The Authors

These authors are confirmed to attend the 2009 Southern Festival of Books
(Note: This page was last updated 01 October 2009)

To browse by author's last name:
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  • Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo 11 moon walk and became the first two humans to set foot on another world. This unprecedented heroic endeavor was witnessed by the largest worldwide television audience in history. Upon returning from the moon, Dr. Aldrin embarked on an international goodwill tour and was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among more than fifty distinguished awards and medals from numerous countries. Since retiring from NASA, the Air Force, and his position as commander of the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, Dr. Aldrin has remained at the forefront of efforts to ensure a continued leading role for America in manned space exploration and has advanced his lifelong commitment to humans venturing outward in space. Recently he founded a rocket design company, Starcraft Boosters, Inc., and the ShareSpace Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to pursuing space tourism. Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon
  • Nancy Allen writes a bimonthly column called "Little Stories about You and Me" for the Nolensville Dispatch and in 2007 began writing for the Eagleville Times, publishing more than ninety-five short stories and feature articles. Her "The Covenant Woman — Growing the Church," Bible Study won second place at the 2007 Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer's Conference and "Created and Chosen" won first place in 2008. Barack H. Obama: Vision to Victory
  • Alex Alston is a past president of the Mississippi Bar Association who has taught and written extensively on issues of trial advocacy. Devil's Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes
  • Karen Angelucci loves the art of gardening and began at the early age of five. She is the president of the Lexington Council Garden Club, a member of Soil Mates Garden Club, as well as an active Master Gardener. Secrets of Tennessee Gardening
  • A. Manette Ansay After a (mis)diagnosis of multiple sclerosis forced her to chose a sedentary career, A. Manette Ansay — once a piano performance major — began writing fiction. Today she is able-bodied and the author of five previous critically acclaimed novels including Vinegar Hill, an Oprah's Book Club pick, Midnight Champagne, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and Blue Water. She lives with her daughter in Florida, where she has earned eighteen hours towards her private pilot's license and teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Miami. Good Things I Wish You: A Novel
  • Allen Ansorge began writing after retiring from a successful career in business, and never even entered a public library until his first year of high school. He lives in Wisconsin and Florida. Crossing the Centerline
  • Chip Arnold was one of the founding members of the acting company for The Advent Theatre, the first Equity theatre company in Nashville, Tennessee. His original film trilogy, "The Word Made Flesh," received two first place awards at the Houston International Film Festival and the Columbus International Film Festival. He co-wrote and produced the film The Second Chance starring Michael W. Smith distributed by Sony Entertainment. He wrote the screenplay for the first authorized film documentary on evangelist Billy Graham, God's Ambassador. He has written 156 episodes of the children's show, Backyard Time, produced and distributed by the United Methodist Publishing House. He co-wrote and produced the documentary film, Kabul-24 for Sea Bourne Pictures based on the story of the capture and escape of eight western aid workers by the Taliban.
  • D'Army Bailey is a circuit judge in Memphis, Tennessee. After graduating from Clark University he graduated from Yale University Law School and served as a radical city councilman in Berkeley, California. In 1991, he founded the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. He is also the author of Mine Eyes Have Seen: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Journey. The Education of a Black Radical
  • Larry Baker's first novel, Flamingo Rising, was a Hallmark television movie in 2001. His second, Athens, America, is an underground classic. That is, nobody can find a copy anymore. He is working on novel number four, a story about an older married woman having an affair with a much younger man. He welcomes any Tennessee anecdotes about the subject. He currently lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with his wife of thirty years, the charmingly attractive Ginger Russell, herself born and reared in Nashville. A Good Man
  • KB Ballentine teaches English and theatre arts to high school and college students when she's not writing. She receivd a 2007 prize from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund. Gathering Stones
  • Eric Barnes is the publisher of the Daily News in Memphis and The Memphis News. He was formerly COO of a communications corporation, a reporter, and editor. He grew up in Washington and Alaska, working construction and in the fisheries. Eric has an MFA from Columbia University and his fiction has appeared in several publications including The Portland Review, The Northwest Review, The Greensboro Review, and Other Voices. Forthcoming stories will appear in Pearl, Prairie Schooner, and Raritan. Shimmer
  • Hester Bass is an author who uses her experiences as an actress, singer, and game show winner to bring words to life for children. Her book, So Many Houses is a colorful trip around the world, and her new picture book chronicles the life of Mississippi Gulf Coast artist, Walter Anderson, and his legendary journeys to Horn Island. She lives at the foot of a mountain in Alabama. See a picture of her on Millionaire at www.hesterbass.com. The Secret World of Walter Anderson
  • Grace Bauer's books include Retreats & Recognitions (Lost Horse Press), Beholding Eye (Custom Words Press), and The Women at the Well (Portals Press). She is also co-editor, with Julie Kane, of Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Nebraska, where she recently edited a special "baby boomer" issue of Prairie Schooner. Retreats and Recognitions
  • Alex Beard is a painter whose work has been shown in New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York, and Hong Kong among other cities. Alex grew up among some of the world's most interesting and influential people. Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and their Pop World cohorts were familiar faces in the Beard household. His extensive travels through Africa inspired this book. He lives with his wife and son in New York City, New York. Visit his website at alexbeardstudio.com. The Jungle Grapevine
  • 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. New Stories of the South 2009 (Editor)
  • Laura Benedict is the author of Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts and Isabella Moon, both from Ballantine Books. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and a number of anthologies, including the Surreal South: An Anthology of Short Fiction series, which she edits with her husband, Pinckney Benedict. For the last decade, she has reviewed books for The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan. Visit www.laurabenedict.com to get to know her better. Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts
  • Jennie Bentley is the author of the new series of "Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation" mysteries from Penguin/Berkley Prime Crime. The real Jennie is a realtor and renovator in Nashville, where she lives with a husband and two rambunctious boys, a hyperactive dog, a parakeet, and a carnival goldfish. A native of Norway, she's been living in the US for the past twenty years, and still hasn't been able to kick her native accent. Spackled and Spooked
  • Elizabeth Berg is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including The Year of Pleasures, The Art of Mending, Say When, True to Form, Never Change, and Open House, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, Berg is also the author of a nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. She lives in Chicago, Illinois. Home Safe: A Novel
  • George Bishop graduated with degrees in English Literature and Communications from Loyola University in New Orleans before moving to Los Angeles to become an actor. After eight years of commercials, stage plays, guest starring roles in TV sitcoms, and the lead in a B-movie called Teen Vamp, he traveled overseas as a volunteer English teacher to the newly independent Czechoslovakia. He earned his M.F.A. at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, and taught there before moving to India to work for the United States Department of State. This is his first novel. Letter to My Daughter
  • Diann Blakely is the author of Hurricane Walk, named one of the year's ten best poetry collections by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Farewell, My Lovelies, selected for special feature by the Academy of American Poets Book Club; and Cities of Flesh and the Dead, winner of the Alice Fay DiCastsagnola Award for a manuscript-in-progress and the 7th annual Elixir Book publication prize. She is currently at work on Rain in our Door: Duets with Robert Johnson. Cities of the Flesh and the Dead
  • 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. Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of
  • 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 Lives and Times
  • Stanley Booth is a music writer whose book, The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones is considered a modern classic of the genre. He has written for Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Playboy, among other publications. He lives in Brunswick, Georgia. Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2009
  • Shellie Braeuner is the winner of the Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories contest. She works as a nanny in Nashville. This is her first book. The Great Dog Wash
  • Rick Bragg has written two bestselling memoirs and is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. The Prince of Frogtown
  • Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair exposé of the tobacco industry was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film, The Insider. She also wrote Great Dames: What I Learned from Older Women. Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found
  • Gaylord Brewer is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he edits Poems and Plays. His most recent books are the poetry collection, The Martini Diet, and the novel, Octavius the First, both published in 2008. His work has frequently appeared in Alimentum.
  • 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. The Widow and the Tree
  • John Broven is a renowned expert on the rock 'n' roll era and has served as a consultant at Ace Records in the United Kingdom. A one-time co-editor of Blues Unlimited and cofounder of Juke Blues Magazine, he is the author of Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans and South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous. Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock n Roll Pioneers
  • Anne Brown is the owner of The Arts Company, a gallery in downtown Nashville. Brother Mel
  • 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. Late Winter
  • Jan Burke is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Her mystery series features Southern California newspaper reporter, Irene Kelly. The Messenger
  • Thomas G. Burton a professor of English at East Tennessee State University, has traced Christian serpent handling in his book, Serpent-Handling Believers and in three documentaries. Beech Mountain Man
  • Robert Olen Butler, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, is the author of many lauded works of fiction. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida. Hell
  • Washington Butler, Jr. is a freelance writer, elected official and former Political Science Instructor. Butler has also been a missionary English instructor in the People's Republic of China, associated with "International Teacher Services," and also as an independent self-supported missionary. He has published two books of poetry. Butler holds the Master of Organizational Management (MAOM) from Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville; Master of Arts (MA) in Political Science from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Bachelor of Science (BS) in Chemistry from Clark College, Atlanta, Georgia and has completed course work for the Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Tennessee. Barack H. Obama: Vision to Victory
  • Anne Byrn is known to millions of fans through her Cake Mix Doctor and Dinner Doctor cookbooks, which she's promoted in over 200 television appearances on Good Morning America, Roker on the Road, QVC, and local stations. Her books are also favorite subjects for lifestyle editors in newspapers across the country. Anne lives in Nashville with her husband and three children. The Cake Mix Doctor
  • Chester Campbell is the author of two mystery series featuring Nashville private investigators. "Greg McKenzie" novels include The Marathon Murders, Deadly Illusions, Designed to Kill, and Secret of the Scroll. The first book in his new "Sid Chance" series, The Surest Poison, features a former National Park ranger and small town police chief. Chester lives in Madison, Tennessee and is president of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of Sisters in Crime. The Surest Poison
  • Clay Carmichael author and illustrator of three picture books, teaches fiction and poetry writing, illustrating and bookmaking in schools. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina with her husband, a metal artist who inspired one of the characters in Wild Things. This is her first novel. Wild Things
  • Shaun Casey is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Director fo the National Capital Semester for Seminarians at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is a graduate of Divinity School with a Doctorate of Theology in Religion and Society. He was senior adviser for Religious Affairs and Evangelical Coordinator for the campaign of President Barack Obama. The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960
  • Dixie Cash is the writing team of Jeffery McClanahan and Pamela Cumbie. They grew up in West Texas, a part of the world filled with real life fictional characters whose stories scream to be written. Pam has always had a zany sense of humor and Jeffery has always had a dry wit. Surrounded by cowboys and steeped in country-western music, when they can stop laughing long enough, they work together creating hilarity on paper. Both still live in Texas — Pam in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex and Jeffery in a small town near Fort Worth. Curing the Blues with a New Pair of Shoes
  • John Carter Cash is a singer, songwriter and music producer. He is the only child of Johnny and June Carter Cash. He was executive producer of the film Walk the Line. He lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee with his wife and three children. This is his first children's book. Momma Loves Her Little Son
  • Tony Cavender is an anthropologist and professor at East Tennessee State University. Tennessee Folklore Sampler
  • Greg Changnon's work has appeared in the North American Review, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops. His story, "How the Nurse Feels," is currently in development as a musical and has been workshopped at the 2008 ASCAP Foundation/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles. A graduate of Duke University, Greg teaches junior high in Atlanta, Georgia. Best New American Voices 2010
  • James Cherry is the author of Honoring the Ancestors, a collection of poetry published by Third World Press and nominated for a 2009 NAACP Image Award. A fiction writer as well, his novel, Shadow of Light (London: Profile Books) was released in 2008. For a complete bio, visit www.jamesEcherry.com. Honoring the Ancestors
  • Barbara Ching is an associate professor of English at the University of Memphis and director of Memphis Reads. She is the author of Wrong's What I Do Best: Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture (Oxford University Press, 2001) and several articles on popular music and film. She edited and introduced Old Roots, New Routes: The Cultural Politics of Alt Country Music with Pamela Fox (University of Michigan Press, 2008), and with ethnographer Gerald Creed, she introduced and edited Knowing Your Place: Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy (Routledge, 1996). The Legacy of Susan Sontag
  • Judy Christie author of the "Hurry Less Worry Less" nonfiction series, has drawn on her journalist background in the novel, Gone to Green. Lois Barker has traded her life at a big-city paper for a year as owner/manager of a twice-weekly paper in Green, Louisiana. The story of her covering greed and politics and adjusting to the quirks of a small town make this fast-paced novel deserving of its recent rave reviews. Gone to Green
  • Mindy Starns Clark is the bestselling author of the "Million Dollar Mysteries" series and the "Smart Chick Mystery" series, as well as the nonfiction how-to guide, The House That Cleans Itself. A singer and former stand-up comedian, Mindy is also a popular inspirational speaker and playwright. Born and raised in Louisiana, Mindy now lives near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with her husband, two teenage daughters, and two dogs. For more information, visit her website at www.mindystarnsclark.com. Shadows of Lancaster County
  • Peter Clifton, the Founder, President and CEO of FiledBy, has more than twenty-five years experience in the publishing, media and technology industries. Most recently, Peter was President and CEO of several Ingram Book Group companies including Ingram International, Ingram Library Services, Ingram Periodicals and Tennessee Book Company. Prior to Ingram, he was the founding CEO of PubEasy.com, the book industry customer service and transaction portal. Peter was Director of Publicity and Director of New Media Development at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. as well as Vice President of New Media at HarperCollins Publishers, and the Vice President of Business Development at SEGASoft in Redwood City, California, a SEGA of America subsidiary. Peter has a bachelor's degree in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts.
  • 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
  • Meredith Cole directed feature films and wrote screenplays before writing mysteries. She won the St. Martin's/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery competition, and her first book, Posed for Murder, was published by St. Martin's Minotaur in February 2009. Her website is www.culturecurrent.com/cole. Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer
  • Dave Cullen is a journalist and author who has contributed to Slate, Salon, and the New York Times. He is considered the nation's foremost authority on the Columbine killers, and has also written extensively on Evangelical Christians, gays in the military, politics, and pop culture. A graduate of the M.F.A. program at the University of Boulder, Cullen has won several writing awards, including a GLAAD Media Award, Society of Professional Journalism awards, and several Best of Salon citations. Columbine
  • Kaye Dacus is an author and editor who has been writing fiction for more than twenty years. Pursuing her passion for writing, she earned a Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She is a former Vice President and long-time member of American Christian Fiction Writers, and is also a founding member of Middle Tennessee Christian Writers. Kaye lives in Nashville and writes contemporary and historical romances. To find out more about Kaye and her books, please visit her online at kayedacus.com. Ransome's Honor
  • Rebecca Dartt is the author of several nonfiction books and one novel. She lives in Sarasota, Florida. Women Activists in the Fight for Georgia School Desegregation, 1958-1961
  • Sam Davidson is a speaker, writer and dreamer who believes in the power of ordinary individuals to change the world for the better. After co-founding Cool People Care with Stephen Moseley in 2006, the pair wrote New Day Revolution: How to Save the World in 24 Hours. Davidson frequently writes and speaks on the potential of the next generation to make the world a better place, and has given talks at places like Harvard University, Madison MAGNET and various nonprofit conferences. New Day Revolution: How to Save the World in 24 Hours
  • Donald Davis holds Master's degrees in both Social Ecology and Psychology. He is the author of Ecophilosphy: A Field Guide to the Literature (R & E Miles, 1989) and has published numerous articles in journals such as Environmental Ethics, The Ecologist, The Trumpeter, and the Utne Reader. Mr. Davis has, in addition, been a research assistant and consultant to the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC, collaborating there with Jeremy Rifkin on the book Biosphere Politics: A New Consciousness for the 21st Century. He has also served as the Coordinating Director of the Jacques Ellul Society and has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. Voices from the Nueva Frontier
  • Margaret Lazarus Dean is the author of the novel The Time It Takes to Fall (Simon & Schuster, 2007). She received a B.A. in anthropology from Wellesley College and an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan. She won an NEA fellowship in 2008; she is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tennessee and lives in Knoxville. Visit the author at www.margaretlazarusdean.com. The Time It Takes to Fall: A Novel
  • Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the best-selling "Au Pairs" novels for teens and the coauthor of the popular adult title The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-Inch Heels and Faux Pas. She lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter. The Van Alen Legacy
  • Kate DiCamillo is the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (a Newbery Honor Book), The Tiger Rising (a National Book Award finalist), The Tale of Despereaux (winner of the 2003 Newbery Medal), and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Award). She lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Magician's Elephant
  • James Dickerson is a journalist, a social worker, and the author of Goin' Back to Memphis and That's Alright, Elvis. Devil's Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes
  • Judy DiGregoro is a humor columnist and speaker who has published over 300 essays, including pieces in The Writer, The Army-Navy Times, ByLine Magazine, New Millennium Writings, numerous anthologies, and two "Chicken Soup" books. Judy is the author of Life Among the Lilliputians, a collection of humorous essays published by Celtic Cat Publishing, Knoxville. Visit her website and blog at www.judyjabber.com. Life Among the Lilliputians
  • Donna Dorian, previously the Style Editor of Garden Design magazine, has written extensively on interior design, the fine and decorative arts, and landscape architecture for Town and Country, Southern Accents, At and Antiques, and House Beautiful, among other publications. A former resident of Tennessee, she lives in New York City. At Home in Tennessee
  • Elizabeth Dulemba is an award-winning illustrator of several children's books. She received a B.F.A. in graphic design from the University of Georgia. She drew a portrait of Master Storyteller Ray Hicks one year while listening to him share some "Jack Tales," and that experience solidified her love for all things Appalachian and Jack Tales in particular. She also enjoys teaching at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Soap, Soap, Soap
  • Susan Eaddy's delightful illustrations are 3D relief sculptures created entirely out of plasticine or polymer clay. Susan was an Art Director for fifteen years, during which time she has illustrated over eighty books in the educational market, won international 3D illustration awards and a Grammy nomination. Her clay illustrated trade books include Papa Fish's Lullaby, and her newest board books licensed by the Smithsonian Institution, First Look at Aircraft and First Look at Trucks. Author website: www.susaneaddy.com.
  • Peggy Ehrhart recieved her B.A. in English from University of Portland and her M.A. in English from San Francisco State. She also went on to recieve her Ph.D. in Medieval Literature from University of Illinois. She has published stories, essays, and translations in print media and online. She is married to Norm Smith, and has one child, Matt. Sweet Man is Gone
  • Abby Ellin is a journalist and former fat-camper whose parents' attempts to "save" her from fatness proved counterproductive. In Teenage Waistland, she shares the story of her adolescent struggle with food and weight. She currently lives, works and eats in New York City, New York. Teenage Waistland
  • J.T. Ellison is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed "Taylor Jackson" series. A former White House staffer, she's worked extensively with the Metro Nashville Police, the FBI and other law enforcement organizations to research her novels. Visit jtellison.com for more information. Judas Kiss
  • R.J. Ellory started writing more than ten years ago and hasn't stopped since. His novels have been translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and Candlemoth was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger. Ellory divides his time between writing and voluntary programs in the areas of drug rehabilitation and youth literacy. He is married with one son. A Quiet Belief in Angels
  • 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
  • Eric Etheridge was born in 1957, and grew up primarily in Carthage and Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from Vanderbilt University in 1979, he moved to New York City and worked as an editor at a number of magazines, including The Nation, Harper's, 7 Days, Rolling Stone and the New York Observer. Sine 1996 he has worked online, creating and running sites for Microsoft (New York Sidewalk), Deja.com, the New York Times and others. He currently writes the Opinionator blog for the Times. Breach of Peace is his first photographic project. Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders
  • Blas Falconer is a poet and teacher of English at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. 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
  • Bruce Feiler is the host of the acclaimed PBS series, Walking the Bible and is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Walking the Bible and Abraham. He is a frequent contributor to NPR and a contributing editor at Gourmet and Parade. He lives in New York City with his wife and twin daughters. America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story
  • Margaret Fenton grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and moved to Birmingham in 1996. She spent nearly ten years as a child and family therapist before taking a break to focus on her writing.
  • William Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris coedited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is the author of Blues from the Delta. Rolling Stone magazine has named him among the top ten professors in the United States. Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
  • Amy Foster is one of America's most popular and bestselling songwriters, writing songs for Josh Groban, Diana Krall, Eric Benet, Michael Buble, Destiny's Child, and Andrea Bocelli, who performed her song at the 2006 Olympics. Her first novel is When Autumn Leaves. When Autumn Leaves
  • Jon Hartley Fox writes about music and the arts in Sacramento, California. He wrote, produced, and narrated King of the Queen City: the Story of King Records, a series of sixty-minute documentaries for National Public Radio in the 1980s. King of the Queen City
  • Sarah Wilkerson Freeman, Associate Professor of History, is on the faculty and teaches in the History Department at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas. She has published numerous articles and chapters on southern women in politics and government, especially focusing on the roles of women in the New Deal, woman suffrage, education, and anti-poll tax movements, and the transformation of the southern wing of the Democratic Party during the last century. She co-edited Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 1, with Dr. Beverly Bond of the University of Memphis, and is currently working on a chapter on Tennessee women and politics for Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 2. Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times
  • Amanda Gable's short stories have appeared in The North American Review, The Crescent Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Kalliope, Sinister Wisdom, Other Voices, and other publications. She has been awarded residency fellowships by Yaddo, the Hambidge Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A native of Marietta, she currently lives in Decatur, Georgia. The Confederate General Rides North
  • Kira Gale is the author of Lewis and Clark Road Trips. She is a cofounder of a Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation chapter and the recipient of the group's 2007 Meritorious Achievement Award. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska. The Death of Merriweather Lewis: A Historic Crime Scene Investigation
  • Chris Gay is a musician who lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee.
  • 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. The Lost Country
  • Joan Gelfand was the recipient of the Chaffin Fiction Award in 2005 for Paris Blues Redux. Her story, "The Art Critic," was shortlisted for The Carver Prize. A songwriter, producer, essayist and community organizer, Gelfand's work has been published on the web and in literary magazines around the world. She currently serves as president of the Women's National Book Association. A Dreamer's Guide to Cities and Streams
  • David Macinnis Gill's stories have appeared in several magazines, and his biography of Graham Salisbury was published by Scarecrow Press. He holds a bachelor's in English and a doctorate in Education from the University of Tennessee. He is the president of ALAN (The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) and an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Soul Enchilada
  • Brad Gooch is the author of the acclaimed biography of Frank O'Hara, City Poet, as well as other nonfiction and three novels. The recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and is Professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor
  • Adie Gray is a local songwriter and performer.
  • Sandra Gurvis is the author of fourteen books and hundreds of magazine articles. Her titles include Day Trips from Columbus, Ohio Curiosities, Where Have All the Flower Children Gone?, and others. She is the author of two novels, The Pipe Dreamers and the recently completed Country Club Wives. She lives in Columbus, Ohio. The Pipe Dreamers
  • Veita Jo Hampton edited two volumes of the nationally acclaimed Best of Photojournalism (6 and 7) for UMC and the National Press Photographers Association. She has been a professor photography at Middle Tennessee State University, and a publisher of books. She lives with her family in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Light Travels 2; Windows to Vietnam
  • Mary Hance (aka Ms. Cheap) writes a frugal-consumer column for the Tennessean. She is also the author of Ms. Cheap's Guide to Nashville and Ms. Cheap's Guide to Getting More for Less. A native of Sentobia, Mississippi, Hance graduated with honors from the University of the South at Sewanee, with a degree in English. She and her husband, Bill, have two grown daughters and live in Nashville. 99 Things to Save Money in Your Household Budget
  • Jessica Handler's nonfiction as appeared in Brevity.com, More magazine, Southern Arts Journal and Ars Medica. An essay derived from Invisible Sisters was nomimated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize, and her work has received Honorable Mention for the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Prize. A teacher of creative writing, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Invisible Sisters: A Memoir
  • Lauretta Hannon is a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, where her stories reach 25.5 million listeners. Since 2000 she has been known for her Georgia Public Radio stories, many of which celebrate strong, authentic, outrageous Southern women (Cracker Queens). Prior to Lauretta's radio work, she was a columnist for Creative Loafing, then the weekly alternative newspaper in Savannah, Georgia, where her work was described as "colorful and comedic." She is currently a college marketing director and is nationally acclaimed as the most award-winning communications expert in higher education today. The Cracker Queen: A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life
  • Bill Hardwig is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research and teaching interests are based in American literature, especially African American and Southern literature. In the Tennessee Mountains
  • Molly Harper majored in print jouranalism at Western Kentucky and was a newspaper reporter for six years before turning her talents to writing the bestselling mystery series featuring Jane Jameson, librarian/vampire. Author website: www.mollyharper.com. Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
  • Richard "Dixie" Hartwell is a pseudonym for John Lee, best-selling author of The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man and sixteen other titles. John is a trainer, speaker, consultant, teacher, and coach who has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, Barbara Walters' The View, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He lives with his wife in Alabama. This is his first novel. When the Buddha Met Bubba
  • Angela Harwood has worked at John F. Blair, Publisher since graduating from the Denver Publishing Institute in 2004. Since then she has held several different positions at Blair, from office manager to special project director to design and production to sales and marketing. Also a member of Blair's acquisitions committee, she helps put together Blair's list each season. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her husband and two dogs.
  • Lauren Braddock Havey is the only child of legendary singer-sonwriter Bobby Braddock. An actress and musician, she has written this memoir about a "motherless daughter's" extraordinarily bumpy road to motherhood. Music will be released concurrently with the. A Journey to the Son
  • Karen Head is the Graduate Communication Coordinator and Special Advisor to the Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Tech university. She serves on the Poetry Atlanta Board, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting poets and promoting poetry in the Atlanta area. She found and is developing The Peachtree Review as a venue for traditional and digital poetry. Sassing
  • Deborah Heiligman has written more than twenty books for children, most of them nonfiction, including three other biographies. She is married to Jonathan Weiner, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for The Beak of the Finch. Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
  • Robert Hicks has been active in the music industry in Nashville for twenty years as both a music publisher and artist manager. The driving force behind the preservation and restoration of the historic Carnton plantation in Tennessee, he stumbled upon the extraordinary role that Carrie McGavock played during and after the Battle of Franklin. He is the author of The Widow of the South. A Separate Country
  • Bobby Hinman has a B.S. 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 Belly Button Fairy
  • Cathy Holton Cathy Holton is the author of Beach Trip, Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes and The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes. She lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Beach Trip
  • Silas House is the recipient of the Kentucky Book of the Year Award and the James Still Award, from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. A Parchment of Leaves was a BookSense Top Ten pick and a citywide reader's pick in four cities. House is a frequent contributor on National Public Radio and lives with his wife and two daughters in Eastern Kentucky. Eli the Good and Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal
  • Jason Howard is a writer, editor and musician from Eastern Kentucky. He is the coauthor of Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal and the editor of We All Live Downstream: Writings About Mountaintop Removal. He is a former senior editor and staff writer for Equal Justice Magazine, based in Washington, DC. His works have appeared in such publications as Paste, Kentucky Living and the Louisville Review. An accomplished musician, he plays piano, bass and autoharp. Howard graduated from The George Washington University with a degree in Political Communication, an interdisciplinary major of Political Science, Journalism, Communications and Electronic Media. Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal
  • Peter Huggins is an award-winning poet and children's author. He won a literature fellowship in poetry from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2006; his picture book Trosclair and the Alligator was selected for the PBS show Between the Lions and was chosen as one of the best children's books of the year in 2007 by the Cooperative Children's Book Center and the Bank Street College of Education. He is a professor in the English Department at Auburn University. In the Company of Owls
  • Nathaniel Hughes is the author of several books on Civil War history. Yales Confederates
  • Richard T. Hughes is Senior Fellow in the Ernest L. Boyer Center and Distinguished Professor of Religion at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Myths America Lives By and How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind. Christian America and the Kingdom of God
  • John Hulme is co-editor of Voices of the Xiled, a short story collection for adults. He has authored works of adult non-fiction and books for young readers. He lives in New York City, New York. The Seems: The Lost Train of Thought
  • Marcus Hummon is a country music songwriter and composer for theater. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing the Rascal Flatts song, "Bless This Broken Road," Marcus has also written hit songs for the Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, Sara Evans and others. He and his wife, Becca, live in Nashville with their three sons, where they can be regularly seen lying on their backs in the front yard, counting birds. Anytime, Anywhere: A Little Boy's Prayer
  • Charlie Huston is the author of The Shotgun Rule, the Henry Thompson trilogy: Caught Stealing, Six Bad Things (an Edgar Award nominee), and A Dangerous Man, and the Joe Pitt novels: Already Dead, No Dominion, Half the Blood of Brooklyn, and Every Last Drop. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, the actress Virginia Louise Smith. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death
  • Jon Jackson is a musician based in Nashville.
  • Emyl Jenkins is a longtime antiques appraiser. She has worked at two auction houses and has written numerous books and articles on antiques, as well as a syndicated column. She is the author of Emyl Jenkins' Appraisal Book, Emyl Jenkins' Southern Christmas, The Book of American Traditions, and From Storebought to Homemade, among others. She lives in Richmond, Virginia. The Big Steal
  • Nancy Jensen is a graduate of the M.F.A. in Writing Program at Vermont College. Her short storeis and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Northwest Review, Other Voices, Under the Sun, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, and the Louisville Review. She is presently at work on a novel, for which she has won an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. She shares her home with ten rescued cats and her dog, Gordy, who is her partner on a pet-therapy team with Pawsibilities Unleashed of Kentucky, visiting hospitals, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and daycare centers. Author website: www.nancyjensen.org. Window: Stories and Essays
  • John Jeter is co-owner of The Handlebar, an award-winning concert venue in Greenville, South Carolina. During his career as a newspaperman — reporter, editor and rewriteman for the Chicago Sun-Times, St. Petersburg Times and San Antonio Express-News — Jeter: appeared on Oprah!; earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism; traveled widely, from Hong Kong and China and to Vietnam, southern Africa, throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Cuba, Europe and more — all the places in his novel. For the last fifteen years, The Handlebar has promoted some 2,500 concerts, performed by the likes of John Mayer, Joan Baez, John Hiatt, Janis Ian, David Sanborn, Dr. John, Bela Fleck, Richie Havens — more than three dozen Grammy Award winners, countless Grammy nominees and a half-dozen Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees. For more information, see theplunderroom.blogspot.com and www.handlebar-online.com. The Plunder Room
  • Holly Goddard Jones was born and raised in western Kentucky, the setting for her fiction. Her short stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Hudson Review, Epoch, and elsewhere, and they've been anthologized in two volumes of New Stories from the South (2007 and 2008) and in Best American Mystery Stories 2008. She was honored with a Peter Taylor Scholarship at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 2006 and was the winner in 2007 of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. A graduate of the MFA program in creative writing at the Ohio State University, she has taught at Denison University, the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference, Murray State University, and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She lives there with her husband and two dogs. Girl Trouble: Stories (P.S.)
  • Kaylie Jones is the author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, which is loosely based on her experiences growing up in an expatriate artistic home as the daughter of famed novelist, James Jones. The novel was made into a Merchant Ivory film starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Hershey. Jones currently teaches poetry and fiction in the New York City public schools, where she is a writer in residence, and fiction at Long Island University's Southampton campus, where she cofounded the MFA program. Jones lives with her husband and daughter in Manhattan, New York. Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir
  • River Jordan is a critically acclaimed novelist and playwright whose unique mixture of Southern and mystic writing has drawn comparisons to Sarah Addison Allen, Leif Enger, and Flannery O'Connor. Her previous works include The Messenger of Magnolia Street, lauded by Kirkus Reviews as "a beautifully written, atmospheric tale." She speaks around the country on "Inspiring the Passion of the Story" and makes her home in Nashville. Saints in Limbo
  • Marilyn Kallet is the author of fourteen books, including Circe, After Hours, poetry from BkMk Press, UMKC, and Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard, translations from Black Widow Press. She has won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship in Poetry, and was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers' Hall of Fame in 2005. She holds a Lindsay Young Professorship at the University of Tennessee, where she directed the creative writing program from 1986-2003. In 2009, Black Widow Press will publish Packing Light: New and Selected Poems. Packing Light: New and Selected Poems
  • Julie Kane's latest poetry collection, Jazz Funeral, is the winner of the 2009 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, judged by David Mason. Her previous collection, Rhythm & Booze, was a National Poetry Series winner and Poets' Prize finalist. She teaches at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Jazz Funeral
  • Joseph Kanon is the author of four other novels, Los Alamos, The Good German, The Prodigal Spy and Alibi. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City, New York. Stardust
  • Carl Kell is professor of communication at Western Kentucky University. He is the author of two previous books. Against the Wind: The Moderate Voice in Baptist Life
  • Irene Kelley first started playing music in a Led Zeppelin cover band in high school, getting kicked out for suggesting they play a Dolly Parton song. Kelley has penned songs that were recorded by Loretta Lynn, Trisha Yearwood, and Ricky Scaggs among others. She released an album, Simple Path, and continues to write hit songs in Nashville.
  • Jacqueline Kelly was born in New Zealand and raised in Canada. She now makes her home with her husband and various cats and dogs in Austin and Fentress, Texas. She is a practicing physician. This is her first novel. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
  • Cindy Kenney is an award-winning author, editor, international speaker, and seminar leader. She served as senior managing editor and writer for Big Idea Productions for eight years before working as the publishing director for Exclaim Entertainment. To day, Cindy has published more than sixt books, and numerous curriculum programs, articles, scripts, and lyrics. She resides in the Chicago area with her husband and two sons. My Read and Rhyme Bible Storybook
  • 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 CD, Crawfish Caravan. Tennessee
  • Ronald Kidd is the author of the highly acclaimed Monkey Town. His novels of adventure, comedy, and mystery have received the Children's Choice Award, an Edgar Award nomination, and honors from the American Library Association, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. He is a two-time O'Neill playwright who lives in Nashville. The Year of the Bomb
  • Will Kimbrough is a guitarist, producer, and songwriter whose work with Will and the Bushmen, the bis-quits and Daddy have made him a familiar name in Southern music. He is currently opening act and lead guitarist for Rodney Crowell, and is preparing a new album.
  • Perri Klass is Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University. She attended Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Boston, and her fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Boston City Hospital. Perri also serves as President and Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, a national nonprofit which promotes early literacy through doctors and nurses who provide primary care to young children at nearly 4,000 clinics, health centers, hospitals, and doctor's offices in all fifty states. The Mercy Rule: A Novel
  • Stephanie Klein is a celebrated author, photographer and personality whose unique perspective on life, relationships, family, and strength of self have made her a multi-media tour de force. She is one of the Internet's most popular icons, with stephanieklein.com ranked one of the most powerful blogs in the world by London's The Observer. Klein has adapted her critically acclaimed first memoir Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir into a television pilot, and she is currently adapting the prequel Moose: A Memoir for film. Moose
  • Carole Brown Knuth is a scholar on southern women writers at the University of New York, Buffalo. Second Opinion
  • Dewey Lambdin is the author of fourteen previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing (he's been a sailor since 1976). He makes his home in Nashville, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrell's Inlet. The Baltic Gambit
  • Justine Larbalestier is the author of the award-winning "Magic or Madness" trilogy. She wishes she had a clothes shopping fairy instead of the procrastination fairy she battles with almost every day. She is married to author Scott Westerfeld and divides her time between Sydney and New York City. Liar
  • Nell Levin, with the Shelby Bottom String Band, performs quirky, literate Americana, originals and old songs of social relevance today, all delivered with wit and charm. Band members are Michael August, guitar and vocals, Nell Levin, fiddle and vocals, Holly Tashian, standup bass and vocals, Bob Mason, mandolin and vocals, Gene Bush, dobro and vocals and Dave Thomas, drums and percussion. www.myspace.com/shelbybottomstringband.
  • Paulette Licitra is publisher and editor of Alimentum: The Literature of Food. She is a writer and chef, and teaches food literature workshops. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Wine and Travel. She completed her professional culinary studies at ICE in New York City, and has traveled extensively for culinary research. Alimentum Journal: The Literature of Food
  • Tim Link is president and CEO of Wagging Tales and is a practicing animal communicator. As part of his passion for helping animals, Tim also has mastered Reiki — an ancient art of energy healing — which he uses on animals. Tim enjoys spending time at home with his wife and their many pets in Cumming, Georgia. Wagging Tales: Every Animal Has A Tale
  • Michael Lister is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright who lives in northwest Florida. A former prison chaplain, Michael is the author of the "Blood" series featuring prison chaplain/detective, John Jordan (Blood of the Lamb, Blood Money, The Body and the Blood, etc.). His second series features Jimmy "Soldier" Riley, a PI in Panama City during Word War II (www.FloridaNoir.com). When Michael isn't writing, he teaches college, operates a charity and community theater. His website is www.MichaelLister.com. Double Exposure
  • Lorraine Lopez teaches in the MFA program at Vanderbilt University, and she is an associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. She has received the Miguel Marmol Prize for Fiction and the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature. Her novel, The Gifted Galbadon Sisters, was a Borders/Las Comadres Selection for the month of November. Homicide Survivors Picnic; An Angle of Vision
  • Leslie Lytle holds an MA from Antioch University, serves on the board of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, as a staff writer for the community newspaper, Sewanee Mountain Messenger, Sewanee, Tennessee, and as editor of Local Action and Beyond, the journal of the Cumberland Center for Justice and Peace. In 2007, she was appointed the Center's executive director. Published by the University Press of New England, Execution's Doorstep is a collection of five narratives, recounting the experiences of men sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. Execution's Doorstep: The Stories of the Innocent and Near Damned
  • Dave MacKenzie is a local songwriter and musician.
  • David Magee is a noted nonfiction author of twelve books. His book, Turnaround, about Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan, was published in seven languages and has sold almost 100,000 copies worldwide. In 1996, Magee became the youngest-ever elected member of the Oxford, Mississippi, city council. He is also a co-owner of the independent bookstore Rock Point Books and the founder of Jefferson Press. He lives in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. The Education of Mr. Mayfield
  • Inman Majors is the author of three novels: The Millionaires, Wonderdog, and Swimming in Sky. A native Tennessean and graduate of Vanderbilt University, he know lives in Waynesboro, Virginia. He teaches fiction writing at James Madison University. The Millionaires
  • Rosemary Mariner is formerly Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair and Professor of Military Studies for the National War College. She is currently a lecturer in history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. the Atomic Bomb and American Society
  • Jeff Daniel Marion was the first recipient of a Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship. He has published eight books of poems, a children's book — Hello, Crow (Orchard Books, NY, 1992) — and has poems in journals ranging from The Southern Review to Shenandoah. He retired from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City in 2002 after thirty-five years of teaching there and serving as Poet in Residence as well as Director of the Appalachian Center. Father
  • Jeff Martin is an author and editor. His book, The Customer is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award it was a book club selection for Foreword Magazine and selected as a Shelf Awareness Book of the Year. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and co-founder of Booksmart Tulsa. My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize: The Fabricated Memoirs of Jeff Martin
  • Kathy Mattea has recorded seventeen albums and has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. This total includes the Number One hits, "Goin' Gone", "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses," "Come from the Heart" and "Burnin' Old Memories," as well as twelve additional Top Ten singles.
  • Barry Mazor has been writing about American music since the 1970s. A long-time senior editor for the roots and pop music magazine and website, No Depression, he writes frequently on country and pop music for The Wall Street Journal. The recent winner of the Charlie Lamb Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism, he lives in Nashville. Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
  • Jill McCorkle is the author of eight previous books-three story collections and five novels-five of which have been selected as New York Times Notable Books. She is the winner of the New England Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. She teaches writing at North Carolina State University and lives with her husband in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Going Away Shoes
  • Gretchen McCroskey teaches English and Creative Writing at Northeast State Technical Community College in Blountville, Tennessee. Her poetry has appeared in a number of journals, including Applachian Heritage, Now and Then, Number One, Sow's Ear, and Wind. Finding My Way Home
  • Nancie McDermott is a food writer and cooking teacher specializing in the cuisines of Southeast Asia. She came to know the food and culture of Thailand during the three years she spent living in the Thai countryside as a Peace Corps volunteer. Her stories and recipes have appeared in numerous national magazines. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations
  • James L. McDonough is a retired professor of history from Auburn University. He is the author of numerous books on the Civil War. The Wars of Myron King: A B-17 Pilot Faces WWII and U.S.-Soviet Intrigue (Hardcover)
  • Karen McElmurray is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at Georgia College and State University. She has published essays and stories in numerous magazines and journals. She has received dozens of honors, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Sherwood Anderson Award, and the James Purdy Prize for Fiction. Motel of the Stars
  • Janna McMahan is the winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project, the Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open, the Harriette Arnow Award from the Appalachian Writers' Association, and the Fiction Prize from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Her short stories and non-fiction have been published widely. She lives with her family in Columbia, South Carolina. The Ocean Inside
  • Brother Mel has been a brother in the Society of Marianists, as well as a practicing artist all of his adult life. He received a Master's Degree from Notre Dame in 1960, and traveled Europe extensively as a developing artist. Since then, he has sustained an ever-expanding ability to create artwork in a variety of media and various commissions from churches, chapels, and synagogues to corporate headquarters such as the Adam's Mark hotels and Monsanto International. He has recently installed large outdoor sculptures in parks and other public places throughout the St. Louis area, including an ongoing exhibit of sculpture at the St. Louis Airport. Brother Mel: A Lifetime of Making Art
  • Tammy Miller is an international speaker, author and speech coach. Her speaking topics relate to humor and healing, presentation skills, motivation, and goal setting. As an author, Tammy has released The Lighter Side of Breast Cancer Recovery: Lessons Learned Along the Path to Healing, and My Life is Just Speech Material, and So is Yours: A Guide to Knowing What to Say and How to Say It. The Lighter Side of Breast Cancer Recovery
  • Joseph Millichap is emeritus professor of English at Western Kentucky University. He is the author of Robert Penn Warren: A Study of the Short Fiction and Dixie Limited: Railroads, Culture, and the Southern Renaissance. A Backward Glance: The Southern Renascence, the Autobiographical Epic, and the Classical Legacy
  • Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, as well as a syndicated columnist. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and six children. No Time to Wave Goodbye
  • Christian Moody's work has appeared in Best American Fantasy 2, Best New American Voices 2010, Indiana Review, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. He graduated from Syracuse University's M.F.A. program, and he received an individual artist grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. He's currently a Ph.D. student in fiction writing at the University of Cincinnati. Best New American Voices 2010
  • Billy Moore has a BA in History from Mississippi State University and a MAT in history from Rice University, where he also studied novel writing and served as assistant football coach. Mr. Moore currently teaches for the Walton County, FL School district and Okaloosa-Walton Community College. He and his wife live in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. He is active in the South Walton Three Arts Alliance, the Paradise Writers of Grayton Beach, Florida, and the local folk-life play, Grit and Grace. Little Brother Real Snake
  • Stephen Moseley is a designer, marketer and dreamer who has spent time in both the corporate and nonprofit worlds. Along with co-founding Cool People Care and co-writing New Day Revolution: How to Save the World in 24 Hours, he has helped nonprofits, small businesses, religious organizations and political candidates tell their organizational story online. He believes in the power of the dedicated few, and seeks to bring people together to create meaningful change. New Day Revolution: How to Save the World in 24 Hours
  • Peter Neofotis has worked by day at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and served as a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. By night, he has written and performed the stories of Concord, Virginia at several New York theaters. He lives in New York City, New York. Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in 11 Stories
  • G. Neri is the ALA Notable author of Chess Rumble and the just released Surf Mules. He is an award-winning filmmaker, illustrator, and new media producer who was one of the founding members of The Truth anti-smoking campaign. He currently lives on the Gulf coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Surf Mules
  • Jennifer Niven's first book, The Ice Master was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year by Entertainment Weekly. Her second book, Ada Blackjack, was a BookSense Top Ten Pick. Velva Jean Learns to Drive: A Novel
  • Cornelia Nixon's books include Now You See It and Angels Go Naked, and a book of literary criticism on D.H. Lawrence. She is the winner of two O. Henry Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, a Nelson Algren Award and the Carl Sandberg Award for Fiction. Nixon is working on both a surfing novel and a memoir. A Berkeley alumna, she is on the faculty at Mills College. Jarrettsville
  • Marc Tyler Nobleman is the author of more than seventy books for younger readers and a writer for Nickolodeon Magazine, among others. His cartoons have appeared in more than 100 international publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Barron's. Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman
  • Beth Norman, the author of two books about war, teaches at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
  • Cora Norman Mississippi in Transition: The Role of the Mississippi Humanities Council
  • Michael Norman, a former reporter for the New York Times, teaches narrative journalism at New York University. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
  • Lisa Dale Norton is the founder of the Santa Fe Writing Institute. She teaches writing at UCLA and speaks nationally about the power of the written story to transform lives. Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir
  • Randy O'Brien has been an award-winning journalist for WMOT-FM for over two decades. He's been a finalist and a semi-finalist in several major creative writing contests and has optioned four screenplays. He is a former President of the Tennessee Screenwriters Association and a board member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance and the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcast Association. He reviews audiobooks for AudioFile magazine and has taught nonfiction and creative writing classes at Middle Tennessee State University and Watkins College of Art and Design. He lives in Nashville with his beautiful wife Beth and darling daughter Molly. Judge Fogg
  • Norman Ollestad studied creative writing at UCLA and attended the UCLA Film School. He grew up on Topanga Beach in Malibu, California, and now lives in Venice, California. He is the father of an eight-year-old son. Crazy for the Storm
  • Robert Olmstead is the author of six previous books. Coal Black Horse was the winner of the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the Ohioana Award, was a #1 Book Sense Pick, and was a Borders Original Voices pick. Olmstead is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and an NEA grant, and he is a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. Far Bright Star
  • 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. amplified
  • Ted Olson is the author of the book, Blue Ridge Folklife, and the editor of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual. Breathing in Darkness
  • Janis Owens was born in Marianna, Florida, in 1960, the last child and only daughter of an Assembly of God preacher who later became a salesman for the Independent Life Insurance Company. As a child, she lived in Louisiana and Mississippi, but her heart and her literary roots can be traced to west Florida, to the old mill neighborhood where her mother was raised, that the old-timers call Magnolia Hill. A graduate of the University of Florida, Ms. Owens lives in rural north Florida with her husband and three daughters. The Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down Home Family Stories and Cuisine
  • Peter Patnaik grew up tall and strong in the great land of North Carolina. That is where he currently resides and attends to "Honey Where You Been So Long?," a mp3 blog documenting the pre-war era of blues music. Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists contains his most recent published work. His blog grew up tall and strong at www.prewarblues.org. Hang the DJ
  • Beth Pattillo is an award-winning author of eight novels. Born in Lubbock, Texas, Pattillo graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Master's Degree in Divinity. As an ordained minister, she is the executive director of FaithLeader, an organization in Nashville that works to develop a new generation of spiritual leaders. Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart
  • Lisa Patton is a Memphis native, now a special events director in Tennessee where she lives with her sons. She is donating a portion of her proceeds for the book to an organization in support of single mothers. Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'Easter
  • Colonel William Paul can be seen on television, in the classroom, and on the grocery shelf, spreading the joy that he feels in Louisiana Culture and cuisine, and sharing the vast amount of knowledge he has acquired on International Culinary History. A regular on television shows and in culinary classrooms, he founded Paul Products Incorporated to handle his own Line of Louisiana-made Seasonings: Colonel Paul's Cajun Seasoning (in Mild, Medium, or Hot), and Colonel Paul's Creole Spice. These all natural Seasonings, made in New Orleans, are carefully blended to reflect the way that the average Louisiana homemaker seasons their food. Cajun and Creole Cooking
  • Gordon Payne The Hail and the Fury
  • Bill Peach is the author of To Think As a Pawn; The South Side of Boston; Random Thoughts Left & Right; and Politics, Preaching & Philosophy, which is a collection of his columns from the Williamson Herald. Peach is Chairman Emeritus of the Williamson County Council for the Written Word and was the 2001 CWW Hall of Fame award recipient. He is a contributing author to Gathering: Writers of Williamson County. A semi-retired men's clothier, Peach lives in Franklin, Tennessee. Gathering: Writers of Williamson County
  • A. Scott Pearson is a surgeon in Nashville who throws medical dilemmas at his series character, Dr. Eli Branch. Pearson is a member of the surgical faculty at Vanderbilt University where he teaches on the importance of the patient's narrative in medicine. Rupture
  • Ben Pearson is a filmmaker and writer based in Nashville. Kabul 24
  • David James Poissant's short stories have appeared in Playboy and the Chicago Tribune, and in the anthologies, New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices 2008 and 2010. He has won the Playboy College Fiction Contest, the AWP Quickie Contest, the George Garrett Fiction Award, and Second Prize in the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest. He was runner-up for the 2006 Nelson Algren Award, and his stories have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Florence, Kentucky and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati. Best New American Voices 2010
  • Padgett Powell has received the Prix de Rome of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Whiting Writer's Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award. He lives with his wife and their two children in Gainesville, Florida, where he was born and now teaches. The Interrogative Mood
  • Currie Alexander Powers was born in Toronto, Canada. She is a contributing co-editor of Gathering: Writers of Williamson County. Powers is the author of the novel, Soul of a Man, and her writing has appeared in Tin House and the anthology Muscadine Lines. As a musician, she has played and recorded with Bruce Cockburn, Rick Danko and Stephen Fearing and her songs have been recorded by Sara Craig, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, among others. Powers lives in Nashville. Gathering: Writers of Williamson County
  • Scott Pratt is an attorney and author who lives with his family in Northeast Tennessee. In Good Faith
  • Elise Primavera has illustrated more than twenty books for children, several of which she also wrote, including the New York Times bestselling Auntie Claus and Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas. She illustrated Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen which received a 1999 Christopher Award, the 1999 Irma S. and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature from the Bank Street College of Education, and an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award. Auntie Claus, Home for the Holidays
  • Erin Pritchard is an archaeologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Her work includes multiple archaeological site investigations, most notably Dust Cave in northern Alabama, and she has authored and coauthored numerous site reports for TVA. TVA Archeology: 75 Years of Prehistoric Research
  • John Pritchard grew up in Tunica, Mississippi, located in the legendary Mississippi Delta. He lives in the Mid-South and "pretends" to teach English. His second novel, The Yazoo Blues, won a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and was called "Wickedly Brilliant" by the Nashville Scene. Pritchard's first book, Junior Ray, was named as one of the "top-ten best debut novels," for 2005, by barnesandnoble.com. The Yazoo Blues
  • Lynn Pruett is the author of the novel, Ruby River. Her most recent work appears in the anthologies, Angle of Vision and The Mason-Dixon Line, and in the journals The Louisville Review and Arts and Letters. She has received fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and from Yaddo. She She teaches in the low residency MFA program at Murray State University and at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky. Angle of Vision
  • Wyatt Prunty is a native of Trenton, Tennessee, but he grew up in Athens, Georgia. He is Carlton Professor and Director of the Sewanee Writer's Conference and the author of critical essays as well as poetry. The Lover's Guide to Trapping
  • Brett Eugene Ralph's work has appeared in Conduit, Mudfish, Willow Springs, The American Poetry Review, The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets, and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader. Currently, he teaches at Hopkinsville Community in rural western Kentucky. His country-rock ensemble, Brett Eugene Ralph's Kentucky Chrome Revue, can be heard in seedy dives throughout the South. Black Sabbatical
  • G. Lee Ramsey, a native of Georgia, is an ordained United Methodist minister. He is the Marlon and Sheila Foster Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics at Memphis Theological Seminary. Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction
  • Alice Randall was born in Detroit, grew up in Washington, DC, and graduated from Harvard College. She is the author of The Wind Done Gone and Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, and her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Elle, and O, the Oprah Magazine. Also an accomplished songwriter, Randall is the only African-American woman ever to write a number-one country song. She lives in Nashville, where she is Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University. Rebel Yell
  • Ron Rash's family has lived in the southern Appalachian mountains since the mid-1700's. 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
  • Kathy Rhodes, a native of the Mississippi Delta, is a board member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance and president of the Williamson County Council for the Written Word. She is the author of Pink Butterbeans: Stories from the Heart of a Southern Woman. She is publisher/editor of the online magazine, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, (asouthernjournal.com), and is also editor of the book, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Anthology, and co-editor of Gathering: Writers of Williamson County. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee. Gathering: Writers of Williamson County
  • Clay Risen is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and a former editor at The New Republic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Oxford American, Smithsonian, and The Atlantic Monthly. A former Nashvillian, he now lives with his wife in Washington, DC. A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination
  • Kimberla Lawson Roby is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed novels, The Best of Everything, One in a Million, Sin No More, Love and Lies, Changing Faces, The Best-Kept Secret, Too Much of a Good Thing, A Taste of Reality, Behind Closed Doors, Here and Now, Casting the First Stone, and It's a Thin Line. She lives with her husband in Illinois. A Deep Dark Secret
  • Amy Rogers is a founder and the Publisher of Novello Festival Press, the only library-sponsored literary publisher in the nation. She is a frequent food and culture commentator for NPR station WFAE, and is the author of Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas. Her work was included in Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing. Hungry for Home
  • Charles Denny Runion is the owner of Better Insurance Schools in Atlanta. Great Things Are Expected of Us
  • S. Kittrell Rushing is head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. Reminiscences of an Old Georgia Lawyer
  • Jeremiah Sammartano is originally from Los Angeles, California, where Jeremiah and the Red Eyes spent time being a part of the vibrant Americana/country/roots rock scene. He moved to Nashville to further follow dreams in Music City by continuing to create music influenced by the Delta blues of Charley Patton, the raw, brilliant sounds of the Replacements, the lyrical, romantic and often raucous sounds of the Pogues, and the genius of Tom Waits. The debut album, Red Eyed and Restless, was released on the independent Bull Stud label and captured the raw spirit of the band and found critical acclaim and radio programs around the world. A new album, the nine-track Under Your Spell, has been completed and will be released soon.
  • Jenni Schaefer is an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association and appears reguarly on television and national radio to raise awareness about eating disorders and recovery. A singer/songwriter living in Nashville, she writes for publications nationwide. Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life
  • Dave Schroeder serves as the Senior Director of Marketing at Thomas Nelson Publishers. His position is responsible for leading marketing and publishing campaigns for bestselling authors Max Lucado and Bill Bennett. Schroeder holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing and a minor in History from the University of Evansville. He and his wife Brooke live in Nashville with their two daughters.
  • Michael Scully is a lifelong music fan, whose youthful appreciation of the political songwriter, Phil Ochs, led to a fascination with the broader world of American roots music. In 1980, Scully received a law degree from the University of California at Davis and began a career as commercial litigator. In the late 1990s, bored with the full time practice of law, Scully, along with his wife and two children, relocated from San Francisco to Austin, Texas. He received a PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas in 2005. Still a licensed attorney, Scully has also published articles on folk music, bluegrass, and civil rights. He is presently researching a book on the intersection of race and the music industry. The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance
  • Donny Bailey Seagraves is a children's book author and freelance writer living in Winterville, Georgia, with her husband. Before becoming a full-time writer Seagraves owned and operated Junebug Books, an out-of-print book business on the Internet. Her hobbies include reading, collecting books, and walking in the woods near her rural Georgia home. Gone From These Woods
  • John Seigenthaler is the chairman of the Freedom Forum First Ammendment Center in Nashville and the former editor of the Tennessean. James K. Polk: 1845-1849: The American Presidents Series
  • Michael Sims lived in Nashville for eighteen years and now lives in western Pennsylvania. His two new books are In the Womb: Animals, the companion volume to a National Geographic Channel series, and his third literary anthology, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes. He is the author of Adam's Navel, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a Library Journal Best Science Book; Apollo's Fire: A Journey through the Extraordinary Wonders of an Ordinary Day, which NPR chose as one of the best science books of 2007; and other books. He is currently writing The True Story of Charlotte's Web, about E. B. White's lifelong relationship with the natural world and how it inspired his beloved masterpiece. The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes; In the Womb: Animals
  • Gary Slaughter writes critically-acclaimed, richly-detailed reminiscences of small-town life on the American home front during the last year of World War II. John Seigenthaler calls the two heroes of Slaughter's "Cottonwood" novels "this generation's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn." Cottonwood Fall was a popular fiction finalist for the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award. Cottonwood Winter: A Christmas Story was an adult fiction finalist for the ForeWord 2008 Book of the Year Award. Visit him on-line at www.garyslaughter.com. Cottonwood Spring
  • Andrew Smith lives in the mountains above Los Angeles on a ranch where he keeps horses. In addition to writing, he teaches high school advanced placement classes and coaches rugby. In The Path of Falling Objects
  • Stephanie Snowe lives in Knoxville with her husband Jason and her twin children — all of whom provide plenty of fodder for her blog, "Jason. For the love of God." She works for an environmental and engineering firm, primarily on a Department of Energy Project, but also as her company's blogger. Meeting Mr. Wrong: The Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle is her first book. Meeting Mr. Wrong: The Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle
  • Elizabeth Spires, the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, is the author of six poetry collections for adults, and the children's book The Mouse of Amherst. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. I Heard God Talking to Me: William Edmondson and His Stone Carvings
  • Marc K. Stengel is the owner of the independent firm Historix. He specializes in writing about cultural, historical, automotive, navigational astronomy and Welsh language topics. Stengel's work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the London Spectator and numerous newspapers and magazines throughout the U.S. His weekly automotive column, "What I'm Driving At," is syndicated nationally in various publications and appears on the Internet at CarList.com. Stengel is also automotive editor for Executive Traveler magazine; transportation editor for Alabama Baby; and lifestyle columnist for RV Magazine. A Welsh One Hundred: Glimpses of Life in Wales
  • Becca Stevens is the author of Hither and Yon, Finding Balance, and Sanctuary, nominated by Christianity Today as best spirituality book of 2005. Featured on CNN and in other national media, she is an Episcopal priest at St. Augustine's Chapel at Vanderbilt University. Funeral for a Stranger
  • David O. Stewart has practiced law in Washington, DC for more than a quarter of a century. He defended the impeachment trial of a Mississippi judge in the U.S. Senate in 1989 and has argued appeals all the way to the Supreme Court. He was law clerk to justice Lewis Powell of that court. He lives in Garrett Park, Maryland with his wife. Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the fight for Lincoln's Legacy
  • George G. Stewart is a natice of New Orleans with family ties to Mississippi. He is a retired academic librarian and an affiliate of the Atlanta Photography Group. He completed graduate studies at Tulane University and the University of Denver and has taught courses on library science, literature, Wiliam Faulker, and Southern culture. His Faulkner-inspired photography has been featured in Southern Cultures and the Faulker Newsletter & Yoknapatawpha Review. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia. Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A Photographic Study of Faulkner's Country
  • Trenton Lee Stewart, graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and author of The Mysterious Benedict Society, lives in Arkansas with his wife and two sons. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma
  • Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, New York, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. This is her first novel. The Help
  • Scott Teems is the writer/director of That Evening Sun, a film starring Hal Holbrooke and based upon the short story "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down," by William Gay.
  • 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. Too Close to Evil
  • Cecelia Tichi is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is author or editor of eleven books. Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America (and What They Teach Us)
  • Omar Tyree, a New York Times best-selling author, a 2001 NAACP Image Award recipient for Outstanding Literature in Fiction, and a 2006 Phillis Wheatley Literary Award winner for Body of Work in Urban Fiction, has published sixteen books. With a degree in Print Journalism from Howard University, and his entrepreneurial savvy, Tyree has started the Urban Literacy Project to inspire reading, writing, thinking and financial literacy skills among disadvantaged youth and adults. The Equation and 12 Brown Boys
  • Maggi Britton Vaughn has been Poet Laureate of Tennessee for more than fifteen years. She is the author of eleven books, and has received among other honors the Mark Twain Fellowship from Elmira College and the Literary Award from the Germantown Arts Alliance. She received the Governor's Award as Outstanding Tennessean in 2003. Her poems have been widely published and appeared on National Public Radio and public television. She devotes much of her time to traveling across the state, sharing her poetry with students. You're Laughing Ain't Ya, God?
  • 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
  • Nancy Vienneau is an Alimentum menupoet, food activist, writer and restaurant critic for the Tennessean. Retired from catering, she cooks and teaches at Second Harvest Food Bank, and writes about her adventures through her blog, GoodFoodMatters, at www.nancyvieanneau.com/blog. Alimentum — The Literature of Food
  • Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor is an associate professor of Women's Studies and English at Penn State University. She is the author of A Moment's Monument: Revisionary Poetics in the Nineteenth-Century Sonnet (1995; Fairleigh Dickinson UP), as well as editor of the Victorian Comic Spirit (2000; Ashgate). She has also published numerous articles on nineteenth and twentieth century literature and on utopian fiction. The Legacy of Susan Sontag
  • Carolyn Wall is an editor and lecturer. As an artist-in residence, she has taught creative writing to more than 4,000 children in Oklahoma, where she is at work on her second novel, The Coffin Maker, coming from Delta in 2010. Sweeping Up Glass
  • Daniel Waters is the author of the "Generation Dead" series. He lives with his family in Connecticut. You can visit his website at danielwaters.com. Kiss of Life
  • Josh Weil has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, New England Review, American Short Fiction, Narrative and other journals. He has been a regular contributor to the New York Times and written for Poets & Writers, Guernica, Orion, and Nylon Magazine. Since earning his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright Grant, fellowships and scholarships to the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences, a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Dana Award in Portfolio. As the 2009-2010 Tickner Writing Fellow, he will be the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland. The New Valley
  • Kory Wells is the author of the poetry collection, Heaven Was the Moon. Her poems and stories have appeared in Now & Then, New Southerner, Literary Mama, Pindeldyboz, Ruminate, and other publications. Ladies Home Journal praised her "standout" essay that leads the anthology, She's Such a Geek, and her novel-in-progress was a finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. Chief communications officer for a software company, she lives with her family near Nashville. Heaven Was the Moon
  • Michael Wexler is the co-editor of Voices of the Xiled, a short story collection for adults, and has authored young adult books and adult non-fiction books. He lives in New York City, New York. The Seems: The Lost Train of Thought
  • Karen White is the author of nine previous books. She lives with her family near Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her website at www.karen-white.com. The Lost Hours
  • Neil White is the former publisher of New Orleans magazine, Coast magazine, and Coast Business Journal. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where he owns a small publishing company. This is his first book. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
  • Wayne White grew up in Tennessee, and his nostalgia for his youth and Southern heritage is addressed in the rustic landscapes that he fills with monumental-sized text. Maybe Now I'll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve
  • Warren Wilken has had a guitar in his hands from the garage bands of the 60's until now. Now as a singer-songwriter he performs with classical and steel stringed guitars, but it's the lyrics that set his music apart.
  • Kathryn Williams's work has appeared in The New York Observer, Newsweek, NewYorkMag.com, and Shecky's among other publications. She is a freelance project editor for Sideshow Media. She is also a strong believer in the healing power of butter, bacon, and Southern rock. The Lost Summer
  • Philip Lee Williams is the author of thirteen books and a chapbook. His work has won many awards, including the 2004 Michael Shaara award for his novel, A Distant Flame. In 2007, he received the Georgia Governor's Award in the Humanities. He is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of Georgia and lives with his family in the country near Athens, Georgia. The Campfire Boys
  • Kevin Wilson is the author of the collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009). His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has twice been included in the New Stories from the South: The Year's Best anthology. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his son, Griff, where he teaches fiction at the University of the South and helps run the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
  • Martin Wilson, a native of Tuscaloose, Alabama, currently lives in New York City and is a publicist in the book publishing industry. He earned his B.A. at Vanderbilt University and an M.F.A. from the University of Florida, where he won a Henfield/Transatlantic Review Award. His work has been published in Virgin Fiction 2, Pieces: A Collection of New Voices, Rebel Yell 2, Rush Hour, and Tin House, among other publications. What They Always Tell Us
  • Steven M. Wilson holds a Master of Arts in Historic Preservation from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the Assistant Director and Curator of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum on the campus of Lincoln Memorial University, and an Instructor of History and the Managing Editor of the Lincoln Herald. Mr. Wilson also serves as a museum consultant with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the American Association of Museums. He is the author of five novels, Voyage of the Gray Wolves, Between the Hunters and the Hunted, Armada, President Lincoln's Spy, and President Lincoln's Secret. He writes a monthly column for www.military.com/history, on various aspects of military history. His website is www.stevenwilsonbooks.com. Voyage of the Gray Wolves
  • Emma Wisdom is an author, publisher and teacher in Nashville. Barack H. Obama: Vision to Victory
  • Tommy Womack's first book, Cheese Chronicles: The True Story of a Rock and Roll You've Never Heard Of, has become a cult classic since its publication in 1995, considered required reading by countless musicians who have passed dog-eared copies back and forth in vans and tour buses. He is a two-time winner of the Nashville Scene "Best Song" award. His most recent CD release, There, I Said It!, won a place on the 2007 year-end best of lists of USA Today and No Depression magazine, among many other outlets and blogs. He has also recorded with the indie bands Government Cheese, the bis-quits, and Daddy. He lives in Nashville, with his wife Beth and son Nathan. This is his first novel.The Lavender Boys and Elsie
  • Stuart Woods's first novel, Chiefs, was awarded an Edgar — the Oscar of mystery writing — and was made into a six-hour television drama. Woods has gone on to write numerous other bestselling thrillers. Hothouse Orchid
  • John Wray is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Right Hand of Sleep and Canaan's Tongue. He was named one of Granta magazine's Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Award, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Lowboy: A Novel
  • John Yow is a freelance writer based in Acworth, Georgia, and former senior editor at Longstreet Press in Atlanta. The Armchair Birder
  • Sara Zarr was raised in San Francisco, went to high school in Pacifica, California, and now lives with her husband in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is the author of Sweethearts and the National Book Award finalist, Story of a Girl and can be found on the web at www.sarazarr.com. Once Was Lost

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