Read up on the speakers we have confirmed for this year’s events!

Doug Allyn
Award winning author Doug Allyn has been published internationally in English, German, French and Japanese and more than two dozen of his tales have been optioned for development as feature films and television. The author of eight novels and over a hundred short stories, his first story won the Robert L. Fish Award for Best First from Mystery Writers of America and subsequent critical response has been equally remarkable. He has won the coveted Edgar Allen Poe Award, (plus six nominations), four Derringer Awards, and the Ellery Queen Readers' Award an unprecedented nine times, also including this year. Mr. Allyn studied creative writing and criminal psychology at the University of Michigan while moonlighting as a guitarist in the rock group Devil's Triangle and reviewing books for the Flint Journal. Career highlights are sipping champagne with Mickey Spillane and waltzing with Mary Higgins Clark.

Eric Alstrom
Eric Alstrom has taught many bok art related workshops at Hollander's. He is currently the Collections Conservator at Michigan State University and has also worked as a bookbinder at the Universtiy of Michigan Bentley Library and the Bessenberg Bindery. Eric is an active member of Guild of Bookworkers.

Steve Amick
Steve Amick is the author of THE LAKE, THE RIVER & THE OTHER LAKE and NOTHING BUT A SMILE. NOTHING BUT A SMILE was a Michigan Notable Book Award Winner for 2010. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he received a BA from St. Lawrence University and an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University. His short stories have appeared in Playboy, The Southern Review, The New England Review, Story, McSweeney's, in the anthology THE SOUND OF WRITING, and on National Public Radio. On walks with his wife and young son, he often passes the original Argus Camera building.

Jennifer Armintrout
Jennifer Armintrout is the author of the three Lightworld/Darkworld novels as well as the four Blood Ties books. She was born in 1980. Her debut novel, Blood Ties Book One: the Turning made the USA Today bestsellers list in 2006. She lives in a small, rural community in Michigan with her husband and children.

Toby Barlow
Toby Barlow is executive creative director at the advertising agency JWT in Detroit and a contributor to the literary magazine n+1 and The Huffington Post. He splits his time between Detroit, Michigan and New York City. His first novel, Sharp Teeth, was named one of the Best Books of 2008 by New York Magazine, Newsday, Boston Phoenix, Bloomberg, Good Reads, Barnes and Noble, and About.com. His influences include but are not limited to: Lou Reed, Jack London, George Orwell, Gore Vidal, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Ford, James Ellroy and George Plimpton. Visit him at www.sharpteeththebook.com.

Ruth McNally Barshaw
Ruth McNally Barshaw has been drawing and writing her whole life. She grew up in the Detroit area and now lives in Lansing, Michigan. As a kid she often drew pictures to go with famous stories, and she also kept sketch journals of her life. She visited Mexico as a teenager with her high school Spanish club and wrote two essays which won an award from the Detroit News Scholastic Writing Awards. As an adult she has worked in advertising, drawing cartoons, illustrated for newspapers, created all sorts of art, and won six national essay-writing contests. Then she started writing and illustrating kids’ books, where she discovered that’s what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Her books, published by Bloomsbury USA, include Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen will Travel(2008), Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School (2009) and Ellie McDoodle: Best Friends Fur-Ever (August 2010). This will be Ms. Barshaw's third visit to the Kerrytown BookFest.

Marybeth Bayer
Marybeth Bayer's first book, The Christmas Cookie Cookbook: All the Rules and Delicious Recipes to Start Your own Holiday Cookie Club, came about because of her wildly successful cookie party that she started 20 years ago and continues today. Her cookie party is also the setting for Ann Pearlman's latest novel The Christmas Cookie Club. The companion nonfiction book is a whimsical cookbook with oodles of wonderful tasty recipes to try. It also includes all the "rules" for starting your own cookie party. Marybeth was born and raised right here in Ann Arbor and still loves all that Ann Arbor has to offer in the way of music, art, restaurants and local events like the Art Fair and Top of the Park. She is an independent insurance broker specializing in helping people at all financial levels plan for long term care. Her website is www.marybethbayer.ltcfp.com for more information.

Barbara Brown
Barbara Brown is a local artist and teacher. She has studied fine binding and the book arts for over 15 years, including studies at the American Academy of Bookbinding in Telluride. She is very active in the arts community and currently exhibits her work at the Washington Street Gallery in Ann Arbor where she currently curates their book arts exhibits. She has been teaching classes at Hollander's School of Book and Paper Arts since 1996.

Marlee Brown
Marlee was raised in Petoskey and on the shore of Lake Michigan. Her love of nature was fostered there and in the mountains of the U.S. and Austria, where her championship ski racing career took her to train and compete. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Marlee also studied at U.C. Berkley and in Tours, France. Her continued studies have included masterpiece painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Students' League of New York, National Academy of Design, Parsons School of Fine Art, Vermont Studio Center and En Plein Air School of Painting in Paris. Marlee's work hangs in many private and corporate collections, most notably at the White House in Washington, D.C. She has exhibited extensively, including the Gallerie Chabin in Paris and the Wally Findlay Gallery in Chicago. Several of her paintings have been selected for the U.S. State Department's Art in the Embassies program. She is honored to have her work in this prestigious national exhibit. A professional artist for more than twenty years, Marlee works on location and in her studios on Mackinac Island and in Petoskey, where she lives with her family. Marlee will be one of the judges for this year's Book Cover contest.

Bonnie Jo Campbell
Bonnie Jo Campbell was a 2009 National Book Award finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for her collection of stories, AMERICAN SALVAGE. She is also author of Q ROAD and the story collection WOMEN & OTHER ANIMALS. She's received the AWP award for short fiction, a Pushcart Prize, and the Eudora Welty Prize. Her poetry collection LOVE LETTERS TO SONS OF BITCHES won the 2009 CBA Letterpress Chapbook Award. Campbell teaches at Pacific University Low Res MFA program. She lives with her husband in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where many of her stories take place. She practices martial arts and tries to train her two donkeys, Jack and Don Quixote.

Mark Crilley
Mark Crilley was raised in Detroit, attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, and went on to Kalamazoo College where he was befriended by Caldecott winning illustrator David Small. After graduation from college, he taught English in Japan, and it was there that he invented his Manga character Akiko. When he came back home to the states, he began to be published as a comic artist by Sirius Entertainment. In 1998 he was named to Entertainment Weekly’s It list of 100 Most Creative People in Entertainment. This led to Random House offering to publish the “Akiko” series, beginning in 2000. The tenth installment was published in 2008. Random House also published his Billy Clikk series. His latest four volume manga series, Miki Falls, was published by HarperCollins from 2007 – 2008. It has been optioned for development by Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B. Mr. Crilley lives in Michigan with his wife, Miki, and his children, Matthew and Mio. He hopes to continue doing just what he does today – writing, drawing, and speaking to young readers at schools and libraries across the nation.

Deborah Diesen
Deborah Diesen grew up in Midland. Michigan, with parents who encouraged her “writing habit.” She had wonderful English teachers throughout her primary education. She wrote creatively throughout those years and well into college. Writing took a backseat in college as she began to explore potential career paths. Graduating with a degree in social science, she worked after college for many years at an independent bookstore. She eventually went back to school for her library science degree, and went to work in a library after graduation. Her first book, The Pout-Pout Fish, was published by Farrar, Straus Giroux in 2008, and named by Time Magazine as one of the best children’s books of the year. It was also selected as a 2009 “Michigan Reads” title. Her next book, The Barefooted, Bad-Tempered Baby Brigade will be published in March 2010 by Tricycle Press, and in August 2010 Farrar, Straus will publish The Pout-Pout Fish in the Big-Big Dark.

Loren D. Estleman
Since the appearance of his first novel in 1976, Loren D. Estleman has written more than 65 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. Among those books: Writing the Popular Novel; Alone, the second in a new series featuring his Los Angeles film detective, Valentino; his 19th Amos Walker novel, American Detective; the Spur-award winning The Undertaker's Wife and a novel about hanging judge Isaac Parker, The Branch and the Scaffold. Forthcoming are his 8th Page Murdock novel, The Book of Murdock, and The Left-Handed Dollar, his 20th Amos Walker novel. An authority on both criminal history and the American West, Estleman has been called the most critically acclaimed author of his generation. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and has won the Shamus Award, the Spur Award, the American Mystery Award, the Outstanding Writer of the Year Award from Popular Fiction Monthly, the Stirrup Award, the Roundup Award, and the Western Heritage Award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 1997 he was the winner of the Michigan Author's Award, and in 2007, his novel Nicotine Kiss was the winner of a Michigan Notable Book Award. His favorite writers are Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, W. Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler and Edith Wharton. He graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 and in 2002 EMU presented him with an honorary doctorate in letters. He writes full time and lives in Michigan with his wife, the writer Deborah Morgan. Mr. Estleman in the recipient of this year's Community Book Award.

Colleen Gleason
Born in Detroit, Colleen Gleason spent most of her adult life in Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving her BA in English, and later went on to receive her MBA from the University of Michigan in Flint. After more than fifteen years of sales, marketing, and management experience in the health care industry, Colleen began her own health insurance agency, which she owned and operated for several years. However, her passion has always been for writing fiction, and in late 2005, she sold her first two books to New American Library, a division of the Penguin Group. Her debut novel, THE REST FALLS AWAY, the first in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, was released to acclaim in early 2007. Since then, Colleen has had eleven books published, finishing the Gardella series and beginning a new paranormal romance series where she is writing as Joss Ware (for HarperCollins). She writes full time and lives with her family near Ann Arbor. More information can be found at ColleenGleason.com, or at the site of her alter ego, JossWareBooks.com.

Gail Griffin
Gail Griffin (Pioneer High Class of 1968) is the author of three volumes of nonfiction, the newest of which is THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER: MURDER-SUICIDE ON A SMALL CAMPUS (2010). Her first book, CALLING: ESSAYS ON TEACHING IN THE MOTHER TONGUE (1992) is something of an underground classic, deemed by the late Carolyn Heilbrun "the most complete and most gracious account of life in the male heart of academia yet to appear." Gail's essays, brief non fiction, and poetry are widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies, and in 2006 she won Calyx's Lois Cranston Prize for poetry. She teaches writing, literature, and women's studies at Kalamazoo College.

Bryan Gruley
Bryan Gruley grew up in the Detroit area where he learned to play hockey in backyard rinks. As an adult, he continues to play Pond Hockey. Mr. Gruley graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1979, and he worked for newspapers in Brighton, Howell, Kalamazoo and Detroit, before joining The Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau in 1995. He is the author of the prize-winning non fiction book, Paper Losses: A Modern Epic of Greed and Betrayal at America's Two Largest Newspaper Companies (1993). He was also an alternate finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his story about a black WWII lieutenant who saved a young holocaust victim. His first novel, Starvation Lake, was published in 2009, and was nominated for an Edgar for Best First Novel by an American author. It's the first book in a series set in Starvation Lake, Michigan. The second novel will be published in August of 2010. Bryan lives in Chicago with his wife, Pam.

Steve Hamilton
Born and raised in Detroit, Steve Hamilton graduated from the University of Michigan where he won the prestigious Hopwood Award for fiction. In 2006, he won the Michigan Author Award for his outstanding body of work. His novels have won numerous awards and media acclaim beginning with the very first in the Alex McKnight series, A Cold Day in Paradise, which won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin's Press award for Best First Mystery by an unpublished writer. Once published, it went on to win the Edgar and Shamus Awards and was short listed for the Anthony and Barry Awards. The awards didn't stop there but he's too modest to crow about them. Hamilton currently works for IBM in upstate New York where he lives with his wife Julia and their two children. His most recent novel, The Lock Artist, was published by St. Martin's Press in January of 2010. Mr. Hamilton's first book A Cold Day in Paradise serves as the inspiration for this year's high school art contest to design a book cover. He will be judging the contest, as well as speaking on the Nothern Noir panel.

Susan Kathleen Hartung
Susan Hartung was born in Ann Arbor and went on to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she found her passion for children's book illustration. Graduating in 1990 with a BA, her first illustration assignment came in 1998, illustrating Dear Juno by Soyung Pak for Viking. Dear Juno has received numerous awards, including the Ezra Jack Keats Award. She continues to work with Viking, illustrating award winning titles such as One Dark Night and One Leaf Rides the Wind. Susan is a member of the Graphic Artist's Guild, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and co-founder of the Picture Book Artist's Association. After living in Brooklyn, NY for 14 years, she has relocated to Brooklyn, Michigan, where she lives with her dog, two cats, and her husband, a very tall Texan named Al.

Amy Huntley
Amy Huntley's first novel for young adults, The Everafter, was published in the fall of 2009 by HarperCollins. On any given day you can find her book hopping between children's books and 19th century children's literature. Or between a great young adult novel and an adult spy thriller. As a teacher of 18 years, she’s trying to put the right book in the right student’s hands. To that end she reads 100 or more books a year.

Steve Klein
Steve Klein, one of the judges for the 2010 Cover Art contest, is the owner, along with his wife and partner Shira, of the Huron River Press. Huron River Press traces its heritage back to Sleeping Bear Press. In 2005, Mr. Klein purchased Huron River Press. Since purchasing this small boutique publishing company, the press has continued to publish Great Books for the Great Lakes State, with an emphasis on cookbooks, including FRESHMAN IN THE KITCHEN by Max and Eli Sussman. Mr. Klein focuses on the business side of the operation and brings his design background to play when called upon. Visit www.huronriverpress.com for more information.

Arie Koelewyn
The instructor of the paper airplane workshop is Arie C. Koelewyn, an East Lansing resident who started collecting paper airplane books and other materials in 1973 and has amassed a collection of over 100 books, dozens of magazine articles and other ephemera. It may be the world's largest such collection. Then again, there may not be any others. Arie is also the proprietor of The Paper Airplane Press, a private hobby letterpress operation that published its first pamphlet in 1977, entitled "Paper Airplanes: 1911 and 1973."

William Kent Krueger
Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University - before being kicked out for radical activities. After that he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full time author. He's been married for over 30 years to a marvelous woman who is an attorney. With his wife and two children, he makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves. Krueger writes a mystery series set in the North Woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O'Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage - part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. The ninth book in his series, Heaven's Keep, was published in September of 2009, with the 10th in the series scheduled for August of 2010. He does all his creative writing at booth #4 at the St. Clair Broiler in St. Paul. This will be Mr. Krueger's second visit to the Kerrytown BookFest.

Steve Lehto
Steve Lehto is a writer and attorney, and teaches in an adjunct capacity at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in Detroit. He lives in southeastern Michigan with his two dogs. Lehto's family has roots in Northern Michigan and specifically at Suomi College. He is the author of Death's Door: the Truth behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder (2006) and Michigan's Columbus: the Life of Douglass Houghton. He is a Michigan Notable Book Award winner (2007), a Gold ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year (2007), Silver IPPY Award - True Crime (2007), a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award (2007) and a Regional Finalist for PMA Benjamin Franklin Award (2007).

Mardi Link
Mardi Link is the author of two true crime books based in Northern Michigan. The first, WHEN EVIL CAME TO GOOD HART, published by the University of Michigan Press, meticulously details the 40-year investigation of the Robison murders in Good Hart and spent three months on the Heartland Bestseller List. The second, ISADORE'S SECRET, was published in 2009 by the University of Michigan Press and recounts the mysterious disappearance and murder of a Leelanau county nun in 1907. ISADORE'S SECRET was a Michigan Notable Book winner for 2010. A re-issue of the long out of print true crime classic, THE MICHIGAN MURDERS, published in the fall of 2010, will feature an introduction by Link. Mardi is a former police reporter, a former editor of both Small Press and Foreword magazines, a cofounder of Michigan Writers, and recipient of the 2007 Goddess Award from Antioch Writers Workshop. She lives in Traverse City. Her work has appeared in Bellingham Review, Dunes Review, Bear River Review, Publisher's Weekly, Traverse Magazine and Northern Express among other publications. She is currently working on a third true crime book about the Tobias Five, the five men exonerated in the 1986 death of oil field worker Jerry Tobias. She will appear on the Michigan Murders panel.

Steve Luxenberg
Steve Luxenberg, an associate editor at The Washington Post, has worked for more than 30 years as a newspaper editor and reporter. Steve's journalistic career began at The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for 11 years. He joined The Post in 1985 as deputy editor of the newspaper's investigative/special projects staff, headed by assistant managing editor Bob Woodward. In 1991, he succeeded Woodward as head of the investigative staff. Post reporters working with Steve have won several major reporting awards, including two Pulitzer prizes for explanatory journalism. From 1996 to 2006 Steve was editor of The Post's Sunday Outlook section, which publishes original reporting and provocative commentary on a broad spectrum of political, historical and cultural issues. His memoir, Annie's Ghosts, was published in 2009, and was a Michigan Notable Book winner for 2010, as well as being named one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post. He grew up in Detroit, and is married to Mary Jo Kirschman, a school librarian.

Thomas Lynch
Thomas Lynch's stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, Harper's and elsewhere. The Undertaking was a finalist for the National Book Award; he is also the author of Still Life in Milford, Booking Passage, and Apparitions and Late Fictions. He won the Great Lakes Book Award for Bodies in Motion and at Rest. Lynch lives in Milford, Michigan and West Clare, Ireland.

Donald Lystra
Born in 1945 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Donald Lystra received degrees in electrical engineering and sociology from the University of Michigan. He worked for many years on electrical power plants before beginning to write fiction in the mid-1990s. He has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the McDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and his work was cited for special mention in the 2002 Pushcart Prizes. Mr. Lystra and his wife divide their time between Ann Arbor and a farm in Northern Michigan. He has two grown children. His first novel, Season of Water and Ice, was named by the Library of Michigan as a Michigan Notable Book for 2010, and is the winner of the 2009 Midwest Book Award.

Ellen McCarthy
Ellen McCarthy was born, raised, and educated in Ann Arbor. Her passion for books has led her on a long journey through scholarly publishing to end up, at least for now, as regional editor at the University of Michigan Press, where she has the great pleasure of working with Michigan and Great Lakes authors on true crime, nature, history, and lots of other fascinating stuff relating to this wonderful part of the world.

Craig McDonald
Edgar nominee Craig McDonald is an award winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies, and several online crime fiction sites. His debut novel, Head Games, was published by Bleak House Books in September 2007. Head Games was selected as a 2008 Edgar nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author. Head Games was also a finalist for the Anthony, Gumshoe and Crimespree Magazine awards for Best First Novel. His nonfiction books include Art in the Blood, a collection of interviews with 20 major crime authors which appeared in 2006, and Rogue Males: Conversations and Confrontations about the Writing Life, a second collection of interviews published by Bleak House Books in 2009. McDonald was also a contributor to the NYT's nonfiction bestseller, Secrets of the Code. He recently won national awards for his profiles of crime novelists James Crumley, Daniel Woodrall, James Sallis and Elmore Leonard. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, Sisters in Crime and a contributing columnist to Crimespree Magazine. His latest novel, Print the Legend, was published in January of 2010.

Michael Glenn Monroe
Michael Glenn Monroe knew he wanted to be an artist since he was a young child. Blessed with natural ability and parents who nurtured his need for the great outdoors, Michael eventually grew to realize his dream. Now 47, Michael enjoys being a successful Wildlife Artist, illustrating children’s books, and traveling the nation speaking to children about wildlife, conservation and about never giving up on your dreams. Known in the wildlife art world for his realistic wildlife paintings, Michael's books have been the most fun for him. It gives him a chance to use his imagination while creating the characters that inhabit his books. His book, A Wish to be a Christmas Tree has become a holiday favorite. The book was written by his wife Colleen and has been read on television by both Katie Couric and Mitch Albom. Michael enjoyed the chance to give a personality to a large tree who had never been chosen for Christmas while still showcasing his ability to paint realistic wildlife. In 2002 Michael was chosen to paint the official Easter Egg of Michigan, which represented the state in a White House display. His realistic wildlife paintings have earned him the honor of Michigan Wildlife Artist of the Year, 1997 Michigan Duck stamp, Minnesota Deer Hunters Artist of the Year, and 2000 Ducks Unlimited Stamp to name just a few. In 2001 he was honored to be named Outstanding Young Michigander by the Governor for his work with children and conservation. His most recent honor was being chosen to paint the 2007 Holiday for the White House and the Friends and Family Christmas bulb personally given away by the President and Mrs. Bush. He was invited to visit the White House with his family. His illustrating work has won him many awards including Best Children’s Book 2006 from the Writer's Notes Magazine for his book, A is for Ark, Noah's Journey and Best Children's Book 2007 for his book, I saw it in the Garden.

Heather O'Neal
Heather O'Neal grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After high school, she attended Washtenaw Community College for one year and continued studying at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She spent her junior year in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1986, wrote a book about her adventures and learned to speak Nepali. Heather graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1989 with a degree in English and South Asian Studies. She joined the Peace Corps in 1990 and spent two years teaching English and learning Hungarian in Salgotarjan, Hungary just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. As part of the Returned Peace Corps Fellows Program, Heather completed a masters degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso while teaching English as a Second Language in El Paso, Texas. In 1997 Heather spent one year learning Spanish and teaching English at the American School of Madrid in Spain. The next year she quit her job to finally travel back to Nepal. In 2000 Heather started her company, Of Global Interest LLC Adventure Travel. Since that time, she has organized and led over 20 professional tours to Nepal, including organizing one Mt. Everest expedition. She gives cultural talks and presentations at school, sells imports she brings home from Nepal and operates a bed and breakfast in her home - among other things.

Ann Pearlman
Ann Pearlman was born in Washington D.C. and, after moving around the Midwest gathering degrees and work experience, settled in Ann Arbor where her first novel, The Christmas Cookie Club, is set. A cookie party started by Marybeth Bayer inspired the occassion for the novel. Together, they have written a companion nonfiction book, The Christmas Cookie Cookbook: All the Rules and Delicious Recipes to Start Your own Holiday Cookie Club. Ann studied writing at the University of Michigan, attended workshops at Sewanee and Squaw Valley Writers' Conferences. Her first book, Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair With Your Spouse, garnered the attention of the Oprah Winfrey Show and several other TV talk shows. Her memoir, Infidelity, was nominated for a Pulitzer and made into a Lifetime movie by Lionsgate. Inside the Crips, with a foreword by Ice T, took readers into the life of a Crip gang member and the California Prison system. The Christmas Cookie Cookbook will be on the stands November 16, 2010 as well as the trade paperback of The Christmas Cookie Club. Check out her websites : www.annpearlman.net and www.christmascookieclub.com for more information.

Sharon Pomerantz
Sharon Pomerantz is a fiction writer and university lecturer whose stories have appeared in a variety of liteary journals, including Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Prarie Schooner, The Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Colorado Review. Her work has been widely anthologized and her story "Ghost Knife" was selected for BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2003 (Houghton Mifflin). In 1996, her story "Shoes" was read as part of the Selected Shorts series at Symphony Space and broadcast on National Public Radio. A graduate of Smith College and the University of Michigan, Sharon is the winner of four Hopwood awards, a Ludwig Vogelstein grant, and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Arts and New River Dramatists. As a nonfiction writer, she has written for The Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, Hadassah Magazine, and many others. Her first novel, RICH BOY, will be published by Twelve in August 2010.

Lev Raphael
Lev Raphael is a prize winning pioneer in American Jewish Literature. He has been publishing fiction and nonfiction about the second generation since 1978. The author of nineteen books that have been translated into nearly a dozen languages including German, he has been a radio talk show host, a newspaper columnist, and an academic. Widely anthologized in the U.S. and England, he's done hundreds of talks and readings from his work on three continents, and his writing is taught at colleges and universities across North America. The Michigan State University Libraries recently bought his present and future literary papers for their archives. Raphael can be found on the web at www.levraphael.com.

Kristina Riggle
Kristina Riggle lives and writes in West Michigan. Besides her debut novel, REAL LIFE & LIARS, she has published short stories in the Cimarron Review, Literary Mama, Espresso Fiction, and elsewhere. She is also a freelance journalist writing primarily for The Grand Rapids Press, and co-editor for fiction at Literary Mama. Kristina was a ful time newspaper reporter for seven years before turning her attention to creative writing and freelancing. As well as writing, she enjoys reading, yoga, dabbling in (very) amateur musical theater, and spending lots of time with her husband, two kids, and dog. REAL LIFE & LIARS is set in Charlevoix, Michigan, a town close to Kristina's heart as the home of her grandparents where she visited often over the years. Some recognizable Charlevoix landmarks appear in the novel, as well as fictionalized versions of real places. The home of the Zielinski family on Dixon Avenue is based loosely on the house where her grandmother grew up. Her second novel of complex family relationships, THE LIFE YOU'VE IMAGINED, is due in August from Avon/HarperCollins.

Nicola Rooney
I have been in the book business since 1995, but I have been a reader since the early 1950's. I grew up living in many different countries as a British Army brat, and came to Canada in 1982 to work in the Chemical Industry. Took a buyout in 1994 and bought the bookstore (Nicola's) by serendipity, it was not the realization of a long held dream, just the response to what we hoped was a good business opportunity. I have not owned a TV since 1995, books are my chosen form of entertainment when it is too cold, dark or wet to be out in my yard.

David Small
David Small was born and raised in Detroit. In school he became known as the kid who could draw good, but David never considered a career in art because it was so easy for him. At 21, after many years of writing plays, David took the advice of a friend who informed him that the doodles he made on the telephone pad were better than anything he had ever written. He switched his major to Art and never looked back. After getting his MFA at the Yale Graduate School of Art, David taught art for many years on the college level, ran a film series and made satirical sketches for campus newspapers. Approaching tenure, he wrote and illustrated a picture book, Eulalie and the Hopping Head, which he took to New York, pounding the pavements and collecting rejections for a month in the dead of winter. Eulalie was published in 1981. Although tenure at the college did not follow, many more picture books did, as well as extensive work for national magazines and newspapers. His drawings appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Times. A learn-as-you-go illustrator, David's books have been translated into several languages, made into animated films and musicals, and have won many of the top awards accorded to illustration, including the 1997 Caldecott Honor and The Christopher Medal for The Gardener written by his wife, Sarah Stewart, and the 2001 Caldecott Medal for So, You Want To Be President? by Judith St. George. At the Caldecott ceremony in San Francisco, said David, facing that veritable sea of smiling faces - of librarians, of friends in publishing, of my family and other well wishers - I was so overcome that I lost my voice and croaked my way through the speech. Having been turned from a frog into a prince by the American Library Association, before their eyes that night, I turned back into a frog. To date he has illustrated over 40 picture books. At an average of 40 pages per book, that makes around 1,840 illustrations, though someone ought to check that math. Currently David's graphic memoir about his problematic youth was a 2009 Michigan Notable Book Award Winner. David Small and Sarah Stewart make their home in an 1833 manor house on a bend of the St. Joseph River in southwest Michigan. David's studio is an 1890 farmhouse also overlooking the river, just a short walk from home.

John Smolens
John Smolens has published five novels, COLD, THE INVISIBLE WORLD, FIRE POINT, ANGEL'S HEAD and WINTER BY DEGREES, and one collection of short stories, MY ONE AND ONLY BOMB SHELTER. His new book, entitled THE ANARCHIST, a historical novel that depicts William McKinley's assassination, was published in 2009 by Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House. His short stories and essays have been in various magazines and newspapers, including Redbook, Yankee, The Massachusetts Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, and translations have appeared in the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Educated at Boston College, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Iowa, he is a professor of English at Northern Michigan University and lives in Marquette, Michigan. Mr. Smolens will receive the Michigan Author of the Year Award from the Michigan Library Association in November of 2010. More information is available at johnsmolens.com.

Keith Taylor
Poet and writer Keith Taylor coordinates the undergraduate program in creative writing at the University of Michigan and formerly managed Shaman Drum, a leading independent bookstore. He directs the Bear River Writer's Conference and works as an editorial consultant to Dzanc books. He has published eleven volumes: collections of poetry and short fiction, edited volumes, and translations. His work has appeared in such publications as Story, The Los Angeles Times, Alternative Press, the Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, the Iowa Review, Witness, Chicago Tribune, and Hanging Loose. His most recent book, If the World Becomes so Bright, was published in 2009 by Wayne State University Press. recently he contributed an essay on Ernest Hemingway to A New Literary History of America published by Harvard University Press.

Debbie Taylor
Debbie Taylor is the author of the children's book, Sweet Music in Harlem, illustrated by Frank Morrison. The book was honored by the International Reading Association and Cooperative Children's Book Council. The book was selected for inclusion is the Picturing America Bookshelf Collection for 2009-2010 by the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her stories appear in magazines including Spider, New Moon, Pockets and Cricket. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Authors Guild. Currently she is the Director of the Women in Engineering Office at the University of Michigan. Her current writing projects include a basketball story and a young adult novel. When she isn't writing or reading she enjoys visiting the botanical gardens and museums.

Wendy Webb
Wendy Webb is the author of The Tale of Halcyon Crane, a chilling story about one woman's discovery of dark family secrets and the ghosts and mysteries surrounding them, published by Henry Holt and Company in April of 2010. HALCYON has been selected as an IndieNext pick for April by IndieBound, the Independent Bookseller's arm of the American Booksellers Association, and also as a Midwest Connection pick by the Midwest Bookseller's Association. Wendy is a long time Twin Cities journalist now living in Duluth, Minnesota, where she is editor in chief of Duluth-Superior Magazine.

Judge William Whitbeck
Judge William C. Whitbeck has served with distinction on the Michigan Court of Appeals since Governor Engler appointed him in 1997. Judge Whitbeck was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2004. He will run for re-election in 2010. In his twelve years on the bench, Judge Whitbeck served six years as Chief Judge and two years as Chief Judge Pro Tem. In private practice for over 20 years, Judge Whitbeck was a partner in the law firms of Honigman, Miller, Dykema, Gossett, and McClellan, Schlaybaugh & Whitbeck. Judge Whitbeck's first work of fiction, To Account for Murder, will be published in November of 2010.

Michael Zadoorian
Michael Zadoorian was born and raised in Detroit and has lived in the area for his entire life. He is a graduate of Wayne State University, where he was the recipient of the Loughead-Eldridge Creative Writing Scholarship and three Tompkins Awards for his fiction and essays. His first novel, SECOND HAND, was an ABA Booksense selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover selection, and winner of the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award. His second novel, THE LEISURE SEEKER, won Columbia University's Anahid Literary Award and was favorably reviewed everywhere from the L.A. Times to Corriere della sera to RV Life, including a starred review in Booklist, which called it "pretty much like life itself: joyous, painful, funny, moving, tragic, mysterious and not to be missed." Zadoorian's 2010 Michigan Notable Book, a short story collection called THE LOST TIKI PALACES OF DETROIT, features stories previously published in The Literary Review, The North American Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Ararat, American Short Fiction and Detroit Noir. Zadoorian works as a copywriter in the Detroit area. He lives with his wife, a librarian, in an old house filled with things that used to be in the houses of other people.