Guest Authors

In 2008, we had nearly 100 guest authors participate! Browse through these pages to learn more about our special guests.

Or you can visit our 2007 guest authors area to learn about past year's guests.

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2008 Guest Authors

A through F | G through L | M through R | S through Z

 

Nancy Shaw

Nancy Shaw is the author of Raccoon Tune, the 2008 Michigan Reads! children's book, as well as the best-selling Sheep in a Jeep and six other sheep tales. Among her honors are Parents' Choice Awards, School Library Journal Best Books of the Year citations, Parenting magazine's Reading Magic Award, and a Hopwood Award. She teaches writing classes for adults and gives writing talks for school and library audiences. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, 12:45

Naomi Silver

Naomi Silver is Associate Director and Lecturer in the University of Michigan's Sweetland Writing Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine, and has taught writing and literature since 1990. In Writing Workshop, Sweetland's one-on-one writing instructional service, and in the classroom, she regularly encounters freshman students grappling with their writing and reading. Scheduled Appearance: Future of the Book Panel - May 17, Mich. Humanities Stage, 2:00

Danny Simmons

Danny Simmons, the older brother of music mogul Russell Simmons and reality television star Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons, is the author of Three Days as the Crow Flies and I Dreamed My People Were Calling But I Couldn't Find My Way Home. He owns two galleries -- Rush Arts in Chelsea, NY and Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Scheduled Appearance: Books Change Lives panel - May 17, Michigan Stage (League), 11:00 am Scheduled Appearance: Author Reading - May 17, WEMU Stage, 2:00

Kevin Smokler

Kevin Smokler is the editor of Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books) which was a San Francisco Chronicle Noteable Book of 2005 and the co-founder of BookTour.com. An Ann Arbor native, he now lives in San Francisco. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, Lunch panel, 11:15 Scheduled Appearance: Pitch Panel - May 17, Michigan Stage (League), 5:00

Geri Taeckens

Geri Taeckens lives with her husband and guide dog in Sault Michigan. She is a school social worker for the EUP/ISD, special education teacher, private practitioner, and director of a non-profit organization she created, Iris Seemore Animal Health Fund (www.isahealthfund.org). Her passion is facilitating acceptance of differences and promoting self acceptance through music, books, presentations, and working with students. You will find her at her booth at the fair and she will be presenting, "A Journey to Acceptance" at 5 PM. Scheduled Appearance: Author Reading - May 17, Gale Stage, 5:00

Robbie Timmons

The anchor of Detroit Channel 7 Action News, Robbie Timmons has carved out a distinguished niche for herself in the world of broadcast journalism. A graduate of Ohio State University, she now lives in Detroit, Michigan with her husband, sportscaster Jim Brandstatter. A spring 2008 Mitten Press release, Twoey & the Goat is Robbie’s first children’s book. Scheduled Appearance: Author Reading - May 17, Borders Stage, 3:30

Sandy Tolan

Sandy Tolan is a journalist, teacher, and documentary radio producer. He has reported in more than 30 countries, especially in the Middle East, Latin America, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. He has produced dozens of documentaries for National Public Radio and Public Radio International, and has written for more than 40 newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and The Nation. Much of his focus has been on land, water, natural resources, ethnic conflict and indigenous affairs. He has received more than 25 national and international honors, including two from the Overseas Press Club, the DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton, three Robert F. Kennedy awards for reporting on the disadvantaged, a Harry Chapin World Hunger Year award, and a United Nations Gold Medal award. He was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I.F. Stone Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where he he teaching international reporting. In 2007 his students won the prestigious George Polk Award for their public radio series on the early signs of climate change – the first time students have received a Polk Award. Sandy is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2006), based on his award-winning documentary for NPR's Fresh Air about a Palestinian man, an Israeli woman, and their common bond: a stone home in the town of Ramla, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The book was Booklist's "Editor’s Choice" for best adult non-fiction book of the year. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and received the 2006 Christopher Award. His first book, Me and Hank (Free Press, 2000), which the New York Times called "a solid hit," is an exploration of heroes and race relations in America through the experience of baseball slugger Hank Aaron.

Lisa Tucker

Publisher's Weekly called Lisa Tucker's new book, The Cure for Modern Life, "an excellent choice for book clubs", and called Tucker a writer with "a profound sense of compassion." Lisa Tucker is the author of three novels: The Song Reader, Shout Down the Moon, and Once Upon a Day. Her short work has appeared in Seventeen, Pages, The Oxford American and the anthologies Cold Feet and Lit Riffs. Scheduled Appearance: Author Reading - May 17, ProQuest CSA Stage, 12:30

Ken Wachsberger

Ken Wachsberger has been called the dean of I-Search teachers today. He is an internationally respected editor and writer who has taught writing and researching, creative writing, composition, journalism, and writing for self-discovery at Michigan colleges, universities, and prisons for over twenty years. Ken founded Azenphony Press in 1987. Subject areas of current and upcoming books include the First Amendment, the underground press of the Vietnam era, censorship, the Holocaust and Jewish resistance, the I-Search paper (a first-of-its-kind textbook), and writing for self-discovery. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, 3:30

Fara Warner

Fara Warner is the author of "The Power of the Purse: How Smart Businesses Are Adapting to the World’s Most Important Consumers—Women." She has written about marketing, advertising, and consumer trends for more than 18 years for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes and other national publications. While at Fast Company as a senior writer, she wrote "Nike's Women's Movement," an in-depth cover story of how Nike transformed the way it sells to, designs for, and communicates to women. The article became the basis for her successful business book on women's consumer and economic power. She currently is a frequent contributor to Forbes, Fast Company, and Conde Nast's Portfolio.com. Ms. Warner is the 2007-2008 Howard R. Marsh Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan’s Department of Communication Studies. She teaches classes on consumer trends, press freedom and global media. She holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and is the recipient of a Knight-Wallace Fellow in Journalism at the University of Michigan. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, 9:45 am

Lisa Wheeler

Lisa Wheeler is passionate about children's books. "I love everything about them, including the smell." To date, Lisa has twenty-four titles on bookstore shelves, with more to follow over the next few years. She's written picture books in prose and rhyme, an easy reader series, two books of poems, and creative nonfiction for the very young. Awards include the 2004 Mitten Award for Old Cricket, given by the Michigan Library Association, the 2005/06 Great Lakes, Great Books Award and 2005 Missouri Building Blocks Award for Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, The 2006 Bluebonnet Award for Seadogs and most recently, the 2006/07 South Carolina Picture Book Award for Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum . Her newest titles include Dino-Hockey, illustrated by Barry Gott (CarolRhoda), Where, Oh, Where Is Santa Claus?, illustrated by Ivan Bates and Jazz Baby, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Harcourt, Inc.) and The Christmas Boot illustrated by Glen Michael Monroe (Mitten Press). Scheduled Appearance: School Visit (pre-arranged)

Christine Wicker

Christine Wicker was raised in Oklahoma, Texas and other parts of the South. Her mother's grandfather was an itinerant Baptist preacher and her dad's father was a Kentucky coal miner. She is the first journalist in her family. Upon hearing of her profession, her grandmother once comforted her by saying, "That's all right. Just tell people you’re a waitress." During her 17 years at The Dallas Morning News, she was a feature writer, columnist and religion reporter. Her work took her from demonstrations in Nairobi to peace communes in Belfast. She slept in Mexican chicken shacks, trailed homeless people through Dallas alleys and tracked down East Germans who had worked for the Communist secret police. She covered Lady Diana's funeral in England and Pope John II's historic visit to Cuba. Christine is the author of several books including the highly acclaimed Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks to the Dead. In her most recent book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, she returns to her Southern Baptist roots and delivers the shocking news about the fate of the evangelicals in America. Scheduled Appearance: Faith/Politics Panel - May 17, Michigan Stage (League), 2:00

Diane Wilson

Diane Wilson, mother of five and a fourth-generation shrimp boat captain began fishing the bays off the Gulf Coast of Texas at the age of eight. For the last twenty years she has worked to protect the bays from the petrochemical industries that made her county number one most polluted county in the nation. Her work on behalf of the people and aquatic life of Seadrift, Texas, has won her National Fisherman's Highliner Award, Mother Jones's Hell Raiser of the Month, Louis Gibbs' Environmental Lifetime Award, Louisiana Environmental Action (LEAN) Environmental Award. She is co-founder of Code Pink, a women's grass roots peace group, and Texas Jail Project, an organization she co-founded after being jailed 20 times for civil disobedience and that seeks to change the way jails in Texas are ran . Wilson published a book on activism in Texas, entitled An Unreasonable Woman. Her second book, Holy Roller (God's Little Soldier), is about religious fundamentalism in the South and is due out Fall 2008. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, 8:30 am Scheduled Appearance: Author Breakfast - May 17, Zanzibar, 9 am Scheduled Appearance: Environment Panel - May 17, State St. Assn.Stage, 12:30

Angela Patrick Wynn

Angela Patrick Wynn is a national best selling author and lecturer powered with enthusiasm. Since the publication of her debut novel, Everything She Wants, Wynn has been inspiring others to pursue their dreams and turn their talents into success. Wynn has a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in journalism and a master’s in education from Wayne State University. As the manager of Angelwrite LLC, a consulting company specializing in empowerment presentations and performance-based instruction, she enjoys touring the country inspiring others to achieve. Scheduled Appearance: Writer's Conference - May 16, 3:30

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