Festival Author Biographies
In addition to The OA and VQR, his writing has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times, Slate, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Details, Men's Vogue and Mississippi Review. In 2010 he received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book, Exiles in Eden: Life Among the Ruins of Florida's Great Recession, will be published this fall by Henry Holt & Co.
Deborah Sharp is a former USA Today reporter. She left the sad stories of the news business behind to write mysteries, set in a little-known rodeo-and-ranches slice of her native Florida. Her books are funny, with a Southern-fried edge: Picture Evanovich's Stephanie Plum on a porch swing with a plate of BBQ. Her latest is Mama Gets Hitched, in which the title character makes her fifth bid for matrimonial bliss. To research the setting for 2009's Mama Rides Shotgun, Deborah saddled up for a week-long, cross-Florida trail ride. She says immersing herself in wedding minutiae for her third book was more grueling. Deborah's humor commentaries have been heard on NPR. She's appeared on the Today Show to talk about her Mace Bauer Mysteries, featuring Mace's wacky mama. She lives in south Florida with her husband Kerry Sanders, a TV reporter. No kids. No pets. They had a goldfish once. Turned out badly. Back to list of authors
Ira Sukrungruang's essays, poems, and stories have appeared in North American Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. He is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, an Arts and Letters Fellowship, and an Illinois Arts Council Award. He is the co-editor of two literary anthologies about the fat experience: What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. He is the author of the memoir Talk Thai: the Adventures of a Buddhist Boy. He serves as the creative nonfiction editor of Sweet: a Literary Confection (sweetlit.com) and teaches creative writing at University of South Florida.
Rick Wilber's novel Rum Point (McFarland, 2010), set in St. Petersburg, offers "a fast-paced ride... (that is) downright chilling," according to Spitball magazine, the literary review for baseball. Wilber is the son of major-league player, coach and manager Del Wilber. Rick was caregiver during the last year of his father's life and his memoir about baseball and caregiving, My Father's Game: Life, Death, Baseball from McFarland Books, was said by best-selling author Peter Straub to be "a stunning book," and one that "abounds with faith, heartbreak, love, insight and honor." Wilber's thriller, The Cold Road, came out to good reviews in 2003, and his short-story collection, Where Garagiola Waits, was short-listed in 1999 for the Dave Moore Award for most important baseball book of the year. About fifty of his short stories have appeared in magazines like Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, Analog, Elysian Fields Quarterly and other magazines and anthologies. Wilber is a longtime journalism professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa and is the author of several college textbooks on writing, editing and mass-media studies. His website is www.rickwilber.com.
Jeffrey Zaslow is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and in 2009/2010 was the author or coauthor of three bestselling books. The Last Lecture, written with Randy Pausch, has been translated into 46 languages, and was #1 on best-seller lists worldwide. There are 5 million copies in print in English alone, and the book has remained on The New York Times best-seller list for more than 90 weeks. Zaslow's book about friendship, The Girls From Ames, spent 26 weeks on The New York Times list, rising to #3. People magazine named it one of the "Ten Best Books of the Year." Lifetime Television is adapting it for a movie. Most recently, Zaslow coauthored Highest Duty, the memoir of Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger, who famously landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. The book debuted at #3 on The New York Times list. Zaslow's TV appearances have included The Tonight Show, Oprah, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes and The Today Show.
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. |
