fierce is his first children's book. Ricardo the Fierce
  • Karen White is the author of six previous books. She lives with her family. Author website: karen-white.com. Learning to Breathe
  • Michael White is the author of five novels. He teaches at Fairfield University and at the Stonecoast M.F.A. program in Maine. Soul Catcher: A Novel
  • Deborah Wiles is the author of Each Little Bird That Sings, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the E.B. White Read Aloud Award; and Love, Ruby Lavender, an ALA Notable Children's Book and a Children's Book Sense 76 Pick. Born in Alabama, she spent her childhood summers in Mississippi. She now lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia. The Aurora County All Stars and One Wide Sky
  • Charles Wilkinson holds a master's degree in English literature from Vanderbilt University. He has taught at various colleges in and around Memphis for more than twenty years. Ghost of a Chance
  • Charles Reagan Wilson is the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. A professor of history and Southern studies, he earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Texas in El Paso and his Ph.D. at the University of Texas in Austin. He has published numerous books on Southern history and culture.
  • Eric Wilson is the nationally acclaimed author of four novels, Dark to Mortal Eyes, Expiration Date, The Best of Evil, and A Shred of Truth. He has also done the novelization of the theatrical surprise hit, Facing the Giants, due out in September. He lives with his wife and daughters in Nashville, Tennessee. A Shred of Truth
  • Ellen Wittlinger, a former children's librarian, is the author of Hard Love, a Printz Honor book and a Lambda Literary Award winner. She has written many more books for young adults and garnered numerous awards. She has a bachelor's degree from Millikin University in Illinois and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She lives with her husband and two children in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Parrotfish and Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty
  • Nicki Wood is an award-winning cookbook editor, food writer and restaurant reviewer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her food blog, Tupperware Avalanche, features lively writing, original photography and a weekly recipe.
  • Ellen Wright conducted the interviews with Roni and arranged and edited the transcriptions. In 2005, she was named the Charles Deering McCormick University Distinguished Lecturer at Northwestern University, where she teaches in the Writing Program. Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story
  • Mary Pate Yarnell is a nurturer in both her family and her profession. With her minister husband, she served several years as a missionary in Southeast Asia. More recently, she has used her postgraduate training and professional skills in administrative and caregiving functions in several skilled care facilities. Please Take Me Home Before Dark: One Family's Journey with Alzheimer's Disease
  • Lynn York was born and raised in North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and the University of Texas at Austin, she lived in Washington DC, working in the international telecommunications industry until small children and the promise of decent vegetables and a yard with grass brought her back to North Carolina in 1995. The Sweet Life
  • Eric Youngquist is a writer and retired diplomat whose career took him to Bangkok, Helsini and the State Department. Since retirement, he has written and traveled widely, including a year as a VISTA volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, and many months backpacking and working on the Appalachian Trail. Foreign Service Family: Volume I
  • Timothy Zahn has written more than thirty SF novels, including Dragon and Thief, Dragon and Soldier, Dragon and Slave and Dragon and Herdsman, the first four Dragonback novels; as well as Night Train to Rigel, The Green and the Gray, Blackcollar: The Judas Solution, the all-time bestselling Star Wars spinoff novel, Heir to the Empire, and a number of other best-selling Star Wars novels. Winner of the Hugo Award, he lives in Oregon. Dragon and Judge: The Fifth Dragonback Adventure

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