2010 Kerrytown BookFest Speakers

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.

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 Deisen
Deborah Deisen grew up in Midland. Michigan, with a mother 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 fall of 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.

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.

Laura James
Laura James is a trial lawyer, crime historian, and true crime author who blogs about the true crime genre at her website CLEWS (www.laurajames.com). She is a graduate of Central Michigan University and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Her first book, THE LOVE PIRATE AND THE BANDIT'S SON: MURDER, SIN, AND SCANDAL IN THE SHADOW OF JESSE JAMES came out in 2009. Laura will be moderating the True Crime panel.

Steve Klein
Steve Klein, moderator of the Michivore panel, 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. Sunce 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.

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.

Mardi Link
Mardi Link is the author of two true crime books based in Nortern 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, is forthcoming in 2009 from the University of Michigan Press and recounts the mysterious disappearance and murder of a Leelanau county nun in 1907. 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 True Crime panel.

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.

John Perry
John Perry is an at-home Dad who lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, two young daughters, and a library full of dangerous books. THE BOOK THAT EATS PEOPLE is his first published work for children. Previously he worked for an advertising agency, and in media sales. Mr. Perry will be reading his forthcoming book in the Children's Tent.

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.

Sarah Stewart
Sarah Stewart grew up in Texas and studied Latin and philosophy at an unfortunate number of colleges and universities. She has held the position of teacher, speechwriter, and ombudsman, among other, less notable, jobs. All of her books have been illustrated by David Small (her husband) and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. They include: The Money Tree, The Library, The Gardener (a Caldecott Honor Book), The Journey, and The Friend. Sarah and David have many more collaborations planned. She has reviewed children's books for The New York Times, has edited copy for The Texas Observer, and occasionally has a poem published in an obscure journal. In November 2007 Sarah received the Michigan Author's Award, the state's highest honor that the librarian's association may grant to an author. Sarah Stewart and David Small share their historic home on a bend of the St. Joseph River in Michigan with a cat named Mabel, who happens to be in charge.

Wendy Webb
Wendy Webb is the author of The Tale of Halcyon Crane, her first novel. She is Editor in Chief of Duluth-Superior Magazine. A journalist with two decades of experience, she lives in Minnesota.