2009 Festival Author Biographies
To read an interview with Ray Arsenault, click here.
A Good Man is Larry Baker's third novel. His first, The Flamingo Rising (Knopf- 1997) was a Hallmark movie in 2001. His second novel, Athens/America, is an underground classic, so far underground that nobody can find a copy. He is currently working on a novel about an older married woman who has a long-term affair with a much younger man. The story will also be set in Florida, and he welcomes all relevant anecdotes from those with any experience in this area. Larry lives in Iowa City, where he is known as the writer who lost more local elections than he won. He is blessed with a wife of infinite patience and wonderful children who forgive his perpetual state of distraction.
Josh Bazell holds a BA in English Literature and writing from Brown University and an MD from Columbia. Currently a resident at the University of California, San Francisco, he wrote Beat the Reaper (his first novel) while completing his internship at a hospital not at all like the one described in the book.
Carol Berkin received her B.A. from Barnard College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is currently Baruch College Presidential Professor of History and also teaches at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of Revolutionary Mothers, A Brilliant Solution, Jonathan Sewall: Odyssey of an Americal Loyalist, and First Generations: Women in Colonial America. Her most recent book, Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in September. She lives in New York City and Guilford, Connecticut. To read the Times' review of Civil War Wives, click here.
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and satirist who frequently contributes humor pieces to The New Yorker, The New York Times and Huffington Post. He is the creator of the award-winning humor site BorowitzReport.com and the hit television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as well as a co-producer of the Oscar-nominated film Pleasantville. He was the first-ever winner of the National Press Club's award for humor. He is innocent of any and all wrongdoings and believes that in time he will be fully exonerated.
To read the Times' review of The Clinton Tapes, click here.
Philip Caputo was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. After serving with the Marines in Vietnam, he spent nine years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, including five years as a foreign correspondent, and shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for his reporting on election fraud in Chicago. In 1975 he was wounded in Beirut and during his convalescence completed the manuscript for A Rumor of War, his much acclaimed memoir about his service in Vietnam. In 1977 he left the paper and turned to writing books and magazine articles full time. He is the author of seven works of fiction including Exiles, The Voyage, and Acts of Faith, two memoirs, and four works of non-fiction. In addition, he has been a contributing editor for the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, National Geographic, and several other publications. He divides his time between Connecticut and Arizona. His new novel Crossers will be published by Knopf in October, 2009. To read the Times' review of Crossers, click here.
Dr. Roy Peter Clark has taught writing at The Poynter Institute for three decades, a body of work summarized in his latest book Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. Clark has worked full-time at Poynter since 1979 as director of the writing center, dean of the faculty, senior scholar, and vice-president. In 1977 Clark was hired by the St. Petersburg Times to become one of America's first writing coaches and worked with the American Society of Newspaper Editors to improve newspaper writing nationwide. Because of his work with ASNE, Clark was elected as a distinguished service member, a rare honor for a journalist who has never edited a newspaper. Clark has worked with writers and taught writing in more than 40 states and on 5 continents. His influence has been felt far and wide both on young writers and grizzled professionals. He is the founding director of the National Writers Workshops, eight regional conferences, including one at Harvard, that attract more than 5,000 writers annually. From 1977-98 Clark wrote news, features and reviews for the St. Petersburg Times. In 1996 he began writing serial narratives for newspapers, including Three Little Words, Sadie's Ring, Her Picture in My Wallet, and Ain't Done Yet, a serial novel syndicated by The New York Times. He is the author of The Line Between Fact and Fiction, published in the journal Creative Nonfiction.
Jack E. Davis was raised in the Tampa Bay area and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of South Florida, followed by a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University. He is currently Waldo W. Neikirk Term Professor and associate professor of history at the University of Florida, where he specializes in environmental history, Florida history, and the history of the modern U.S. South. He is the award-winning author, editor or co-editor of several books, including The Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida, and Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida. To see the Times' review of An Everglades Providence, click here.
Tim Dorsey was born in Indiana, moved to Florida at the age of 1, and grew up in Riviera Beach in Palm Beach County. He graduated from Auburn University in 1983 with a B.S. in Transportation. While at Auburn, he was editor of the student newspaper, The Plainsman. From 1983 to 1987, he was a police and courts reporter for the Alabama Journal, the now-defunct evening newspaper in Montgomery. He joined The Tampa Tribune in 1987 as a general assignment reporter. He also worked as a political reporter in the Tribune's Tallahassee bureau and a copy desk editor. From 1994 to 1999, he was the Tribune's night metro editor. He left the paper in August 1999 and has since had eleven novels published in several languages: Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, Cadillac Beach, Torpedo Juice, The Big Bamboo, Hurricane Punch, Atomic Lobster and Nuclear Jellyfish. He lives in Tampa with his family. To read the Times' review of Nuclear Jellyfish, click here.
William F. Felice is professor of political science and heard of the international relations and global affairs discipline at Eckerd College. He is the author of Taking Suffering Seriously: The Importance of Collective Human Rights (1996), The Global New Deal: Economic and Social Human Rights in World Politics (2003), How Do I Save My Honor: War, Moral Integrity, and Principled Resignation (2009), and numerous articles on the theory and practice of human rights. He has published articles in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Ethics and International Affairs, Human Rights Quarterly, International Affairs, Social Justice and other journals. Dr. Felice was named the 2006 Florida Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In addition, Felice has received Eckerd College's John M. Bevan Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award, and he has been recognized by the students as Professor of the Year and by faculty as the Robert A. Staub Distinguished Teacher of the Year. Felice received his Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at New York University. He has served as a trustee on the board of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Relations. He was also the past president of the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association. To read the Times' review of How Do I Save My Honor?, click here.
David Finkel is a staffer for The Washington Post and the leader of the Post's National enterprise reporting team. He joined the Post in 1990 and has worked for the paper's national, foreign and magazine staffs. He has reported from Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, and throughout the United States, and was part of the Post's war coverage in Iraq, Afganistan, and Kosovo. Before the Post, he worked for the St. Petersburg Times and Tallahassee (FL) Democrat. Among Finkel's journalism honors are a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in2006 for a series of stories about U.S.-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. He has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times, for both explanatory reporting and feautre writing. A 1977 graduate of the University of Florida, Finkel is married, has two daughters, and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. To read the Times' review of The Good Soldiers, click here. And for an interview with David Finkel, click here.
John Henry Fleming teaches creative writing in the MFA program at the University of South Florida. The author of a bestiary, Fearsome Creatures of Florida, and a novel, The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman, Fleming takes a comic, eerie, sharp-eyed look at Florida history and landscape through its myths and legends. His short stories have appeared in literary journals such as McSweeney's, The North American Review, Mississippi Review, and Fourteen Hills. He's been awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and is the founder and advisory editor of Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art (www.sawpalm.org), a USF-based literary journal that highlights Florida writers and artists. He's at work on a new novel featuring Elvis Presley and the making of Follow That Dream in the Crystal River and Yankeetown area of the Florida Gulf Coast in 1961. He lives in Temple Terrace with his wife and two children. You can visit his website at www.fearsomecreatures.com. To read the Times' review of Fearsome Creatures of Florida, click here.
To read the Times' review of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, click here.
Carlos Frias is a natural observer who spent his formative years as a journalist traveling the South, primarily as a sports reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This "southern-fried Cuban" has known the country on an intimate level, painting portraits of America's most recognizable sports figures and reporting on the hotly debated topics in sports. Frias, today a special projects reporter in sports for The Palm Beach Post, says he is "assembled in America from Cuban parts". A South Florida native who grew up just north of the Dade-Broward County line, Frias gained the perspective of a boy born of Cuban exiles, but raised among the "gringos". Fully bilingual, he travels easily between those worlds and brings his own unique cultural sense to his writings. A multiple award winner for his sports writing, Frias was named the Cox Newspapers Writer of the Year in 2007 for his reporting from Cuba, which led to his book, Take Me With You. In June of 2009, the International Latino Book Awards prized the book with its prestigious Mariposa Award for best debut book. To read the Times' review of Take Me With You, click here.
Dr. Dennis Fried has been laughed out of numerous careers, including college teaching, marketing, and stand-up comedy. He holds multiple advanced degrees in both physics and philosophy, all of which have totally gone to waste. In addition to translating Genevieve's memoirs from Doggerel into English, he is the author of his own book, A Tongue in the Sink: The Harrowing Adventures of a Baby Boomer Childhood. Genevieve is a leading canine researcher into human behavior. She is the proud holder of a degree in basic obedience, and is even prouder never to use it.
Olivia Gentile was a reporter for The Hartford Courant, in Connecticut, and The Rutland Herald, in Vermont. She grew up in Washington, D.C., graduated from Harvard, and has a master's of fine arts degree in writing from Columbia, where she also took courses in ornithology. She was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in 2006. She lives in New York City with her husband, Andy Borowitz. This is her first book. For more information visit www.oliviagentile.com. To read the Times' review of Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds, click here.
Eileen Goudge I was born on the Fourth of July, and it's been fireworks ever since. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area as one of six kids, I was never without a cast with which to stage my early theatrical productions, which included a musical rendition of "The Christmas Carol", in which I was Ebenezer Scrooge. I began writing at age eight, with short stories and poems, and I haven't looked back since. From the early days of mostly collecting rejection slips, I went on to publish thirty-two novels for young adults, thirteen (and still counting) of women's fiction, as well as numerous short stories and magazine articles, and one cookbook. Often I'm asked where I get my ideas. Fortunately, I have a wealth of life experiences to draw from. Not all of them so good, but they each contributed to my writing in some way. Starting when I dropped out of college to get married, at age eighteen. Two years later I was divorced, with a baby son and no means of support. I ended up briefly on welfare, and stodd in line for government surplus food. But every cloud has its silver lining, and this one led to my determination to make a go of it as a professional writer. I borrowed a typewriter from my next-door neighbor, and lacking a desk, plunked it down on the living room floor. The rest, as they say, is history. My first break came in the early eighties, when I was chosen to help launch a line of teen romances, which went on to become the phenomenally successful "Sweet Valley High" series. In 1986, my first adult novel, Garden of Lies, was published. I've since gone on to write many more novels. My most recent, a Mother's Day themed release, i titled The Diary, a tale inspired by my parents' fifty year plus love story. I also have a new title coming out in October, Once in a Blue Moon, about sisters separated in childhood who are reunited later in life, after having lived drastically different lives.
Senator Bob Graham is the former two-term governor of Florida and served for 18 years in the United States Senate. This is combined with 12 years in the Florida legislature for a total of 38 years of public service. As Governor and Senator, Bob Graham was a centrist, committed to bringing his colleagues together behind programs that served the broadest public interest. He was recognized by the people of Florida when he received an 83% approval rating as he concluded eight years as Governor. Bob Graham retired from public service in January 2005, following his Presidential compaign in 2004. Bob Graham is recognized for his leadership on issues ranging from healthcare and environmental preservation to his ten years of service on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence- including eighteen months as chairman in 2001-2002. Following the release of the Joint Inquiry's final report in July 2003, Senator Graham steadfastly advocated reform of the intelligence community and sponsored legislation to bring about needed changes. In the fall of 204 Senator Graham authored Intelligence Matters based upon his experiences gleaned during the joint inquiry and his analysis of the run up to the Iraq war. After retiring from public life, Senator Graham served for a year as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he lectured to undergraduate, graduate and executive management students. His primary focus was on civic education and intelligence, issues which continue to be of great importance to him. He is the author of a new book about civic participation, entitled America: The Owner's Manual. The goal of the book is to provide ordinary people with the means and motivation to go out and influence decision makers in order to achieve positive changes in their neighborhoods and communities. In retirement, Bob and Adele Graham have returned to their home in Miami Lakes, Florida, and are enjoying more time with their four daughters and eleven grandchildren.
N.M. Kelby is the author of The Constant Art of Being a Writer: The Life, the Work & the Business of Fiction (Writer's Digest Books, September 2009) and the novels In the Company of Angels (Theia/Hyperion), Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill (Shaye Areheart Books, Crown), Whale Season (Shaye Areheart Books, Crown) and Theater of the Stars (Theia/Hyperion). In addition to her story collection, A Travel Guide for Restless Hearts (Borealis Books), she'll also be featured in Florida Heat Wave (Bleak House Books). Named "Outstanding Southern Artist" by The Southern Arts Federation, Kelby's work has been translated into several languages and offered by The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Quality Paperback Book Club. Her short stories have appeared in many publications including One Story, Zoetrope ASE, and the audio magazine Verb. Her story "Jubilation, Florida" was selected for National Public Radio's Selected Shorts, and later recorded by actress Joanne Woodward for the NPR CD Travel Tales, and included in New Stories from the South: Best of 2006 (Algonquin Books). She is the recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature, and NEA Inter-Arts grant, the Heekin Group Foundation's James Fellowship for the Novel, both a Florida and Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in fiction, two Jerome Travel Study Grants, and a Jewish Arts Endowment Fellowship.
Jeff Klinkenberg writes about Florida culture and the people who make the state unique. He joined the Times in 1977, and his work takes him from Pensacola to Key West. Klinkenberg's interest in Florida began when he was a small boy growing up in Miami on the edge of the Everglades. He jokes he was a charter member of "the boys without dates" club because of hobbies that included catching snakes. He started working at the Miami News when he was 16 and later became a journalism graduate of the University of Florida. His new book, which collects favorite columns, is Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators, published by University Press of Florida. Another anthology, Seasons of Real Florida, is also in print. To read the Times' review of Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators, click here.
Michael Koryta's first novel, the Edgar-nominated Tonight I Said Goodbye, was published when he was just twenty-one, and was followed by Sorrow's Anthem, A Welcome Grave, and a standalone mystery, Envy the Night. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he has worked as a newspaper reporter and private investigator. His work has been translated into more than ten languages. To read the Times' review of The Silent Hour, click here.
Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have 2 sons. After earning a Master's Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft menage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. To read the Times' review of Flying, click here.
Richard Lederer is the author of more than 30 books about language, history, and humor, including his best-selling Anguished English series and his current books, A Treasury for Dog Lovers and A Treasury for Cat Lovers. He has been profiled in magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, People and the National Enquirer and frequently appears on radio as a commentator on language. Dr. Lederer's syndicated column, "Looking at Language," appears in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. He has been named International Punster of the Year and Toastmasters International's Golden Gavel Winner.
Jeff Leen has been a member of the Washington Post's Investigative Unit since 1997. He is currently the assistant managing editor in charge of the unit. Before joining the Post, he worked for 10 years as an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald, where he specialized in covering the cocaine trade and co-authored Kings of Cocaine, the first book-length investigation of Columbia's Medellin Cartel. As a reporter or an editor, he has worked on investigations that have been honored with six Pulitzer Prizes: Hurricane Andrew's impact in South Florida, police shootings in the District of Columbia, abuse in D.C. group homes, deaths among children monitored by D.C. social services, the 9-11 plot and the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Four other investigations have been Pulitzer finalists, including examinations of the Nature Conservancy, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and farm subsidies. To read the Times' review of The Queen of the Ring, click here.
Greg Neri is the ALA Notable author of Chess Rumble and the newly 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. To read the Times' review of Surf Mules, click here.
Janis Owens is a novelist, memoirist, folklorist and premier storyteller. She is a native of West Florida, born in Marianna 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, her family lived briefly in Louisiana and Mississippi, and then returned to North Florida, where she graduated from the University of Florida, and was a student of Harry Crews' Creative Writing Workshop. She is the award-winning author of three acclaimed novels: My Brother Michael, winner of the Chautauqua South Fiction Award for Best Novel, Myra Sims, and most recently, The Schooling of Claybird Catts. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Writer's Digest, and many other publications. Author Pat Conroy has called her, "one of the finest novelists of our time." Her new book is The Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down-Home Family Stories and Cuisine. Part-cookbook, part family-memoir, Cracker Kitchen celebrates the backwoods resilience of a much maligned section of Southern culture: the hapless, toothless Cracker. Janis traces the roots of the word back to its origins and offers a refreshing anthropological exploration of this group of proud, fiercely independent Americans who have a deep love of their families, country, stories and food. Intertwined with their history is the history of her own beloved Cracker family: Grannie, Granddaddy, Uncles and Cousins-in-law, complete with pictures from her family album and many a hilarious family story. She can be reached at her website: janisowens.com. To read a profile of Janis Owens by the Times Lifestyles Editor Janet Keeler, click here. Back to list of authors
To read the Times' review of Paving Paradise, click here.
Politifact Team Bill Adair, 47, is the Editor of PolitiFact and the Washington bureau chief for the St. Petersburg Times. He has worked in Washington since 1997 and has covered Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, national politics and aviation safety. He is the winner of the Everett Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. He and his wife, Katherine, live in Arlington, VA, with their children Miles, Annie and Molly. Amy Hollyfield, 38, is senior editor for nights for the St. Petersburg Times. During the presidential campaign she was deputy politics editor, where she wrote and edited for PolitiFact. She and her husband, Lawrence, live in Tampa with their daughters Alara and Alessandra. Angie Drobnic Holan, 36, is a staff writer and researcher for PolitiFact.com. She has worked as a researcher at the St. Petersburg Times since 2005, and she holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She and her husband, Mark, live in Tampa. Rob Farley, 42, is a staff writer for PolitiFact, and has been a reporter with the St. Petersburg Times since 1998. He won a 2008 Casey Medal for stories about the dramatic rise in antipsychotic drugs prescribed to children. He and his wife, Mary, live in Safety Harbor with their children MacLeod and Declan. Matthew Waite, 34, is the developer of PolitiFact and a news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times, where he combines journalism with programming to create new products for the Times and its Web site, tampabay.com. Martin Frobisher, 55, is the designer of PolitiFact.com and has been a Web designer at the St. Petersburg Times for 10 years. He and his wife, Times deputy managing editor for administration Jeanne Grinstead, live in St. Petersburg and have two grown sons, Sanford and Thomas.
Padgett Powell lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Florida. He is the author of four novels, including Edisto, which was nominated for the American Book Award, and two collections of stories. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Paris Review, and other publications. He has received a Whiting Writer's Award and the Rome Fellowship in Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. To read the Times' review of The Interrogative Mood, click here.
Called "One of our brightest cultural commentators," Kit Reed (www.kitreed.net) has a new novel called Enclave, which Publishers Weekly describes as a "gripping dystopian satire" [in which] ex-marine Sargent Whitmore has a plan to make millions while protecting children from the self-destructing modern world." Her first young adult novel, The Night Children, came out last fall. Other adult works include The Baby Merchant, and Thinner Than Thou, which won an ALA Alex award. Often anthologized, her short stories appear in venues ranging from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's SF and Omni to The Yale Review, The Kenyon Review and The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Her short collections include Thief of Lives, Dogs of Truth, and Weird Women, Wired Women, which, along with the short novel Little Sisters of the Apocalypse, was a finalist for the Tiptree Prize. A Guggenheim fellow and the first American recipient of a five-year literary grant from the Abraham Woursell Foundation, she is Resident Writer at Wesleyan University. To read the Times' review of Enclave, click here.
Joan Ryan is an award-winning journalist and author. She recently completed her third book, The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son and Their Second Chance, scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster on September 8, 2009. Joan was a pioneer in sports journalism, becoming one of the first female sports columnists in the country. She covered every major sporting event from the Super Bowl and the World Series to the Olympics and championship fights. Her sports columns and features earned 13 Associated Press Sports Editor Awards, the National Headliner Award and the Women's Sports Foundation's Journalism Award, among other honors. She has been awarded the Fabulous Feminist Award by the San Francisco chapter of the National Organization for Women and was named A Woman Who Could Be President by the San Francisco League of Women Voters. Her first book, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters (1995, Doubleday) was a controversial, ground-breaking expose that Sports Illustrated named one of the Top 11 Sports Books of All Time. It was one of the Top 50 Sports Books of All Time in the Guardian newspaper in London. The Sporting News chose it as one of the top three sports books of 1995. To read the Times' review of The Water Giver, click here.
Fabiola Santiago is author of the debut novel Reclaiming Paris, a story set in contemporary Miami to the backdrop of the city's Cuban culture and history. Published by Simon & Schuster and chosen for a Mariposa Award as Best First Book at the International Latino Book Awards of 2009, Reclaiming Paris was translated into Spanish and debuted this summer as Siempre Paris. Born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959, Fabiola grew up enamored of her family's nostalgic stories and the memory of the softest sands and the bluest beach in the world, Varadero. Exiled to the United States in 1969 with her family on one of the historic Freedom Flights, Fabiola has been a writer and editor for The Miami Herald since 1980. Her award-winning stories and essays on arts, culture and identity have been published in several magazines and anthologies in the United States and abroad. She was the founding city editor and managing editor of the Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald from 1987 to 1993, and in 2001, shared in a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the federal government seizure of the child Elian Gonzalez. A graduate of the University of Florida, Fabiola is The Miami Herald's visual arts writer. Read more about her work at www.reclaimingparis.com and www.fabiolasantiago.com. To read the Times' review of Reclaiming Paris, click here.
James Swain is the best selling author of ten novels, with millions of copies of his books in print. Considered one of today's top suspense writers, he has been published in the United States, France, Japan, Russia, Turkey and Germany. His books have been chosen as Mysteries of the Year by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and have received three Barry Award nominations. In 2006, he was awarded France's prestigious Prix Calibre .38 for Best American Crime Fiction. Swain is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on crooked gambling and casino cons, and has lectured extensively on this subject. He has appeared on dozens of national TV shows, including a segment on CBS Sunday Morning with Anthony Mason, and Fox Sports Net. To read the Times' review of The Night Monster, click here. And for an interview with James Swain, click here.
Amber Tamblyn has been nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award for her work in television and film. In 2007 she won the Locarno Film Festival Award for Best Actress in the film, Stephanie Daley. Her first book, Free Stallion: Poems, won a Borders Books Choice Award for Breakout Writing, and her new poetry collection, Bang Ditto, was just published by Manic D Press. Her writing has been published in New York Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Interview and Venice magazine among other publications. She is the executive producer of "The Drums Inside Your Chest" an annual poetry event in Los Angeles, and is co-founder of the non-profit Write Now Poetry Society, which works to increase poetry audiences and strengthen poetry organizations (writenowpoets.org). She currently lives in New York City.
To read the Times' review of Psych Major Syndrome, click here.
Lisa Unger is a New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author of literary thrillers. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter. Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press). To read the Times' review of Die For You, click here.
Ian Vasquez received his MFA while working on a psychiatric ward and counseling at-risk high school students. He was raised in Belize, the setting for his first novel, In The Heat, about a former boxer-turned-private investigator. Vasquez's childhood dream was to become a professional boxer, until he realized that simply reading about it was healthier. Formerly a copy editor at the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the the Miami Herald, he is now at the St. Petersburg Times and lives in Apollo Beach with his family. Lonesome Point, which was released this summer, is his second novel. To read the Times' review of Lonesome Point, click here.
Jane Velez-Mitchell hosts Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell on HLN, a topical event-driven show with a wide range of viewpoints. A veteran television news journalist, Velez-Mitchell reported for the nationally syndicated Warner Brothers/Telepictures show Celebrity Justice and regularly served as guest host for Nancy Grace, another HLN program. As a commentator on high-profile cases, Velez-Mitchell has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other national cable television programs. During the Michael Jackson molestation trial, she appeared daily on Nancy Grace and was featured on CNN's Larry King Live on several occasions, including the evening of the verdict. Her non-fiction book, Secrets Can Be Murder: What America's Most Sensational Crimes Tell Us About Ourselves, was published by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster. Velez-Mitchell chronicles her lifelong battle with alcoholism, as well as her coming out as a lesbian and her discovery of a healthier, happier and more meaningful existence, in iWant: My Journey From Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler Honest Life, which will be released on October 5, 2009.
www.carltonward.com
Wendy Wax is the author of seven novels, including her June 2009 release, The Accidental Bestseller. Her next women's fiction novel, Magnolia Wednesdays, is scheduled for release this March. Wendy is a native of St. Petersburg and a graduate of the University of South Florida, where she majored in journalism. She worked for Tampa PBS affiliate WEDU as a writer/producer and on camera talent, worked on film and video productions around the state, and spent more than twenty years as a freelance on-camera and voiceover talent in the Tampa Bay area. She hosted WDAE radio's live call in show, "Desperate & Dateless," in the mid-eighties when she was both. She currently lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and two teenage sons, who have turned her into the shortest member of their family. To read the Times' review of The Accidental Bestseller, click here. |
