Presenters: A-F
A - F | G - N | O - Z | Features
KEVIN ADAMS
Kevin Adams is Assistant Professor of History at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He is an historian of the United States with a special interest in War & Society, Gilded Age America, and the History of the American West. In his recent book, Class and Race in the Frontier Army, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era, with the military experiences of officers and enlisted men illustrating the comparative weakness of ethnicity and the increasing importance of class consciousness in Gilded Age society.
ELAINE MARIE ALPHIN
www.elainemariealphin.com
Elaine Marie Alphin wanted to be a writer since she was a little girl walking on weekend mornings with her father. She has authored more than 20 books for young readers and teenagers, including the Edgar Award winning mystery, Counterfeit Son, and has lived in San Francisco, New York City, Houston, TX, upstate New York, Southern Indiana, midstate Wyoming, midstate South Dakota, Bozeman, MT, and York, England.
JESSICA LEE ANDERSON
www.jessicaleeanderson.com
Jessica Lee Anderson's passion is writing literature for children. In 2004, Jessica graduated from Hollins University with a Master of Arts in Children's Literature. Trudy, IRA Children’s Book Award Notables and winner of the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature, was her first novel and was released fall 2005 by Milkweed Editions. She later released Border Crossing (fall 2009) after writing two non-fiction readers— What is a Living Thing? and Presidential Pets. Jessica's short story, “Miracle on Stone Street,” appears in Mistletoe Madness by Blooming Tree Press. She has written fiction and non-fiction for Highlights for Children, Highlights High Five, Stories for Children Magazine, Wee Ones Magazine, and Holiday Crafts 4 Kids. She is currently an instructor at the Institute of Children's Literature.
LORI ARMSTRONG
www.loriarmstrong.com
Lori Armstrong left the firearms industry in 2000 to pursue her dream of writing crime fiction. A nominee for theShamus Award, Daphne du Maurier Award, and the 2008 High Plains Book award, she won theWilla Cather Literary Award in 2007. The first book in Mercy Gunderson series, No Mercy, will be released in hardcover in January 2010 from Touch Fireside, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.
RICK BASS
Dubbed “nature Writer’ by bookstores and critics, Rick Bass’s works are concerned with the nature of the human heart and the heart of nature. The son of a geologist, Bass took an early interest in the natural world. He earned a B.S. at Utah State University in 1979 and worked as a petroleum geologist for several years. Bass has lived around the South and Southwest, including stints in Mississippi from 1979 to 1987 as a petroleum geologist in charge of prospecting for new wells, an experience that formed the basis for his book Oil Notes. He currently lives and works in Missoula, Montana.
CHARLES BOWDEN
Charles Bowden is the author of eleven books including A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Dog; Down By the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; Juarez: the Laboratory of our Future; Blood Orchid: An unnatural History of America; Desierto: Memories of the Future; Red Line; Blue Desert; and (with Michael Binstein) Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions. He is a contributing editor of Esquire, and also writes for other magazines such as Harper’s and The New York Times Book Review. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
DANIEL BUROW
www.danielburow.com
Dr. Daniel Burow is a psychologist specializing in geriatrics, existential issues and psychological trauma. “Rebels, Poets, and Mystics” records Dr. Burow’s relationship with Fr. Frahm, a poet and teacher in the Christian mystical tradition, and the basics of his teachings.
RON CARLSON
Ronald Carlson is a professor of English and the director of UC Irvine's MFA fiction writing program. Carlson's short stories have been published in Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker and Gentlemen's Quarterly. He is the author of ten books of fiction, most recently the novel The Signal. His book on writing, Ron Carlson Writes a Story, guides readers step-by-step through the process of writing a work of fiction. Mr. Carlson's parents were born in Brown County.
CRAIG CHILDS
www.houseofrain.com
Craig Childs is writer who focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and mind-blowing journeys into the wilderness. He has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books on nature, science, and adventure. He is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside and Orion. His subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet.
MARILYN CHIN
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Chin has won numerous awards for her poetry, including ones from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has received a Stegner Fellowship, the PEN/Josephine Miles Award, four Pushcart Prizes, the Paterson Prize, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan. She co-directs the MFA program at San Diego State University.
David Cross - CANCELLED
With a wide range of comedic talents, David Cross first hit the scene as a stand-up comedian, and later moved to TV, where his work as a writer earned him an Emmy award and several nominations. He has also been nominated for a Grammy award for one of his two comedy CD’s. Cross has appeared in such films as Men in Black, Kung Fu Panda, and Curious George. On the television side, Cross appeared in the Emmy Award winning comedy, Arrested Development, as Tobias Fünke.
CAROLYN DIGBY CONAHAN
www.carolyndigbyconahan.com
Carolyn Digby Conahan is the current staff illustrator of CRICKET magazine. She has illustrated two storybooks for the South Dakota State Historical Society Press: The Discontented Gopher, written by L. Frank Baum (published in November, 2006) and The Prairie-Dog Prince, written by Eva Katharine Gibson (October, 2008). She also illustrated Bubble Homes & Fish Farts, a nonfiction picture book written by Fiona Bayrock, published by Charlesbridge Publishing in February '09. Carolyn wrote and illustrated The Twelve Days of Christmas Dogs, published by Dutton Books in the fall of 2005, and The Wish Farm, a picture book to be published by Chronicle in spring 2010, or 2011.
ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN
She did doctoral work at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1977-1978, and is a retired Professor Emerita in Indian Studies and Humanities from Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Wa, where she co-founded the journal Wicazo Sa Review, a Native American Studies Journal with Bea Medicine, Roger Buffalohead and William Willard. She has been a visiting professor in Indian Studies at UCDAvis and ASU, Tempe, Az. She has published 11 books and is at work on twomanuscripts.
ANN DAUM
Freelance writer Daum is a resident of Okaton, SD and authored The Prairie in Her Eyes, a series of essays about ranching in the modern West. She received a Bush Artist Fellowship in 1999.
MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
MaryJanice Davidson is The New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of paranormal romance novels including the Undead series, Fred the Mermaid series and Wyndham Werewolf series. With her husband, Anthony Alongi, she also writes a series featuring a teen were-dragon named Jennifer Scales. Her most recent release, Undead and Unwelcome reached number 14 on The New York Times best-seller list. MaryJanice won a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award in 2004 and 2009.
PETE DEXTER - CANCELLED
Pete Dexter began his working life with a U.S. Post office in New Orleans, Louisiana. He wasn't very good at mail and quit, then caught on as a newspaper reporter in Florida, which he was not very good at, got married, and was not very good at that. In Philadelphia he became a newspaper columnist, which he was pretty good at, and got divorced, which you would have to say he was good at because it only cost $300. Dexter remarried, won the National Book Award and built a house in the desert so remote that there is no postal service. He's out there six months a year, pecking away at the typewriter, living proof of the adage What goes around comes around--that is, you quit the post office, pal, and the post office quits you.
JAMES DONOVAN
James Donovan is the New York Times Bestselling author of the classic illustrated account of Custer's Last Stand, Custer and the Little Bighorn, and most recently A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Big Horn—the Last Great Battle of the American West. He lives in Dallas.
VIRGINIA DRIVING HAWK SNEVE - CANCELLED
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve was born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. For 25 years she was an educator in BIA, Public schools, and colleges in South Dakota. Since 1972, she has published over 20 books, numerous short stories, articles, and poems. MS. Sneve was the first South Dakotan and Native American to be awarded 2000 National Humanities Medal. In 2007 she received the SD Governor's Award for Distinction in Creative Achievement.
JILL ESBAUM
www.jillesbaum.com
Jill Esbaum is the author of Stink Soup (illustrated by Roger Roth; Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Ste-e-e-e-eamboat A-Comin’! (illustrated by Adam Rex; Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Estelle Takes a Bath (illustrated by Mary Newell DePalma; Henry Holt), To the Big Top (illustrated by David Gordon; Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Stanza (illustrated by Jack E. Davis; Harcourt), and two new nonfiction picture books from National Geographic Kids, APPLES for Everyone and Seed, Sprout, PUMPKIN, Pie. More picture books are forthcoming. Jill is an instructor for The Institute of Children’s Literature and is the Quad Cities Network Chair for the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators.
DAVID ALLAN EVANS
David Allan Evans started college on a football scholarship and by the time he graduated, he was writing poems and short stories. Evans was professor of English and writer in residence at SDSU for many years, and recently retired. He is the author of nine books and chapbooks of poems and several books of prose. His poems, short stories, and nonfiction have been published in many magazines and journals and in over 75 anthologies.
RODES FISHBURNE
www.rodesfishburne.com
For over ten years, Rodes Fishburne has been published in magazines and newspapers, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and Forbes ASAP, where he was the editor of the acclaimed "Big Issue," an annual magazine of literary essays from leading writers and thinkers including: Tom Wolfe, Kurt Vonnegut, Muhammad Ali, and the Dalai Lama. The "Big Issue," was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2000.
SEAN J. FLYNN
Sean J. Flynn is Associate Professor of History at Dakota Wesleyan University. He has authored three books. Chief—Marine Corps Warrior: The Life of John P. “Pat” Flynn, Jr. (2003) examines the military career of Dr. Flynn’s father, a decorated veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. An Engineer’s War: The Legacy of PFC Alfred Hutchison (2004) chronicles the life of a South Dakota soldier who served and died in France during World War I. Mission to Germany: William "Bud" Gassen and the 457th Bomb Group (2009) tells the story of a South Dakota native who flew 28 combat missions in a B-17 during World War II. Dr. Flynn continues to conduct research on American military history.