|
Betzi Abram *
Eileen Bernard * T. Davis Bunn *
Tim Dorsey |
| BETZI ABRAM is the author of Sweet Comfitty Tea. Her professional career includes editing, copy writing, newspaper columns and features, and working as a script doctor. She taught creative writing. She wrote syndicated newspaper columns, including the prize winning The Passionate Gardener. She is also the author of The Absolutely Positively Perfect Book of Basic Gardening and a book of light verse, Pieces of Gold. Abram lives in Fort Myers, Florida. | |
| EILEEN BERNARD is the author of Lies That Came True. This book tells of the "tall tales and hard sales" in Cape Coral, Florida. | |
|
|
T. DAVIS BUNN was formerly an international business executive before becoming an award-winning author. He is the author of numerous best-selling novels including Return to Harmony, Another Homecoming, The Meeting Place (co-authored with Janette Oke), Tidings of Comfort and Joy, One Shenandoah Winter, The Warning, and The Ultimatum. As a result of his book, To the Ends of the Earth, Bunn was named the Novelist in Residence at Regent's Park College, Oxford University. He and his wife, Isabella, live in Oxfordshire, England. To find out more, meet him at the Reading Festival. |
|
|
|
|
|
TIM DORSEY is a popular Florida author known for his Carl Hiaasen style of Floridian satire. Fans won't be disappointed by his latest effort, Stingray Shuffle. Dorsey was born in Indiana, moved to Florida at the age of 1, and grew up in a small town about an hour north of Miami called Riviera Beach. He now lives in Tampa with his wife and two daughters. For more information, visit http://www.timdorsey.com. |
|
|
MARK "TIGER" EDMONDS has been called “the Homer of the Highway” and as an English professor at St. Leo University, he connects the epics with contemporary road literature. “It’s about being able to tell others where it was you went to, explaining about what you saw, relating the exotic names and places, the wondrous things and strange people you encountered on your trip.” Rather than searching for a way home, Edmonds is a willing wanderer, on a million-mile journey on a BMW motorcycle. He encounters not Circe and Calypso, but “savior waitresses” giving nourishment and rescue from locals looking for a fight. Instead of blinding a Cyclops, this hero pokes fun at very real dangers, in passages like The Killer Federal Foliage Incident. He even introduces us to some champions, along the way. |
|
|
BRIAN EGESTON’s first creation was an essay entitled, A Black Eye: Views of the Black College Experience, which received rave reviews from students on campus. After using his employee discount to mass-produce the essay, he decided to write a short story. The short story became a long story and the long story ultimately transpired into his first novel, Crossing Bridges A Testimony Of Brotherhood. When asked about his long-term goals as a writer, Brian will tell you, he simply wants to leave a legacy. "I look forward to being read by your grandchildren and your grandchildren's children." He and his lovely wife, Latise, reside in Stone Mountain, Georgia. For more information, visit http://www.brianwrites.com/comso.htm. |
|
|
|
|
|
RUBYE GRAHAM-EMERSON is the author of The Road to a College Education. She is an Arkansas native and is the Academic Educational Dean at ITT Technical Institute. She was appointed by Governor Huckabee to the board for Student Loan Authority as Secretary for Arkansas. This author comes highly recommended by Heritage Bookstore & More. To find out more, meet her at the Reading Festival. |
|
|
DAVID ESSEL is
the author of Phoenix Soul: One Man's Search for Love & Inner
Peace, now in its third printing. He has also completed and recently
released the first in a series of children's inspirational books, The
Real Life Adventures of Catherine "Cat" Calloway, The First. His
next book, part of a series through Hay House Publishing entitled, Slow
Down: The Fastest Way to Get Everything You Want, is scheduled for
release in February 2003. David received a Bachelor's degree in Health
Sciences/Health Education from Syracuse University and holds a Master's
Degree in Fitness Management. He has appeared on the covers of Men's
Fitness and American Fitness magazines as well as in television health
segments. He hosts his own radio show and fitness videos. He has also
released a series of audio and videocassettes on motivation and relaxation.
For more information, visit http://www.DavidEssel.com. |
|
|
MARY ANNA EVANS has degrees in physics and chemical engineering, but her heart is in the past. After the birth of her third child, she decided her family life had reached critical mass and regretfully left her job in environmental consulting to focus on things like homework and balanced meals, and tackling the novel she had always wanted to write. She found that novel writing let her indulge her passion for history, archaeology, architecture, and a hundred other things that popped up in the course of putting a book together, not to mention providing the pleasure to be had from just sitting down and telling a good story. Mary Anna lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband, three children, at least eighteen musical instruments, and a cat. Her first book, Artifacts, is soon to be released. For more information, visit http://www.maryannaevans.com. |
|
|
DIANA GABALDON wrote her first novel, Outlander, a 600-page historical saga set in the 18th century Highlands, in 1988. Since its publication in 1991, she has become one of America’s most popular fiction writers. Her novels in this popular book series are set in 18th century Scotland and pre-revolutionary America. The novels can be described as rooted in history but with a very strong element of fantasy and romance. Diana Gabaldon grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, and presently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband of twenty-five years, Douglas Watkins, three children, and a large number of animals. Even though she writes of Scotland, fans find it curious that she has no Scottish heritage. Diana’s father was from New Mexico and her mother’s heritage is from Yorkshire and Germany. She has simply taken on the Scottish culture as her own in order to write fiction that is grounded in the history of the period. For more information, visit http://www.dianagabaldon.com/. |
|
|
|
| PAULETTE GOODMAN is the author of the book Husband of My Heart. She has lived throughout the world and when she moved to Southwest Florida, she switched careers from from travel agent to writer. She did jail ministry in a maximum security facility, helps in animal rescue and adoptions. She lives in Fort Myers, Florida. | |
| PATRICIA HALEY has an engineering degree from Stanford and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, so people are often surprised that rather than technical or business writing she’s chosen to write “clean, contemporary fiction with a spiritual message.” Her debut novel, Nobody’s Perfect, appeared on many national best sellers lists, including the #1 African American paperback. Her second novel, No Regrets, is published by BET Books, which is also partnering with Haley and the National Black Women’s Health Project to raise awareness about breast cancer. | |
|
|
AD HUDLER is a househusband living in Florida, having given up his career as a journalist to stay home. His first novel, Househusband, is a humorous look at the adventures (and misadventures) of Lincoln Menner, who decides to become a stay-at-home dad after his wife Jo is offered a dream job. For more information, visit http://www.adhudler.com/. |
| MICAHAEL IMEPELLIZZERI is an award-winning photographer who has just released his third nature photography book, Nature's Palette: Art Through a Photographer's Eyes. He is the author of two other books, award-winning Impressions of the Natural World, and Nature's Artistry. He lives in Punta Gorda, Florida. | |
|
|
|
| KARLA JUAREZ was born in Managua, Nicaragua in 1971and saw her country torn apart in a national war. Juarez took refuge in reading, the works of great Latin American writers. As a teenager, she moved to the United States, leaving her family and her customs behind. She began to “chant to her country about love friendship and sorrow”. Her works: Expressions of the Soul and The Magic of Love are published in English and Spanish. Juarez is a paraprofessional in Bilingual Education for the Lee County School District and has read her poetry to international audiences, college classes and poetry associations. | |
|
|
JONATHON KING, a journalist for twenty years, began his career at the Philadelphia Daily News. He has covered crime and criminal courts and is now a national award-winning writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The Blue Edge of Midnight, his first novel, is an electrifying story of crime, punishment, and one man's personal redemption played out against a backdrop of wild natural beauty in conflict with the modern urban world. King is heralded as a stunning new voice in contemporary crime fiction. For more information, visit http://www.jonathonking.com/. |
|
S.
R. MAXEINER, JR. M.D. |
|
|
|
SHELLEY FRASER MICKLE is the author of The Kids Are Gone, The Dog’s Depressed and Mom’s on the Loose. She has been a regular commentator for Mid-Florida Public Radio, reading humorous essays, some of which were given a Special Achievement Award by Associated Press. Her humorous essays have recently become a part of the public radio program Recess, and in August, 2000 she began reading her humorous essays on NPR's "Morning Edition". She lives in Alachua County, Florida, with her three horses and her dog. She is married and the mother of two children. For more information, visit http://www.shelleymickle.com/. |
|
|
|
|
|
DAVID MORRELL is the award-winning author of First Blood, the novel in which Rambo was created. "The mild-mannered professor with the bloody-minded visions," as one reviewer called him, Morrell is the author of twenty-four books, including such high-action thrillers as The Fifth Profession, Assumed Identity, and Extreme Denial (set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he now lives with his wife, Donna). His most recent books are the dark-suspense novel Long Lost and Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing, an analysis of what he has learned during his more-than-thirty years as a writer. For more information, visit http://www.davidmorrell.net/. |
| WILLIAM MORROW is the author of The Rain Doesn't Fall Straight Down. He lives in Fort Myers, Florida. | |
|
Family emergency |
VICTORIA CHRISTOPHER MURRAY earned her MBA and had managed the number one division of a national Financial Services Agency for nine years, when she decided she had to write. She says she didn’t know there was such a thing as Inspirational Fiction when she began writing. She just knew what she wanted to write, “a book as entertaining and compelling as any on the market, put God in the middle and still be a page-turner.” Her first effort Temptation spent nine consecutive months on the best seller’s list and was nominated in 2001 for an NAACP Image Award in outstanding Achievement in Literature. Her second novel Joy is an essence best seller. |
|
|
|
|
|
JULIE & MIKE NEAL are the authors of Sanibel & Captiva: A Guide to the Islands. Together they formed a small publishing company, Coconut Press. Their book is a travel guide with full-color photos and in it they share secrets about exploring the islands. The Neals make their home in Sanibel, Florida. For more information, visit their web site http://www.coconutpress.com. |
|
|
KITTY OLIVER is author of Multicolored Memories of a Black Southern Girl and Voice of America: Race and Change in Hollywood, Florida. She is is a veteran South Florida journalist and Writer in Residence at Florida Atlantic University where she teaches creative writing and autobiographical literature. A native Floridian, she is a former staff writer and columnist for The Miami Herald and contributing writer for The Sun Sentinel. For more information, visit http://www.kittyoliveronline.com/. |
|
|
P.J. PARRISH is actually two sisters – Kristy Montee and Kelly Montee – who decided to pool their life-long loves of writing by teaming up in 1995 to create the character of Louis Kincaid. Their collaboration is unique in that the sisters live in separate states (Kelly in Mississippi, Kristy in Florida) – which means hefty phone bills and a reliance on America On Line. These mystery-writing sisters are Edgar nominees and their titles include Thicker Than Water and Dark of the Moon. For more information, visit http://www.pjparrish.com/menu.html. |
| MARTHA LOU PERRITTI is the author of two novels, Crossing in the Rain and Standing Against the Wind. She also edited two cookbooks, Cooking Our Way and Martha Lou's Kitchen. She lives in Bokeelia, Florida. | |
|
|
|
| ESTHER SANDNER-PETERSEN is the author of My Legal Warrior, the story of her love for Arthur Petersen, prosecutor of a Nazi criminal at Nuremberg. She herself was brought up in Germany during Hitler's reign by an anti-Nazi father, and educated a short distance from the Nuremberg trials. She lives in Florida. | |
|
Family emergency |
NANCY PICKARD is the winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Agatha awards for her Jennie Cain mysteries, Nancy is a former journalist who didn’t start writing fiction until she was 35. With her novel, The Whole Truth, she debuts a new heroine, true-crime writer Marie Lightfoot, and a chilling thriller set in Ft. Lauderdale, that blurs the line between fiction and reality. For more information, visit http://users.aol.com/jimjustine/pickard.htm. |
|
|
PEGGY POST, Emily Post's great granddaughter-in-law, continues Emily's work by remaining the definitive source on etiquette. Peggy's first book, the 16th edition of Emily Post's Etiquette, was published in May 1997 by HarperCollins, and marked the 75th anniversary of Etiquette and its influence on society. Other works include The Etiquette Advantage in Business: Personal Skills for Professional Success, Emily Post's Entertaining, the fourth edition of Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette and the companion piece, Emily Post's Wedding Planner. For more information, visit http://www.emilypost.com/peggypost7-19.htm. |
| CHARLES SOBCZAK lives and writes on Sanibel Island, Florida. His first novel, Six Mornings on Sanibel, is currently in its fourth printing. His second novel, Way Under Contract: a Florida Story won the 2001 Patrick Smith-Best Florida Fiction Award from the Florida Historical Society. His next novel, A Choice of Angels is scheduled for release on April 1, 2003. | |
|
|
|
| BILL SPARKS is the author of Close Encounters of a Vagabond Ferry Pilot. He made his living almost exclusively in aviation for 40 years. By the time he closed his aircraft delivery business in 1981, his firm had delivered some 25,000 airplanes worldwide, and he personally had ferried some 600 airplanes as far north as Anchorage and as far south as Rio de Janeiro. His biography tells the story of those years. Sparks now lives in Fort Myers, Florida. | |
|
|
SALOME THOMAS-EL is a principal of an urban school who made an inspirational difference in the lives of his students. His soon-to-be-released book, I Choose to Stay: A Teacher's Fight for America's Inner City Schools, includes a forward from one of his biggest fans, Arnold Schwarzenegger. For more information, visit http://www.ichoosetostay.com/. |
| BLAIR WALKER is the author of the Darryl Billups suspense fiction series. Readers were first introduced to Billups, an African-American reporter and reluctant investigator, in Up Jumped The Devil. The series has grown with Hidden in Plain View and Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes. | |
| CARL WEBER is out with his latest novel Baby Mama Drama. He also authored Married Men, and Lookin’ for Luv, which critics called ”outrageously funny, hip and clever." | |
|
|
RANDY WAYNE WHITE
is the creator of Doc Ford, an ex-operative turned marine biologist. The Doc
Ford series includes the titles Sanibel Flats, Ten Thousand Islands,
and his latest, Twelve Mile Limit. A veteran fishing guide and
outdoorsman, Randy has also written columns for Outside Magazine and many
others. He currently lives in Fort Myers where he writes columns for Men’s
Health Magazine. For more information, visit
http://www.randywaynewhite.com. *Note: due to the nature of his work, Mr. White may be called away from his scheduled appearance to cover breaking news. |
|
|
LORI BRYANT WOOLRIDGE is the author of the popular novel, Read Between the Lies, which was nominated for a Golden Pen Award in 2000. She is a contributing author to several anthologies and her new novel, Hitts and Mrs., will be published in 2004. She is a 15-year veteran of the television broadcast industry, having worked in various production and management positions at the ABC Television Network, Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and Black Entertainment Television (BET), and is the recipient of an Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Writing. Ms. Bryant-Woolridge is also the cofounder and president of the nonprofit organization, Mothers Off Duty, Inc., a group committed to helping teen mothers continue their education. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she is currently working on her third novel, Mourning Glo. |
|
|
Back to Reading Festival Home Page
Back to Lee County Library System Home Page
visits since 02/01/03.