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Lisa
Scottoline
spent many hours as a child in her local library and her love
for reading was encouraged by the librarians she was lucky enough
to meet along the way. A true believer in the importance of
promoting reading, Lisa is a strong advocate and dedicated fan
of libraries and librarians. In her small way, Lisa tries to
give back to a system which has given so much too so many, by
participating in library events across the country. She has
been to several library conferences and has visited libraries
from coast to coast. A regular at the Philadelphia Free Library,
Lisa participated in the "Visiting Author" series
at the Des Moines Public Library, was a keynote speaker at the
New Jersey Library Association Conference and was a banquet
speaker for the Oregon/Washington Library Association Conference.
For
more on Lisa Scottoline, click
HERE
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Denise
Wiles Adams is able to research old gardens and landscapes
by digging through the letters, photographs, newspaper clippings,
household records, and diaries of the past. She has distilled
hundreds of antique nursery catalogs into a unique survey that
creates a database of more than 25,000 plants — an invaluable,
scientific, yet practical reference on American heirloom ornamental
plants that the professional designer and home gardener alike
will find indispensable. Ms. Adams lives what she preaches in
her home — originally a mid-19th century tavern in Buckingham
County, Va. With her family and their 10 cats, she keeps gardens
with an emphasis on heirloom plant species and cultivars. |
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Michelangelo
Altiere, a pen name used by Michael London to honor his
mother and grandmother, is the author of Dearest, a unique
collection of letters and ephemera that tell the story of a romance
set along the Ohio River in the late 1800’s. Using small
boxes with faded ribbons and a dried rose to hold a collection
of love letters, Altiere enables his reader to unfold the story
as they read each letter. Dearest is the first in a planned
series of “experience novels.” |
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Laura
Treacy Bentley is from Huntington, West Virginia. Her
work has been published in Ireland and the United States in literary
journals such as The New York Quarterly, Poetry Ireland Review,
Antietam Review, and in numerous anthologies. She received
a Fellowship Award for Literature in 1994 from the West Virginia
Commission on the Arts. Her poem, "Drinking Coffee at the
Central City Cafe" was featured on A Prairie Home Companion
website and in March 2003, she has read her poetry with Ray Bradbury
at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA. |
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Jon
Carloftis was born and raised in Kentucky on the banks
of the Rockcastle River where his parents operated a popular tourist
attraction. Carloftis studied horticulture, landscape architecture
and art history at the University of Kentucky. After moving to
New York City, he started designing rooftop gardens, balconies
and courtyards for art collectors where the beauty of his work
spread to others and his business blossomed. He is a contributing
editor to Garden Design magazine and a regional writer
for Country Gardens.
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Shutta
Crum is an author, librarian, storyteller, teacher, wife,
mother, grandmother, and someone who makes quilts. Crum was a
librarian for almost 25 years at the Ann Arbor (MI) District Library.
In 2002 she won the Michigan Library Association Children's Services
Award of Merit as youth librarian of the year. Her first book
was titled Who Took My Hairy Toe? and her latest book
is A Family for Old Mill Farm. She says the fun part
of writing is taking traditional rhythms and using them in a different
way to create something totally new. She is sure that without
the deep love she had for her other career as a children's librarian,
she would not have become a children’s author. |
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Debbie
Dadey grew up along the Ohio River, boating and skiing
in the Henderson Boat and Ski Show. In fact, she was the top person
on the five and seven person pyramid! She is now the author and
co-author of over 140 children's books, including The Worst
Name in Third Grade, The Swamp Monster in Third Grade, Whistler's
Hollow (set in Kentucky in the 1920’s), and The
Adventures of The Bailey School Kids series. Dadey specializes
in high-interest books for reluctant readers. She currently resides
in Furlong, PA, with her husband, three children, and three dogs.
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Jack
Dickinson is a West Virginia native and is a 1966 graduate
of Marshall University. A retired IBM systems engineer, Jack is
currently employed by Marshall University as the bibliographer
of the Rosanna Blake Confederate Collection. This collection has
been ranked among the top five Southern and Confederate history
collections in the United States. Dickinson is the 1999 recipient
of the Jefferson Davis Historical Writing Award from the United
Daughters of the Confederacy and the History Writer’s Award
from the WV Department of Archives and History. He is the author
of 10 books and numerous magazine articles on the Civil War, including
articles published in the Encyclopedia of the Confederacy
(Simon & Schuster) and the West Virginia Encyclopedia. |
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Mark
DeFoe was born in Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma State
University for two English degrees before earning his PhD at the
University of Denver. DeFoe joined the West Virginia Wesleyan
College faculty in 1975, where he has taught literature and writing
and also serves as department chairperson and assistant dean of
the college. He has conducted writing workshops for writers of
all ages and he has read from his work at public readings at colleges,
libraries, and art centers. A former Bread Loaf Scholar and editor
of The Laurel Review, a nationally circulated literary
magazine, DeFoe published his first poetry chapbook, Bringing
Home Breakfast, in 1982. His poetry has appeared in numerous
anthologies, magazines and journals. |
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Joe
Geiger is a historian and archivist and serves in many
capacities at the WV Division of Archives and History as Assistant
Director. He teaches West Virginia History at Marshall University
as an adjunct professor and is the author of The Civil War
in Cabell County, West Virginia: 1861-1865. He has also written
numerous articles that have appeared in scholarly publications. |
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Dave
Lieber has been a humorist, storyteller and award-winning
columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for nearly 30 years.
His stories of wrongdoing and right-doing in newspapers and magazines
have led to countless changes in governments, schools and communities.
Because of his ability to combine real-life experiences with outstanding
storytelling skills, Lieber is consistently rated by audiences
as one of their favorite speakers. The winner of the coveted Will
Rogers Humanitarian Award from the National Society of Newspaper
Columnists for his good deeds in the community, Lieber was named
“Best Columnist in the American Southwest” by the
Press Club of Dallas. |
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Ken
and Melanie Light, a husband and wife photographer -
writer team, present Coal Hollow, with arresting black
and white photographs and powerful oral histories that chronicle
the legacy of coal mining in southern West Virginia. Mr. Light
is a social documentary photographer whose work has appeared in
books, magazines and exhibitions and Ms. Light is a writer and
an oral historian. Together, they traveled hundreds of miles through
rugged, isolated terrain recording the stories of a range of people
whose lives were shaped by coal - people who have lived here all
their lives and those who returned to the hills when their lives
failed elsewhere. |
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Dr.
Allen H. Loughry II holds four separate law degrees including
a JD from Capital University School of Law. In addition, Dr. Loughry
has served as a WV Senior Assistant Attorney General and has argued
more than 20 cases before the West Virginia Supreme Court. and
has even filed legal pleadings before the U.S Supreme Court. He
has worked for the Ohio Supreme Court and has written for two
newspapers and the Associated Press. He is currently a law clerk
to Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard of the West Virginia
Supreme Court. His book, Don’t Buy Another Vote: I Won’t
Pay for a Landslide, is a look at political corruption in
West Virginia. |
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Mary
Alice Mairose is the residence curator at the Ohio Governor's
Residence and is editor of Our First Family’s Home,
scheduled to be published in 2008 by Ohio University Press and
Swallow Press. This richly illustrated volume tells the story
of the home that has served as Ohio’s executive residence
since 1957, and of the nine governors and their families who have
lived in the house. The book offers the first complete history
of the residence and garden that represent Ohio to visiting dignitaries
and the citizens of the state alike. Once in a state of decline,
the house has been restored and improved by its residents over
the years. Development of the Ohio Heritage Garden has increased
the educational potential of the house and has sparked an interest
in the preservation of native plant species. |
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Sharyn
McCrumb is an award-winning southern author best known
for her “Appalachian Ballad” novels, set in the North
Carolina/Tennessee mountains. She has found recent success with
St. Dale and her latest Once Around The Track,
both with a NASCAR theme. McCrumb, whose books have been translated
into more than ten languages, has lectured on her work at Oxford
University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Bonn,
Germany, and at universities and libraries throughout the country.
A film of her novel The Rosewood Casket is currently
in production, directed by British Academy Award winner Roberto
Schaeffer. |
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John
McKernan teaches at Marshall University and his forthcoming
book, Postcard from Dublin, is based on an earlier series
of writings compiled as a chapbook that won the 1997 Dead Metaphor
Press Chapbook Contest. McKernan, who began teaching English at
Marshall in 1967, has received numerous awards for teaching. In
2003 McKernan received a poetry fellowship from the WV Commission
of the Arts. The following year he received the Robert C. Winner
Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has published two
textbooks and has edited poetry publications including ABZ: A
Poetry Magazine. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly,
The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Field, Antaeus, New England
Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. |
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Jean
Edward Smith is the John Marshall Professor of Political
Science at Marshall University. He is the author of a dozen books,
including most recently FDR, a biography of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. “Smith’s FDR,” said Jonathan
Yardley in the Washington Post, “is a model presidential
biography…Now at last we have the biography that is right
for the man.” In addition to FDR, Smith is the author of
highly acclaimed biographies of Ulysses S. Grant, Chief Justice
John Marshall, and Gen. Lucius D. Clay. A graduate of Princeton
University and Columbia, he taught at the University of Toronto
for 35 years before joining the faculty at Marshall University
in 1999. |
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Kevin
Stewart, winner of the 1999 Texas Review Novella
Prize for Margot, is a native of Princeton, WV. His educational
background is quite varied with degrees in English from Concord
College and Radford University and in Architecture and Civil Engineering
from Bluefield State. Currently a professor of English and creative
writing at Potomac State College, Stewart spent several years
working in architecture, engineering, and auto upholstery to support
his writing, as well as serving as an adjunct instructor at several
higher education institutions. His fiction appeared in various
publications, including The Antietam Review, The Distillery:
Artistic Spirits of the South, and Kestrel: A Journal
of Art and Literature. His latest work is The Way Things
Always Happen Here was published by Vandalia Press, a literary
imprint of WVU Press. |
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