Guest Authors
The Books in Bloom authors will read from their work, make presentations, and sign books. Check the Author Events Schedule for times and locations for each author's presentation. When not reading either in the Conservatory or Author's Tent, authors will be in the Crescent Gardens.
Please click on author's name for further information.
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Nevada Barr
www.nevadabarr.com
Nevada Barr was born in the small western town of Yerington, Nevada, and was raised on a mountain airport in the Sierras. Both her parents were pilots and mechanics and her sister, Molly, continued the tradition by becoming a pilot for USAir. Nevada Barr is an award-winning novelist and New York Times best-selling author. She has a growing number of Anna Pigeon mysteries to her credit as well as numerous other books, short stories, and articles. She currently resides in New Orleans. Engaging and down-to-earth, Barr entwines the cycle of nature throughout her mystery books with her character, Anna Pigeon, a National Park Ranger.
Pushed out of the nest, Barr fell into the theatre, receiving her BA in speech and drama and her MFA in Acting before making the pilgrimage to New York City, then Minneapolis, MN. For eighteen years she worked on stage, in commercials, industrial training films and did voice-overs for radio. During this time she became interested in the environmental movement and began working in the National Parks during the summers - Isle Royale in Michigan, Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and then on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.
Woven throughout these seemingly disparate careers was the written word. Barr wrote and presented campfire stories, taught storytelling and was a travel writer and restaurant critic. Her first novel, Bittersweet was published in 1983. The Anna Pigeon series, featuring a female park ranger as the protagonist, started when she married her love of writing with her love of the wilderness, the summer she worked in west Texas. The first book, Track of the Cat, was brought to light in 1993 and won both the Agatha and Anthony awards for best first mystery. The series was well received and A Superior Death, loosely based on Nevada's experiences as a boat patrol ranger on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, was published in 1994. In 1995 Ill Wind came out. It was set in Mesa Verde, Colorado where Barr worked as a law enforcement ranger for two seasons.
The rest is, shall we say, HISTORY! Nevada Barr's books and accomplishments have become numerous and the presses continue to roll!
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Steve Berry
www.steveberry.org
Steve Berry currently lives in Camden County, Georgia. He is a graduate of Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law.
Steve Berry first appeared in print with his historical thrillers The Amber Room and The Romanov Prophecy in 2003 and 2004. A practicing attorney, Berry had been writing since 1990, and on his website claims that it took him 12 years and 85 rejections to finally sell a manuscript to Ballantine Books. Berry credits the nuns who taught him in Catholic school with instilling the discipline needed both to craft a novel and to find a publisher.
Today, Berry's novels have earned spots on The New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and BookSense bestseller lists, and his novels appear in 43 countries and 41 languages worldwide.
He's also an accomplished instructor, having taught the concepts of writing to many an audience across the globe. When Steve's not writing, you can find him either on a beach, or on a golf course, or traveling --- discovering more things lost --- thinking of the next novel.
Steve and his wife Elizabeth have also started a foundation, History Matters, dedicated to aiding the preservation of our heritage. To learn more about Steve, visit www.steveberry.org.
In conjunction with his appearance at Books in Bloom, Steve will conduct a day-long writing workshop and luncheon, with all proceeds going to the Carroll County Historical Society. For more information on the workshop, click here.
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Velda Brotherton
www.veldabrotherton.com
Velda Brotherton is a native of Arkansas and lives in the Boston Mountains. She has been writing for 25 years, first for newspapers, then novels and nonfiction books. Currently, she writes a historical column for the White River Valley News. Fly With the Mourning Dove, a creative nonfiction biography about homesteading in New Mexico, was a finalist in the WILLA Literary Awards in 2008. Her latest books about the Ozarks are The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks, stories of the many lost communities of the Boston Mountains; Arkansas Meals and Memories: Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains, a collection of authentic Boston Mountain recipes combined with stories of growing up in the Ozarks.
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Andrea Campbell
www.andreacampbell.com
Andrea Campbell is author of twelve traditionally published nonfiction books on a variety of topics but she specializes in forensic science, criminal law, and entertaining. Her book Vidocq: The Fugitive Who Transformed Forensic Science published by Overlook Press will be out mid-June 2010. Andrea lives in the mountains in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, with her husband, Michael, and mother, Anna.
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Rich Davis
www.richdavis.freewebspace.com/
www.pickanddraw.com/
www.richdavis1.wordpress.com/
Rich Davis is a children's book illustrator with nine books. He also is a freelance illustrator, drawing instructor, drawing game inventor and traveling presenter for kids at public schools and libraries. He is passionate about helping others be creative and enjoy the process of using the visual language to speak in its many forms. He greatly enjoys children and art and finds his creativity and passion flow from his relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Tom Dillard
Tom W. Dillard is Head of Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville. Long active in Arkansas history circles, Dillard is a past president of both the Arkansas Museums Association and the Arkansas Historical Association. He was named Humanist of the Year by the Arkansas Humanities Council in 1984. In 2001 he was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Arkansas Historical Association.
Dillard is also the founding editor-in-chief of the on-line Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. He currently writes a weekly Arkansas history column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. These newspaper columns served as the basis for Dillard’s new book, Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans (University of Arkansas Press).
He and his wife, Mary Frost Dillard, are the parents of an adult son, Neil Q. Dillard, a Little Rock firefighter.
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Tim Ernst
www.TimErnst.com
Author and photographer Tim Ernst has found an ideal way to seamlessly combine his artistic talents and a deeply felt passion for nature. His coffee table books capture the beauty of the Ozarks in words and photographs that help others see ‘the natural state’ with new eyes, and his well-known guidebooks make it possible for thousands of people to explore the Arkansas outdoors for themselves, following trails that Ernst himself played a large part in establishing as founder of the Ozark Highlands Trail Association.
Tim has been writing his popular online Cloudland Cabin Journal since 1998. In more than 1,000 pages so far he details life in the wilderness, and has readers from all over the world checking in daily to see what he is up to.
His newest book of photography, Arkansas Wildlife: intimate portraits of wild species that roam "the Natural State" came our recently. With more than 124 stunning photographs of wildlife, it illustrates the diversity found in Arkansas. His other recent books include Arkansas Landscapes and Cloudland Journal, Book One.
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Deborah LeBlanc
deborahleblanc.com
http://www.literacyinc.com/
Deborah LeBlanc is an award-winning author from Lafayette, Louisiana. She is also a business owner, a licensed death scene investigator, and has been an active paranormal investigator for over 15 years.
She is the president of the Horror Writers Association, Writers' Guild of Acadiana, and Mystery Writers of America's Southwest Chapter. In 2004, Deborah created the Literacy Challenge, an annual, national campaign designed to encourage more people to read. Soon after, she founded Literacy Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting illiteracy in America's teens. Her latest novel is Water Witch.
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Alexandria LaFaye
www.alafaye.com/
Alexandria LaFaye is best known for the historical novel Worth which won the Scott O'Dell Award in 2005, but she's also written 10 other novels. Most recently-- Stella Stands Alone (Reconstruction era MS), WATER STEPS (Girl faces her crippling fear of water), and THE Keening (A girl races to save her father from being institutionalized after her mother's death in 1919, Maine). She's recently welcomed a new daughter, ADIA into her life and looks forward to their adventures together as she accepts a new job at Lee University in Cleveland, TN.
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Will LaPage
parksforlife.com
Will La Page is the author of three collections of poetry about national parks: A Park is a Poem on the Land, Along the Buffalo; and Voices from the Park; and two collections of essays, Parks for Life, and The Ecology of Belief and The Paradox of Public Parks. Will recently completed his first novel: The Fall of the Steward, a story of a disenchanted park ranger who goes in search of the history and meaning of stewardship. Will has been a poet in residence at Rocky Mountain and Acadia National Parks, and at the Buffalo National River.
He was the first recipient of the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for excellence in park science, and has been a distinguished lecturer in parks at Clemson and Indiana Universities. His work as a park system administrator, consultant, lecturer, park scientist, and presidential commissioner, has taken him to public parks in South Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and across North and Central America to a place where parks are truly universal: the heart.
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Margot Lavoie
Margot Lavoie, a native of Syracuse, New York, has lived in Madison, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania’s Amish country and, briefly, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Currently she lives in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, with her husband Tom. She earns her living working as a medical records coder. She lives through her writing, music, and the support of a wonderful circle of family and friends. Her first collection of poetry, The Altar of Amazing Chance, is the inaugural publication of a new imprint, Two Poets Inc, part of a small press out of Fayetteville, Limbertwig Press.
About The Altar of Amazing Chance, Naomi Shihab Nye says: "Amazing poems. . . . Lavoie is keenly aware of the gifts replete in every road, arrival, and memory. Welcome this refreshing voice." And Jo McDougall says that "while addressing the ordinary things of our lives, [these poems] lift us from the ordinary by their seamless language, power, and intent."
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Michael Lindsey
Michael Lindsey's interest in historical events lead him to earn a master's degree in history from the University of Arkansas, and though these days he works as a public finance banker with Morgan Keegan, his fascination with the past continues. An award winning article on the evolution of the Arkansas State Police lead to publication of his first book, Big Hat Law: Arkansas and Its State Police 1935-2000.
Extensive research included listening to more than 60 oral interviews with retired and active duty state police officers. Among those interviewed was an officer who started with the state police in 1945 and five state police directors. As the state’s only law enforcement agency, the state police witnessed many of the state’s most notable historical events including the repeated effort to rein in illegal gambling in Hot Springs, the Central High Desegregation Crisis, civil rights disturbances in the 1970s, the Cuban Refugee crisis, the end of statewide prohibition in 1935. The book is newly published by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
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Brenda Minton
www.brendaminton.net/
Brenda Minton grew up on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks. Her children find it difficult to believe she lived without video games or cable TV. Her childhood was spent roaming the woods, building club houses and reading books. Eventually reading books turned to writing stories. On long bus rides home from school she created those stories and dreamed of someday being published.
‘Someday’ happened in 2006 when her first book, The Strongest Cord, was published by Thorndike. The next year her book, Trusting Him, was published by Steeple Hill Love Inspired. She is currently working on her twelfth Love Inspired title.
Brenda is married to her preacher, so when she complains about the preacher’s wife and his children, it is understandable. She has several dogs, a horse and quite a few dust bunnies.
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Radine Trees Nehring
www.radinebooks.com
For more than twenty years, Radine Trees Nehring's magazine features, essays, newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts have shared colorful stories about the people, places, events, and natural world near her Arkansas home.
In 2002, Nehring's first mystery novel, A Valley to Die For, was published and became a Macavity Award nominee. Since that time she has continued to enthrall her original fans, attract new ones, and gather many awards with her signature blend of down-home Arkansas sightseeing and cozy amateur sleuthing by active retirees Henry King and Carrie McCrite King.
In her sixth series novel, Journey to Die For, Nehring takes her characters and her readers to another of Arkansas's tourist attractions, riding a historic train into the middle of trouble and intrigue. ( Journey to Die For was first place winner in the 2009 Oklahoma Writers' Federation Unpublished Mystery Contest.)
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Gail Sheehy
www.gailsheehy.com
As a cultural observer and bestselling author, Gail Sheehy has changed the way millions of people look at their lives. In her history-making books and introspective commentary, Ms. Sheehy has addressed fundamental questions that apply to women and men as they move through the stages of adult life from adolescence into their seasoned years.
The author of 15 books, Ms. Sheehy is world-renowned for the revolutionary Passages, which remained on The New York Times bestseller list for more than three years and has been reprinted in 28 languages. A Library of Congress survey named Passages one of the 10 most-influential books of our time. Ms. Sheehy’s newest book, Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence examines the caregiving crisis, and explores creative ways around of the obstacles of caregiving.
As a literary journalist, Ms. Sheehy was one of the original contributors to New York magazine. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 1984, she won the Washington Journalism Review Award for Best Magazine Writer in America for her in-depth character portraits of national and world leaders, including both Presidents Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Ms. Sheehy is a seven-time recipient of the New York Newswomen's Club Front Page Award for distinguished journalism.
One of the most popular speakers on the lecture circuit, Ms. Sheehy offers dynamic programs based on her groundbreaking investigations and observations of the lives of men and women within different phases of their lives and how they can enjoy them to the fullest.
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Michael Shelden
michaelshelden.com
Michael Shelden is an American biographer and teacher, notable for his authorized biography of George Orwell, his history of Cyril Connolly’s Horizon magazine, and his controversial biography of Graham Greene. His newest book, Mark Twain: Man in White, was published in January 2010.
Born in Oklahoma, Shelden earned his Ph.D. in English from Indiana University in 1979. He then began teaching at nearby Indiana State University, where he was promoted to Professor of English in 1989, and where he remains a full-time member of the faculty.. For ten years he was a fiction critic for the Baltimore Sun, and from 1995 to 2007 he was a Features Writer for the Daily Telegraph of London, where he contributed dozens of articles on notable figures in film, literature, and music, including one of the last interviews with actor Christopher Reeve. Shelden is married and the father of two daughters.
Shelden’s first book, George Orwell: Ten Animal Farm Letters to His Agent, Leonard Moore (1984), was an edited collection drawn from letters Shelden found at the Lilly Library and was the first to publicize. In 1989 he published his literary history Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon, which covered the decade of the 1940s when Horizon was the most influential literary magazine in the United Kingdom. The book was based on a large collection of Connolly’s personal papers at the University of Tulsa, and on interviews with the magazine’s former editors and assistants.
Authorized by the George Orwell estate, Shelden’s biography of Orwell was published in 1991 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography. Among other things, the book included the first detailed account of Orwell’s controversial list of people whom he considered politically dishonest and unreliable in British society.
Shelden’s biography of Graham Greene appeared in a UK edition in 1994 under the title Graham Greene; The Man Within. In 1995 it was published in America, with revisions, as Graham Greene: The Enemy Within. Its “despoiling” portrait of Greene as a driven and devious artist provoked heated debate on both sides of the Atlantic.
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June Westphal
Researcher and historian June Westphal has devoted her life to uncovering obscure, but documented, accounts of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, dating from 1879. Westphal has published four books on Eureka Springs, and currently writes for the Carroll County Historical Quarterly.
For more than 30 years, she has compiled historical information for the Annual Historical Pictorial Calendar distributed by Cornerstone Bank.
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