| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
|---|---|---|
Roy Sexton | Roy Sexton leads Clark Hill’s marketing, branding, and communications efforts in collaboration with the firm’s exceptional team of marketing and business development professionals. He has nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development, and strategic planning. Roy also advises attorneys on marketing and business development strategy. He has been heavily involved regionally and nationally in the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) as a board member, content expert, and presenter. Roy posts movie musings on Facebook, much to the chagrin of true arbiters of taste. He tends to go see whatever film has been most obnoxiously hyped, marketed, and oversold in any given week…art films? Bah! Won’t find too many of those discussed here. Roy is a published author of two books: Reel Roy Reviews, Volumes 1 and 2. | |
Grace Shackman | Grace Shackman is an Ann Arbor writer who has published four books on local history as well as many local history articles for the Ann Arbor Observer and other local publications. Her books include Ann Arbor Observed, published by the University of Michigan Press, 2006, Ann Arbor in the 19th Century, Ann Arbor in the 20th Century, both published by Arcadia Publishing, 2001 and 2002, and Webster: A Time, A Place, A People, published by the Webster United Church of Christ and the Webster Township Historical Society, 2007. Her Ann Arbor Observer articles can be accessed on the Ann Arbor District Library's web page under "Local History." She also worked as a reporter for the Chelsea Standard for three years. Shackman received a B.A.in history from the University of Michigan and a M. A. in history at Eastern Michigan University. In addition to writing, she has taught local history at Washtenaw Community College in their Community Enrichment Program and at the Adult Learners Institute located in Chelsea. She was elected and served as a Washtenaw County Commissioner, 1986-1994. She is at present on the board of A2Modern, a group researching and championing local mid-century architecture. | |
Nancy Shaw | Ann Arbor author Nancy Shaw got the idea for her best-selling picture book Sheep in a Jeep while stuck in the back seat on a family car trip. Seven more sheep books have followed. She also wrote Raccoon Tune (a Michigan Reads! book) and Elena's Story. She's received School Library Journal and Parents magazine Best Books of the Year citations, and the Reading Magic Award, among other honors. A Hopwood Award winner, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard University. | |
Stacie Sheldon | Aanii / Boozhoo / Hello! My name is Stacie Sheldon. Chitwaadewegekwe nindizhinikaaz Anishinaabemong. Honor Beat Woman is my name in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe). Ajiijaak n'doodem. I am Crane Clan. I combine my rich work life as a UX practitioner with the passion I have for life as an Ojibwe person and language advocate. I am an author, and co-founder of http://www.ojibwe.net, where I lead technical development. I have served on the Board of Directors for American Indian Services in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Now a resident of Ann Arbor, MI, I grew up in the lakes and hills of Northern Michigan where I spent my summers swimming in our “great lakes” and winters exploring the woods. A lifelong runner, I can also be found on hikes with my dog, Nimkii, or playing guitar, piano, or singing. I’m a bookworm at heart, and I occasionally stay up way too late reading mystery novels--most recently, I’ve been unable to put down the Virgil Flowers series by John Sanford. |  |
Emily Siwek | Emily Siwek lives in Ann Arbor, MI and loves finding adventure in her hometown with her husband and two children. She has worked in a variety of creative industries from interior design to trend forecasting and enjoys coloring outside the lines. | |
Patti Smith | Ann Arbor townie Patti Smith is a former legal aid lawyer and current special education teacher. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Adrian College with highest honors in 1994, a Doctor of Law from University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law in 1996, and a Master's Degree with Highest Honors from Eastern Michigan University in 2012. She is the author of four history books: Images of America--Downtown Ann Arbor, A History of the People's Food Co-op Ann Arbor, Vanishing Ann Arbor, and Michigan Beer: A Heady History. She has written for Concentrate, Mittenbrew, The Ann, AADL's Pulp blog, and the Ann Arbor Observer. Patti serves as a commissioner for the Recreation Advisory Commission, as a storyteller in the Ann Arbor Storytellers' Guild, and as a volunteer DJ for WCBN. Patti is a frequent public speaker around town, curating HERsay (an all-woman variety show), GROWN FOLKS READING (storytime for grownups), MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT? (all-lawyer show) and telling stories at Ignite, Nerd Nite, Tellabration and Telling Tales Out of School. She lives with her husband, Ken Anderson, and dog Pugsley Anderson-Smith, in the Village--truly vintage living in her favorite city on earth. | |
Sondra Soderborg | I am a children's book writer. I have had many careers, including lawyer, teacher, and stay-at-home parent. All of that work has shaped and informed what I bring to writing. But finally finding the teachers and colleagues who helped me learn to write fiction has been a great joy in my life. I came to Ann Arbor from Salt Lake City in 1986 to attend the University of Michigan Law School. My husband and I were lucky enough to stay and raise our three great kids here. Erin Murphy of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency represents me. My debut novel, Sky Ropes, is published by Chronicle Books. |  |
Leslie Stainton | Leslie Stainton is the author of two nonfiction books, Lorca: A Dream of Life and Staging Ground: An American Theater and Its Ghosts. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, The American Scholar, River Teeth, The Southern Humanities Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review, among others. Her next book is about her slaveholding ancestors, the Scarletts of Georgia. | |
Barbara Stark-Nemon | Barbara Stark-Nemon, has written the award-winning novels Even in Darkness and Hard Cider. Her current work in progress is a 17h century European coming of age refugee story. Barbara has degrees from the University of Michigan in English, Art History and Communication Disorders. She writes novels, essays and short stories, and speaks at conferences, literary events, libraries and book clubs. She lives, writes, swims, cycles, gardens and does fiber art in Ann Arbor and Northport, MI. | |
Peter G. Stipe | Peter G. Stipe was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He retired from the Ann Arbor Police Department in 2004 as its most highly decorated officer. His assignments included the Special Tactics Unit, Detective Division, Field Training Officer and District Coordinator. A writer and Film Noir buff, he is the Author of “Badge 112”, a memoir. He resides in Michigan’s Irish Hills. | |
Ellen Stone | Ellen Stone grew up on the north branch of the Susquehanna River in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Pennsylvania. She advises a poetry club at Community High School and co-hosts a monthly poetry series in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ellen’s poems have appeared recently in Anti-Heroin Chic, Great Lakes Review, Rust + Moth and River Mouth Review among other places. She is the author of What Is in the Blood (Mayapple Press, 2020) and The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press, 2013). Ellen’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. | |
Alison Swan | Alison Swan’s fifth book, A Fine Canopy, was released by Wayne State University Press in 2020 and recommended by Orion magazine, LitHub, and Publisher’s Weekly, among others. Ann Arbor-based Alice Greene & Company published her poetry chapbooks Before the Snow Moon—a fine-art collaboration with artists Jean Buescher Bartlett (of Ann Arbor) and Melanie Boyle (formerly of Ann Arbor)—and Dog Heart (Alice Greene), also a collaboration with Bartlett and Boyle. Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes (Michigan State University Press), Alison Swan’s brain child and labor of love, is a 2007 Library of Michigan Notable Book. She is co-author of The Saugatuck Dunes: Artists Respond to a Freshwater Landscape. Her poem Porch Swing (Bloodroot Press, 1997), an early collaboration with Bartlett, has been acquired by the New York Public Library and other rare book collections. Among her awards are a Mesa Refuge Residency and the Michigan Environmental Council’s Petoskey Prize for Environmental Leadership. Swan founded Eco Book Club at Ann Arbor’s Literati Bookstore in 2015 and has hosted it ever since. In the 1990s she directed promotions and events at Ann Arbor’s late Shaman Drum Bookshop (“Academic, scholarly, and independent, since 1983,” a tagline she penned). Also in the 1990s, she wrote a book column for Current magazine and author interviews and reviews for a weekly independent newspaper based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and earned her B.A. in English literature at Michigan State University. After stints on the east and west coasts of North America, she settled back in Michigan’s lower peninsula where, for many years, she taught literature and writing at Western Michigan University’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She has been active in efforts to protect and preserve the Saugatuck Dunes on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan since 2001. | |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
