The Authors

These authors are confirmed to attend the 2008 Southern Festival of Books

To browse by author's last name:
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  • William M. Akers has had three feature films produced from his screenplays. Akers has written scripts, series television, and documentaries for the MGM, Disney, and Universal Studios, as well as Fox, NBC, ABC, TNN television networks. Currently, his script about the fall of Saigon is under option to Overture Studios with director Jon Amiel. He teaches screenwriting and filmmaking at Vanderbilt University. Your Screenplay Sucks!: 100 Ways to Make It Great
  • Dan Albergotti is coordinator of Creative Writing at Coastal Carolina University where he teaches creative writing and literature. He was poetry editor of The Greensboro Review, and has been published in Cincinati Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and others. The Boatloads
  • Sherman Alexie was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and has been lauded by The Boston Globe as "an important voice in American literature." Sherman Alexie is one of the most well known and beloved literary writers of his generation. His five works of fiction have received numerous awards and citations, including the PEN/Malamud Award for Fiction and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and have been translated into eleven languages. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
  • Joel Anderson is president and co-founder of Anderson Thomas Design. He has published six children's books, and has several other titles in the works. He enjoys writing,illustrating, designing and collaborating with other talented folks to create new books and products. The Spirit of Nashville
  • 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
  • Pat Ballard writes motivational romance novels and stories with Big Beautiful Heroines, and speaks to aspiring writers about self-publishing and commercial trade publishing. Author website: www.patballard.com. 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)
  • Tracy Barrett is the author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. She teaches at Vanderbilt University. Author website: tracybarrett.com. On Etruscan Time
  • Richard Bausch is the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, the Best American Short Story Prize, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Peace
  • Madison Smartt Bell is the author of twelve novels and two collections of stories. All Souls' Rising was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. A professor of English and the director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College, Bell lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his family. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography
  • Andre Bergeron is a housing attorney for a civil legal services firm in Kentucky. This is his first novel. The Devil's Ridge
  • Beverly Bond is an Associate Professor of History and Director of the College of Arts and Sciences interdisciplinary African and African-American Studies program at the University of Memphis. She has published several books and has received multiple awards for her outstanding teaching. Tennessee Women: Their Histories, Their Lives
  • Melanie Sue Bowles, with her husband, Jim, is the founder of Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary, now located in Mena, Arkansas. More than 150 abused, neglected, elderly and unwanted horses have come there to live in peace and safety. Author website: www.horsesofproudspirit.com. Hoof Prints: More Stories from Proud Spirit
  • Rick Bragg has written two bestselling memoirs and is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. The Prince of Frogtown
  • Matt Bronleewe is a recognized producer, songwriter and author. The former member of the band, Jars of Clay, has earned numerous awards producing and co-writing albums that have sold a combined total of over 20 million copies. House of Wolves
  • 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. Origins, Destinations, and Intersections; Late Winter
  • Chester Campbell has been involved in writing for over fifty years — newspapers, magazines, public relations, advertising. His novel, Secret of the Scroll, first in the Greg McKenzie Mystery Series, was published in 2002. His second, Designed to Kill, was released in 2004. He lives in Madison, Tennessee and is a member of Sisters in Crime. Deadly Illusions
  • Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University, where he has taught since 1982. He and his family live near New Haven, Connecticut. Palace Council
  • Tom Chaffin is the author of Sea of Gray and Pathfinder. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's, Time, and other publications. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is on the faculty of the University of Tennessee. The H.L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy
  • 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 n Roller
  • Sigourney Cheek earned a bachelor's degree in art history from Manhattanville College and studied on the graduate level at Vanderbilt University. Active for many years in the Nashville fine arts committee, she has served as chair of numerous events and on boards for arts and service organizations in the community. She conducts writing workshops for women in recovery at Magdalene House. She and her husband, James H. Cheek III, reside in Nashville; they have three sons and two grandchildren. Patient Siggy: Hope and Healing in Cyberspace
  • James Cherry is the author of Shadow of Light, a newly released novel from Serpent's Tail Press and Honoring the Ancestors, a collection of poetry published this year from Third World Press. He is also a member of the Tennessee Arts Commission's Artist in Education Roster. Author website: jamesEcherry.com. Shadow of Light
  • Jim A. Clark lives in Wilson, North Carolina, where he is Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Writer in Residence at Barton College. He is also an editor of Crucible. Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany
  • Martin Clark is the author of The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Stephen Crane First Fiction Award. His second novel, Plain Heathen Mischief, prompted The Charlotte Observer to call him "a rising star in American Letters." A circuit court judge, he lives in Stuart, Virginia, with his wife, Deana. The Legal Limit
  • Peter Cozzens is an independent scholar and Foreign Service officer with the US Department of State. He is author or editor of nine highly acclaimed Civil War books, including The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth (from the University of North Carolina Press). Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign
  • Katie Crouch grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where she attended Cotillin but, for various reasons, never made it into the debutante program. She studied writing at Brown and Columbia and now lives in San Francisco. Girls in Trucks
  • Ashley Crownover is a program administrator for the Vanderbilt University American Studies and Film Studies programs. This is her first novel. Wealtheow: Her Telling of Beowulf
  • 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. Fifty-Seventh Heaven
  • Tom Delvaux, who live in Franklin, Tennessee, has worked as a writer in marketing and corporate communications for almost twenty years. His first book, Tiger Joe: A Photographic Diary of a World War II Aerial Reconnaissance Pilot, was published in 2006 and distributed by The University of Tennessee Press. Four Stars in the Window
  • Stephen Doster was born in England and raised on St. Simons Island, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1983 and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he works at Vanderbilt University. Voices from St. Simons: Personal Narratives of an Island's Past
  • Gerald Duff is a native of the Texas Gulf Coast, has taught literature and writing at Vanderbilt University, Kenyon College, and Johns Hopkins University. His novels have been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the International eBook Award, and the Texas Institute of Letters Award. He has published two collections of poetry, A Ceremony of Light and Calling Collect, and six novels, including Indian Giver, That's All Right, Mama: The Unauthorized Life of Elvis's Twin, Memphis Ribs, and his most recent, from NewSouth Books, Coasters. Fire Ants
  • Elizabeth Dulemba is an award-winning illustrator of several children's books. She received a BFA in graphic design from the University of Georgia. She has created a line of posters for the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. She also enjoys teaching at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Paco and the Giant Chile Plant
  • Ted Dunagan was born in 1943 in rural southwestern Alabama. He attended Georgia State University, and served for three years in the Army as a member of the 101st Airborne Division and Special Forces Training Group. Dunagan is now retired after a career in the cosmetics and fragrance industry. He writes features and columns for The Monticello News in Monticello, Georgia, where he lives with his wife. A Yellow Watermelon
  • Barbara R. Duncan is education director at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina. She received the 2008 Brown-Hudson Award from the North Carolina Folklife Society. The Origin of the Milky Way and Other Living Stories of the Cherokee
  • Frank Durham is a retired member of the faculty of Tulane University. He crafted his writing as a member of the Sewanee Writer's Conference. He lives in Uptown New Orleans, "keeping his eyes and ears open." Cain's Version is his debut novel. Cain's Version
  • Tony Earley is the author of five books. A winner of a National Magazine Award for fiction, he was named one of the twenty best writers of his generation by both Granta, in 1996, and The New Yorker in 1999. His fiction and/or nonfiction have appeared in Harper's, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South and many other magazines and anthologies. He is a native of western North Carolina and a graduate of Warren Wilson College and The University of Alabama. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and daughter, where he is the Samuel Milton Fleming Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. The Blue Star
  • Clyde Edgerton is the author of seven bestsellers, including, Raney, Walking Across Egypt, and Where Trouble Sleeps. Five of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books. A musician and songwriter, he lives with his wife, Kristina, and their children in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The Bible Salesman
  • Peggy Elam is the founder of Pearlsong Press.
  • Loretta Ellsworth is the author of the acclaimed middle-grade novel, The Shrouding Woman. A former schoolteacher and mother of four grown children, Loretta lives in Lakeville, Minnesota. In Search of Mockingbird
  • Justin Evans is a strategy and business development executive in New York City, where he lives with his wife and their two children. This is his first novel. A Good and Happy Child
  • Susannah Felts is a writer, editor and teacher with roots in Nashville, Tennessee. Her writing has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including McSweeney's, Another Chicago Magazine, Quarterly West, Pindeldyboz, The Sun, the Chicago Reader and others. This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
  • Beth Ann Fennelly is an assistant professor of English at the University of Mississippi. A 2003 National Endowment for the Arts Award Recipient, Fennelly has written two books of poems. Open House won the 2002 Kenyon Review Prize and was a Book Sense 76 Top 10 poetry pick. Tender Hooks was published by W. W. Norton in 2004. Unmentionables
  • Jack Ferraiolo is the writer and developer of the animated series WordGirl for PBS. He was also an editor and producer of Home Movies for Cartoon Network and O'Grady for The N. This is his first book. He lives with his wife and young daughter in northern Massachusetts. The Big Splash
  • Bob Fisher has previously served at universities in the roles of professor, business school dean and vice president of academic affairs and currently serves as president of Belmont University in Nashville. He is a Fulbright Scholar and serves in numerous volunteer roles including the board of Nashville Symphony and as immediate past chair of the Greater Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Life is a Gift: Inspiration from the Soon Departed
  • Judy Fisher has filled the roles of mother, middle school science teacher and currently, the campus-wide coordinator of interior construction and exterior landscaping/lighting at Belmont University. With her husband, Bob Fisher, she conducted 104 interviews with Alive Hospice patients that form the foundation of this book. Life is a Gift: Inspiration from the Soon Departed
  • Wilmoth Foreman grew up on a five-acre farm on the outskirts of Columbia, Tennessee. She has an MFA in writing from Vermont College and is on the Tennessee Arts Commission's roster as an "Artists in Education" teacher of writing. She has been a church organist since eighth grade and lives with her husband in Columbia. They have three grown children, two cats, and a dog. Summer of the Skunks
  • Frye Gaillard is the writer-in-residence in the English and history departments at the University of South Alabama. He is the author of twenty books, including Cradle of Freedom, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred, winner of the Gustavus Myers Award; and If I Were a Carpenter, the first independent, book-length study of Habitat for Humanity. With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions
  • Kay Gardiner learned to knit as a child, but put aside her needles for twenty years to obtain a law degree from Columbia, become an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan, and start a family. Luckily for us, she returned to knitting with a vengeance. She is one-half of the knitting team at masondixonknitting.com. Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines: Patterns, Stories, Pictures, True Confessions, Tricky Bits, Whole New Worlds, and Familiar Ones, Too
  • Charles Ghigna (Father Goose) is the author of more than forty award-winning books of poetry for children and adults. His books have been featured on Good Morning America, NPR and have been selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Author website: FatherGoose.com. SCORE: 50 Poems to Motivate and Inspire
  • Ellen Gilchrist has written more than twenty books, including novels, short stories, memoirs, and poetry. She lives in Arkansas. A Dangerous Age
  • Susan Gregg Gilmore has written for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and three daughters. This is her first novel. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen
  • Ted Gioia is an authority on jazz and roots music and the founder and editor of jazz.com. He has recorded several CDs as a pianist and composer and is the author of five highly regarded books on jazz and roots music. He lives in Plano, Texas. Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized the Blues
  • Michael Gunter is a professor of sociology at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey
  • Adam Gussow is an associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi and a freelance literary journalist. He is well-known as one-half of the blues team "Adam and Satan" and now performs regularly with Sterling McGee. He has performed at clubs and blues festivals across the country and was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award for the CD, Harlem Blues. Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Live from Faulkner's Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York
  • Henry Cameron Hand wrote, directed, and starred in the film Somebodies, which had its premiere at Sundance in 2006. A series based on Somebodies, also written by, directed by, starring, and executive-produced by Hadjii, is slated to appear on BET, the first original sitcom ever to appear on that network. Don't Let My Mama Read This
  • Robert Earl Hardy has been a professional writer and editor with an interest in contemporary music for twenty-five years. Also a musician, he has played guitar in bands since the 1970s. He is currently researching the cultural history of 1960s and 70s garage bands. He lives in Laurel, Maryland. A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
  • Linda Lee Harper lives in Augusta, Georgia, born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her BA and MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She taught there, University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Continuing Education program and at the University of South Carolina, Aiken. Her work has appeared most recently in The Georgia Review, Nimrod, The Seneca Review, Rattle, and eighty-five other journals. Her manuscript, Kiss Kiss, was selected as the winner in Cleveland State University Poetry Center's Open Competition for 2007 and is forthcoming in 2008. She currently is working on a collection of short stories and a third poetry collection at her home on Lake Murray, South Carolina, where she never, ever goes fishing. Kiss, Kiss
  • Camille Moffitt Headley wrote the story of the Bell Witch with the help of the Kirby family, owners of the cave. Bell Witch: The Truth Exposed
  • Marti Healy has served as a senior copywriter for The Design Group, Inc. since 1976. She developed a pet ministry program that is used by a variety of denominations throughout the country. She lives in Aiken, South Carolina. The God Dog Connection
  • Helen Hemphill holds an MFA 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. The Adventurous Deeds of Deadwood Jones
  • Robert Hicks lives in the greater Nashville area in Tennessee. A Guitar and a Pen (ed.)
  • Stephen W. Hines is a literary prospector who edited the newspaper columns of Laura Ingalls Wilder into the book Little House in the Ozarks, a bestseller. He is the director of communications with the Department of Children's Services. Little House, Long Shadow: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Impact on American Culture
  • Bobbie Hinman has a BS degree in elementary education and, along with her ten grandchildren, is right at home when it comes to children's literature. Her previous book, The Knot Fairy, is the recipient of several literary awards and continues to delight children everywhere. The Sock Fairy
  • Cary Holladay grew up in Virginia and Pennsylvania. She holds degrees from the College of William and Mary and from Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of four previous books: The Quick-Change Artist: Stories; Mercury; The Palace of Wasted Footsteps; and The People Down South. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, The Goodheart Prize, and the O. Henry Prize, among others. Her husband is the writer John Bensko. They live in Memphis, Tennessee. A Fight in the Doctor's Office
  • Scott Huler's award-winning radio work has been heard on All Things Considered and Day to Day on National Public Radio and on Marketplace and Splendid Table on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. No Man's Land: One Man's Odyssey Through the Odyssey
  • Bill Ivey was the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1998 through 2001, was director of the Country Music Foundation from 1971 to 1998, and was twice elected Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He presently serves as founding director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University. arts, inc.
  • Dot Jackson received the Appalachian Book of the Year Award for Refuge. Refuge
  • Dana Jennings, a native of New Hampshire, is an editor with The New York Times. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey. Sing Me Back Home:Love, Death, and Country Music
  • Rheta Grimsley Johnson is a syndicated columnist. For over a decade, she has been spending several months a year in southwest Louisiana, deep in the heart of Cajun country. Rheta fell in love with the place, bought a second home, and set in planting doomed azaleas and deep roots. She has found an assortment of beautiful people right on the edge of the Atchafalaya Swamp. Poor Man's Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana
  • Rena Johnson is a poet and public speaker who teaches workshops on using poetry as a means of healing and self-expression. Epiphanies of the Soul: Empower Yourself with Therapeutic Poetry
  • Bret Anthony Johnston is Director of the Creative Writing Program at Harvard University and the author of Corpus Christi: Stories. Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer
  • Jacqueline Jones is Harry S. Truman Professor of American History at Brandeis University and the author of seven previous books. Among her numerous awards are the Taft Prize, the Brown Memorial Prize, the Spruill Prize, the Bancroft Prize (for Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow), and, in 1999, a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives with her family in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War
  • Ben Jones is best-known as the beloved character Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard television show. He served as a United States congressman from Georgia. Redneck Boy in the Promised Land
  • Carolyn Jourdan is a former US Senate counsel and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. She lives in rural Tennessee. Heart in the Right Place: A Memoir
  • 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. On Beale Street
  • David King is a Fulbright scholar with a master's degree from Cambridge University and is the author of the acclaimed Finding Atlantis. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and children. Author website: www.davidkingauthor.com. Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna
  • Barry Kitterman is a professor of English at Austin Peay State University. The Baker's Boy
  • Michael Knight is the author of the award-winning novel, Divining Rod and two story collections, Dogfight and Other Stories and Goodnight, Nobody. An Alabama native, Knight directs the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee. Holiday Season
  • Billie Letts's first novel, Where the Heart Is, won the Walker Percy Award, sold more than three million copies, and became a major motion picture. Her second novel, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, was named the first "Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma" selection. Her third novel, Shoot the Moon, was both a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Made in the U.S.A.
  • 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 PhD 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. Defying the Diva
  • Charlie Lovett is writer-in-residence at Summit School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His plays for children have been seen in over 1,000 productions in all 50 states and five foreign countries. He is the author of eleven previous books, including works on Lewis Carroll and the acclaimed memoir, Love, Ruth. The Program is his first novel. The Program
  • Sallie Lowenstein is the author and illustrator of four picture books and six illustrated young adult novels. Her books have been honored by the American Library Association, the Bank Street College of Education, the NY Public Library and been selected for the Accelerated Reader Program and by the Fund for Educational Excellence for classroom libraries in Baltimore schools. Lowenstein combines her love of writing with her love of children by mentoring three groups of young writers, one in Montgomery County, Maryland, and two in Arlington, Virginia, who have begun to receive national recognition in their own right. She and these groups were the subject of a 2004 Reading is Fundamental video, broadcast nationally. In the Company of Whispers
  • Bunkie Lynn, a twenty-year advertising and marketing veteran, earned a BS in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Texas at Austin and worked for Nashville's Carden & Cherry Advertising. Lynn also served time as a communications manager for a multi-national industrial textiles manufacturer. The Big Girls' Guide to Life
  • Molly Macrae's short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she is a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Wilder Rumors, her first novel, was published in May, 2007. MacRae spent twenty years in Upper East Tennessee, but now lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she pushes books on children at the public library. Author website: www.mollymacrae.com. Wilder Rumors
  • Ed Madden is an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina as well as a writer in residence at the Riverbanks Botanical Gardens in Columbia, South Carolina. His essays on politics and culture have been featured in many newspapers and journals and featured on NPR. He was selected by editor Natasha Trethewey for inclusion in the anthology, Best New Poets of 2007. Signals: Poems
  • David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post and a bestselling writer. Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World
  • Linda Marion is the poetry editor of Now & Then magazine and the author of two poetry collections, Mother Land (Iris Press, 2008) and Home Fires (Sow's Ear Press, 1997). Her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Cornbread Nation 2, Negative Capability, Nimrod, Potomac Review, CALYX, Helicon Nine, Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, among others. Her work was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize, and she has received two literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, among other awards. Mother Land
  • Lee Martin is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Bright Forever; a novel, Quakertown; a story collection, The Least You Need to Know; and two memoirs, From Our House and Turning Bones. He has won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, a Lawrence Foundation Award, and the Glenna Luschei Prize. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he directs the creative writing program at The Ohio State University. River of Heaven
  • Susan McBride shifts from mystery to YA with The Debs, the first of a new series. She's also penned five Debutante Dropout Mysteries, which won the Lefty Award, two Anthony Award nominations, and a William Rockhill Nelson Award nomination. Visit her web site at SusanMcBride.com and check out her YouTube trailers at www.youtube.com/thedebsbooks. The Debs
  • Ed McClanahan is the author of several books. His writing has appeared in Esqire, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. he has taught English and creative writing at Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Montana, and the University of Kentucky. He currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky. O The Clear Moment
  • 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 was her first novel for children, and the sequel, When I Crossed No-Bob, was published in November of 2007. When I Crossed No-Bob
  • Clifton K. Meador is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine and Meharry Medical College as well as director of the Meharry Vanderbilt Alliance. He is the author of eight books including A Little Book of Doctors' Rules and Med School: A Collection of Stories of Medical School, 1951 to 1955. Puzzling Symptoms: How to Solve the Puzzle of Your Symptoms
  • Mindy Merrell is among the last generation of land grant university-educated home economists trained before the dawn of the celebrity chef. Her studies in food science and advanced home appliances prepared her for a career in food marketing and recipe and cookbook development. Over the years, Mindy has rubbed shoulders with other historical culinary luminaries including Martha White, Uncle Ben, the Tennessee Pride sausage kid, the Quaker Oats guy, and the Pillsbury doughboy. She hopes one day to invent the next big thing — molecular gastronomy meets canned mushroom soup — green bean casserole foam. Cheater BBQ: Barbecue Anytime, Anywhere, in Any Weather
  • Teresa Miller is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at Oklahoma State University. She is also the executive producer and host of the public TV program, Writing Out Loud. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Family Correspondence
  • Richard Modlin is an emeritus professor of zoology and former Director of the Honors Program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He writes extensively for birding and nature journals. Author website: www.richardmodlin.com. Chasing Wings: Birding Exploits and Encounters
  • MariJo Moore is an author, artist, poet and journalist. She has been chosen one of the top five American Indian writers of the new century by Native Peoples magazine, and she has been awarded North Carolina's Distinguished Woman of the Year in Arts. The Diamond Doorknob
  • Honor Moore is the author of three poetry collections and of The White Blackbird, a life of her grandmother, the painter Margarett Sargent. She lives in New York City and teaches at the New School and Columbia University. The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir
  • Courtney Mroch is an award-winning short story writer and a Senior Blogger for Families.com. Her online publications have been among the top ten downloads on amazon.com. Beneath the Morvan Moon
  • Beverle Graves Myers enjoys mixing murder, music and intrigue in her Baroque Mystery series set in 18th-century Venice. This Kentucky author also writes short fiction which has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and numerous other magazines and anthologies. For more information about Bev and her latest book, The Iron Tongue of Midnight, see www.beverlegravesmyers.com. The Iron Tongue of Midnight
  • Dunbar Ogden is Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Art at the University of California, Berkeley, where, since 2000, he has taught a freshman seminar based on the events in this book. My Father Said Yes: A White Pastor in Little Rock School Segregation
  • Sheila Ortego is president of Santa Fe Community College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Born in New Orleans and of Acadian ancestry, Dr. Ortego received her doctorate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and since has taught Southwest Literature, Women's Literature, and Women's Studies at several colleges and universities. Her poetry has been published by the Santa Fe Literary Review, and she has recently been admitted to the Live Poets Society in Santa Fe. The Road from La Cueva
  • Ann Patchett is the author of five novels, including Bel Canto (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize), and the bestselling nonfiction book, Truth & Beauty. She has written for The Atlantic, Harper's, Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and the Washington Post. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Run
  • Amanda Petrusich is a staff writer at Pitchforkmedia.com and a senior contributing editor at Paste. She is the author of Pink Moon, a short book about Nick Drake's 1972 album for Continuum's 33 1/3 series. It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the New American Music
  • Tom Piazza is the author of nine books, including the novels City of Refuge and My Cold War, and the book-length post-Katrina essay, "Why New Orleans Matters." He has been awarded the James Michener Award for Fiction and the Faulkner Society Award for the Novel, among many other honors. A well known writer on American music as well, he won a 2004 Grammy Award for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey. City of Refuge
  • Charles Price has been a Washington lobbyist, urban planner, and journalist. He is a graduate of High Point University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is also the author of Hiwassee: A Novel of the Civil War, Freedom's Altar, The Cock's Spur, and Where the Water-Dogs Laughed. He and his wife live in Burnsville, North Carolina. Nor the Battle to the Strong: A Novel of the American Revolution in the South
  • Richard Price is the author of seven novels, including Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan. He won a 2007 Edgar Award for his writing on the HBO series, The Wire. Lush Life
  • R.B. Quinn chronicled his cooking and eating adventures on the patio in his former newspaper column, "The Fire Zone" (The Tennessean). His love of outdoor cooking was ignited by his mother, Loie, who trained him as her sous chef and to man the family brazier. Since then, R.B. has enjoyed the scenic route to food writing, visiting the practice of construction and constitutional law, the meeting-driven non-profit free speech arena, and a meaningful detour into higher education where he inspired countless young adults to reach beyond the C+. Cheater BBQ: Barbecue Anytime, Anywhere, in Any Weather
  • Sonya Ramsey is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Reading, Writing and Segregation: A Century of Black Women Teachers in Nashville
  • Alice Randall was born in Detroit and graduated from Harvard in 1981. After a start as a journalist in Washington, DC, she moved to Nashville to become a country songwriter. The only African-American woman ever to write a number-one country song, she has had more than twenty songs recorded. She is also a screenwriter and has worked on adaptations of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Parting the Waters, and Brer Rabbit. Alice Randall is the author of The Wind Done Gone. She was awarded the Free Spirit Award in 2001 and the Literature Award of Excellence by the Memphis Black Writers Conference in 2002, and she was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in 2002. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Pushkin and the Queen of Spades
  • Ron Rash's family has lived in the southern Appalachian mountains since the mid-1700s. He teaches English and poetry at North Carolina universities and has previously published three books of poetry, two collections of stories, and a children's book. He has received an NEA Poetry Fellowship and holds the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University. Serena
  • John Shelton Reed lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and the North Carolina Barbecue Society. He taught for thirty-one years at the University of North Carolina, where he directed the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science and helped to found the university's Center for the Study of the American South. A founding coeditor of the quarterly, Southern Cultures, he has received many fellowships and prizes and has been president of the Southern Sociological Society and the Southern Association for Public Opinion Research. Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue
  • Dale Volberg Reed is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and the North Carolina Barbecue Society. Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue
  • Roger Reid is a writer, director, and producer of the award-winning Discovering Alabama series from the University of Alabama's Alabama Museum of Natural History, in cooperation with Alabama Public Television. Longleaf
  • David Rigsbee is the author of five previous collections, including The Dissolving Island (BkMk Press, 2003). With Steven Ford Brown, he co-edited Invited Guest: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Southern Poetry (University of Virginia Press, 2001). His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Southern Review, and many others. He is the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Virginia Commission on the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Academy of American Poets. Cloud Journal
  • Rick Rodgers is one of the most versatile and respected professionals in the food industry. He is the author of more than thirty cookbooks, including the bestselling 101 series (Thanksgiving 101, Christmas 101, Barbecues 101); the IACP Cookbook Award nominees, Kaffeehaus and The Carefree Cook; and eight titles in the Williams-Sonoma cookbook line. His recipes have appeared in Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, and epicurious.com, and he is a frequent contributor to Bon Appetit. He lives in the tristate New York area. Autumn Gatherings: Casual Food to Enjoy with Family and Friends
  • Robert Rummel-Hudson has been writing online since 1995. During that time, his work has been recognized by the Diarist Awards at diarist.net, including citations for Best Writing (1999 Q4), Best Overall Journal (2000 Q1), Best Account of a Public or News Event (2001 Q2, on the execution of Timothy McVeigh), Best Dramatic Entry (2002 Q3), and the Legacy Hall of Fame Award (2004 Q4). He has served as a featured panelist at JournalCon, an annual conference for online writers, in 2001, 2003 and 2004. His online writing has been featured in articles in the Austin Chronicle (August 2000), the Irish Times (summer 2003) and the New Haven Register (April 2003). Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with his Wordless Daughter
  • Randy Russell, a former Edgar Award finalist, presents ghost-lore programs to groups large and small across the South. He and his wife, Janet Barnett, are the coauthors of three previous collections, including the highly popular Ghost Dogs of the South, The Granny Curse, and Mountain Ghost Stories and Other Tales of Western North Carolina. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Ghost Cats of the South
  • Rebeca Seitz has been in the publishing industry for many years as a literary publicist, securing media placement Rebca Seitz in places like The Today Show and USA Today for astounding authors of amazing fiction. This is the first book in a planned series. Sisters, Ink
  • Alexander Shaia is an educator, psychotherapist, writer and passionate professional speaker. He is the founder and director of the Blue Door Retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Beyond the Biography of Jesus: The Journay of Quadrotos, Book I
  • Dawn Shamp eceived an MFA in writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She received a fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and attended the Sewanee Writers' Conference on a grant from the Durham Arts Council. A native of Roxboro, North Carolina, she now lives in nearby Durham. This is her first novel — inspired by these photos and related stories of her paternal grandmother, Lizzie Adair. On Account of Conspicuous Women
  • Ann Shayne runs the successful website www.masondixonknitting.com. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines: Patterns, Stories, Pictures, True Confessions, Tricky Bits, Whole New Worlds, and Familiar Ones, Too
  • George Singleton has published three collections of stories and one novel. He lives in Pickens County, South Carolina. Work Shirts for Madmen; Pep Talks, Warnings, And Screeds: Indispensable Wisdom and Cautionary Advice for Writers
  • 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 Winter
  • Michael Snyder has spent the bulk of his professional career in sales, has fallen in love, and continues to struggle with the balance between art and vocation. He's never investigated a murder, much less that of an allegedly clairvoyant dog. My Name is Russell Fink
  • Laurel Snyder is the author of Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains and Inside the Slidy Diner. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and commentator for NPR's All Things Considered, she lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia, and online at laurelsnyder.com. Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains
  • Laurel Coleman Steinhice is Marion's daughter. As an only child, she shared the exciting ups and downs of her mother's life while they were together, and lived through her own series of adventures and misadventures while they were separated. Marion
  • Elizabeth Strout is the author of Abide with Me, a national bestseller and Book Sense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker and O: The Oprah Magazine. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, and lives in New York City. Olive Kitteridge
  • M. Glenn Taylor was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. This is his first novel, and it is a Fall 2008 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. He teaches English and Fiction Writing at Harper College in suburban Chicago, where he lives with his wife and two sons. The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart
  • Natasha Trethewey is the author of two previously published collections, Belloq's Ophelia and Domestic Work. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, she was the recipient of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Grolier Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing at Emory University. Native Guard
  • Kristin O'Donnell Tubb grew up in East Tennessee, near Cades Cove. She lives in middle Tennessee with her husband and two children. Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different
  • Stan Ulanski is professor of geology and environmental science at James Madison University and author of The Science of Fly-Fishing. The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic
  • Brenda R. Vantrease lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Her "outstanding debut," The Illuminator was translated into fifteen languages and chosen as a Book Sense 2006-2007 Reading Group Pick. The Mercy Seller
  • Susan Vaught is the author of many award-winning books including Stormwitch, Trigger and Big Fat Manifesto. She is a practicing neuropsychologist and lives in Tennessee. Big Fat Manifesto
  • Carole Boston Weatherford earned a Master of Arts in publications design from the University of Baltimore and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She teaches at Fayetteville State University and live in High Point, North Carolina with her husband Ronald and their son and daughter. Birmingham, 1963
  • Debbie Lee Wesselmann is the author of Trutor and the Balloonist, which was named by Amazon.com as one of the top ten small press books of 1997, and The Earth and the Sky. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Fairleigh Dickinson University, she lives in Pennsylvannia, where she teaches English at Lehigh University. Captivity
  • Michael Lee West is the author of She Flew the Coop, American Pie, Crazy Ladies, and Consuming Passions. Her fiction has also appeared in First for Women, Wind, Southern, and other magazines. Mermaids in the Basement
  • Alana J. White is the author of Macavity-nominated historical mystery short stories featuring Italian Renaissance lawyer, Guid'Antonio Vespucci, and his nephew, Amerigo. She also writes nonfiction and book reviews for Renaissance Magazine and the Historical Novel Society and is the author of a biography of Sacagawea and of Come Next Spring, a novel set in 1940s Appalachia. Sacagawea: Westward with Lewis and Clark
  • Ann Wicker is a longtime journalist who grew up in Davidson, North Carolina. Her love of music stretches back to a 1966 concert where she saw a young Jimi Hendrix open for the Monkees. She holds an MFA from Queens University and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas
  • Lisa Williams is an associate professor of English at Centre College in Kentucky. She received the 2007 Barnard Womens Poets Prize. Woman Reading to the Sea
  • Kathryn Williams has written for Newsweek, The New York Observer, NewYorkMag.com and Shecky's, among other publications. This is her first novel. The Debutante
  • Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation shrimper from the Gulf Coast of Texas. After learning that her county was the most polluted in the United States, she became a dedicated environmental activist and eventually succeeded in forcing Formosa Plastics to stop dumping toxic waste. With Holler Roller, she shares the staggering story of her incomparable childhood. Holy Roller: Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out; Or How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus
  • Mark Winegardner has won grants, fellowships and residencies from the Ohio Arts Council, the Lilly Endowment, the Ragdale Foundation, the Sewanee Writers Conference and the Corporation of Yaddo. His books have been chosen as among the best of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, the New York Public Library, and USA Today. His work has appeared in GQ, Playboy, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, DoubleTake, Family Circle, The Sporting News, Witness, Story Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ladies Home Journal, Parents and The New York Times Magazine. Several of his stories have been chosen as Distinguished Stories of the Year in The Best American Short Stories. The Godfather Returns
  • Allan Wolf is an educator, writer, and musician. He is a veteran traveler through all the diverse worlds of poetry — from poetry slams to public schools, salons to saloons. He turns classic poetry into acoustic tunes as the drummer for The Dead Poets band. He put the Oh! in poetry as the educational director for national touring company Poetry Alive!. He lives with his family in North Carolina. More Than Friends
  • David Wroblewski grew up in rural central Wisconsin, not far from the Chequamegon National Forest, where The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is set. He earned his master's degree from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Over the years he has lived in La Crosse, Minneapolis, and Austin, Texas. Currently, he makes his home in Colorado with the writer Kimberly McClintock, their dog Lola, and their cat Mitsou. This is his first novel. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
  • Lisa Wysocky is the author of My Horse, My Partner (Lyons Press) and The Power of Horses. A former country-music publicist and a therapeutic riding instructor who gives equine clinics nationwide, she lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Horse Country: Nashville's Biggest Stars
  • 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 II

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