| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
|---|---|---|
Sam Erman | Sam Erman, is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. A scholar of law and history, his research and teaching focuses on citizenship, the Constitution, empire, race, and legal change. He is the author of Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2018). The book lays out the tragic story of how the United States denied Puerto Ricans full citizenship following annexation of the island in 1898. As America became an overseas empire, a handful of remarkable Puerto Ricans debated with U.S. legislators, presidents, judges, and others over who was a citizen and what citizenship meant. This struggle caused a fundamental shift in constitutional jurisprudence: away from the post-Civil War regime of citizenship, rights, and statehood and toward doctrines that accommodated racist imperial governance. https://www.amazon.com/Almost-Citizens-Constitution-Studies-History/dp/1108415490 |  |
Kim Fairley | Kim Fairley is an artist and memoirist based in Michigan who writes about wrestling with secrets and the power of dealing with trauma. Her most recent memoir, Swimming for My Life, chronicles her experience as a competitive swimmer during the early years of Title IX. She has written two other books: Shooting Out the Lights: A Memoir and Boreal Ties: Photographs and Two Diaries of the 1901 Peary Relief Expedition. She grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended the University of Southern California. She holds an MFA in mixed media from the University of Michigan. | |
Rohn Federbush | Happily writing away for sixty years, Rohn Federbush has published short stories and self-published fifteen novels. Her paranormal romance novels, mysteries and Michigan based historical romances all contain inspirational messages. Born on a farm in southern Illinois, Rohn finished her Masters in Creative Writing in 1995 from Eastern University. She retired as an administrator of the University of Michigan’s Applied Physics PhD. Program. Rohn has several award winning books including In Lincoln’s Shadow which was a finalist of Daphne de Maurier and RWA Atlanta Contest, Maui Time won third place Virginia’s Marlene RWA Contest, The Prom Dress won honorable mention in the Iowa Literary Awards, and The Bus Orphan was a semifinalist in the James Fellowship of Sister of Oregon. Rohn’s complete list of publications, conferences, editor, agent appointments, memberships, and travel history are listed in her resume. When she’s not writing, Rohn loves painting, which she also sells at local street and book fairs. | |
Michael A. Ferro | Born and bred in the Detroit area, Michael A. Ferro attended Michigan State University and received a degree in Creative Writing. Michael’s novel, TITLE 13, was published by Harvard Square Editions and chosen as a Best Book of 2018 by the Emerging Writers Network. He was named as a finalist by Glimmer Train for their New Writers Award, received the Jim Cash Creative Writing Award for Fiction, and was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Michael is also a musician, satirist, and humorist, as well as a book reviewer and critic for numerous literary journals and an editor with the Chicago Writers Association. He is a former sportswriter and a Features Writer for CBS and CBS Detroit, and a national music and sports columnist with AXS. Michael has lived, worked, and written throughout the Midwest; he currently resides in rural Ann Arbor, Michigan. |  |
Dale Fisher | As perhaps the world’s only artist-photographer working almost exclusively from the air, Dale Fisher has made a career of capturing images both on film and digitally through the door of a helicopter. While skimming over his subjects at ground speeds of 120 miles per hour, he transforms freeways, construction sites, rooftops, and parked vehicles into colorful graphic patterns. At just 17, Dale headed off to join the United States Navy where he began shooting (with a camera) from the skies as an aerial reconnaissance photographer. Upon his return home from service, he worked as a photographer at the Ann Arbor News. He has traveled the country towing his helicopter and captured many of the images that are in collections. According to Dale, “Low-level helicopter photography gives a distinctive perspective unmatched by photographs taken from airplanes, drones, or from the ground.” Dale grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently resides at his 200-year-old farm in Grass Lake, called Eyry of the Eagle. The name is a nod to his photographic viewpoint above (like an Eagle) and translates to “the lofty nest of a bird of prey”. While Eyry of The Eagle farm holds many tales itself — its 100 acres of woods, water and fields is also home to Dale’s art galleries, wedding venue, and the Michigan’s Center for the Photographic Arts, a 501 (C) 3 Dale founded to provide artistic mentorship for youth. Dale enjoys spending his free time with family and friends, working on his property, traveling, and photographing the beautiful sites of Michigan. |  |
Linda W. Fitzgerald | Linda Wirtanen Fitzgerald grew up in Garrison Keillor country, primarily Michigan's upper peninsula. After graduating from Northern Michigan University, she headed to Ann Arbor and a graduate fellowship at the University of Michigan. With a master's degree in hand and a national recession raging, she tried her hand at magazine editing, newspaper reporting, even script writing for sales seminars and consoled herself in off hours by devouring mystery novels. Ultimately, she found her professional home as senior copywriter in an Ann Arbor ad agency and, from there, went on to launch Fitzgerald Communications. Twenty-some years and thousands of projects later, one career goal still eluded her: she had never written a mystery novel. In the summer of 2016, she crossed that item off her life list with the publication of Death at the Doorstep, the debut adventure of Ann Arbor freelance writer and amateur sleuth Karin Niemi. The second novel in the series, A Superior Way to Die, is set in the Upper Peninsula. | |
Sara Fitzgerald | Sara Fitzgerald is a former editor and new-media developer for the Washington Post and was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of The Michigan Daily. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1973 with a degree in history and journalism. She is also the author of Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates (University of Michigan Press, 2012) and The Poet’s Girl (Thought Catalog Books, 2020). Her current writing project is a biography of Emily Hale, the little-known muse of the poet T. S. Eliot. |  |
Doc Fletcher | Doc Fletcher was born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan near the main branch of the Rouge River. He is a 1976 graduate of Eastern Michigan University. He took his first canoe trip in 1978 on the Pere Marquette River and since has been getting in a canoe or kayak whenever possible. For Michigan-Out-Of-Doors segments, Doc joined co-host Jim Gretzinger in paddling the length of the Sturgeon River and the Pere Marquette headwaters. Doc has 6 books published about the joy of paddling rivers in Michigan and across the Midwest Michigan’s rivers. Doc has been invited to share stories from his books, primarily at Michigan libraries, on over 300 occasions since his first book was published in 2008. The Michigan Library Association honored Doc with their 2017 Author Award. A life-long Michigan resident, Doc promotes his home state on his website. | |
Matthew L.M. Fletcher | Matthew L.M. Fletcher, ’97, is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of federal Indian law, American Indian tribal law, Anishinaabe legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal ethics, and he sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Professor Fletcher also sits as an appellate judge for the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska, and the Tulalip Tribes. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band. | |
Patrick Flores-Scott | Patrick Flores-Scott was a long-time public school teacher in Seattle, Washington. He’s now a stay-at-home dad and early morning writer in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Patrick’s first novel, Jumped In, was named to the 2014 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list, a Walden Award finalist, a Washington Book Award winner, an NCSS/CBC Notable Book for the Social Studies, and a Bank Street College Best Books of 2014. His second novel, American Road Trip, received multiple starred reviews and is a 2019 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, and was nominated for state lists and awards in Texas, Arizona, Washington, Connecticut and Georgia. | |
Gregory A. Fournier | Literary Classics gold medal award-winning author Gregory A. Fournier received his bachelor and master’s degrees in Language Arts from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. A writer of creative nonfiction, his books include The Elusive Purple Gang, Zug Island, Terror In Ypsilanti, The Richard Streicher Jr. Murder and Detroit Time Capsule. Fournier writes short history posts for his Fornology.com blog, and he has appeared on the Investigation Discovery Channel as a guest expert on serial killer John Norman Collins for the series A Crime to Remember in an episode entitled “A New Kind of Monster.” Terror In Ypsilanti is currently in development for a movie or miniseries. | |
R.J. Fox | R.J. Fox is the award-winning writer of several short stories, plays, poems, a memoir, and 15 feature length screenplays. His first book – a memoir entitled Love & Vodka: My Surreal Adventures in Ukraine was previously published by Fish Out of Water Books. His debut novel Awaiting Identification was placed on MLive's top 10 Michigan books of the year. Both books – which were initially screenplays – are currently being developed into feature films. He is on board as a co-producer for Love & Vodka, as well as the writer/director/editor of several award-winning short films. He recently published a collection of essays entitled Tales From the Dork Side and his work has been published in over 30 literary magazines and journals. Fox graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English and a minor in Communications and received a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. In addition to moonlighting as a writer, independent filmmaker and saxophonist, Fox teaches film and literature in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, where he uses his own dream to inspire his students to follow their own. He has also worked in public relations at Ford Motor Company and as a newspaper reporter. He resides in Ann Arbor, MI. | |
Lauren Friedman | Lauren Friedman is a Product Designer, artist, and the author/illustrator of 50 Ways to Wear a Scarf, 50 Ways to Wear Denim, and her latest title, 50 Ways to Wear Accessories, all published by Chronicle Books. Based in Ann Arbor, MI, she is the creator of the My Closet in Sketches project, and her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Lucky Magazine, Travel + Leisure Magazine, and The Washington Post. Her books have sold over 200,000 copies and have been carried at MoMA, The National Gallery of Art, Paper Source, Target, and retailers across the world. | |
Tracy Gallup | Tracy Gallup’s paintings and figures come to life in stories and poetry. Her most recent books are My First Book of Haiku Poems published by Tuttle Press and Paint the Night published by Fifth Avenue Press. In March 2023 Anna's Kokeshi Dolls will be released by Tuttle Publishing. Other picture books include A Roomful of Questions, Stone Crazy, Shell Crazy, Tree Crazy, Snow Crazy and King Cat published by Mackinac Island Press, a division of Charlesbridge, and Beastly Banquet published by Dial Books for Young Readers. | |
Pamela Gossiaux | Pamela Gossiaux is the international bestselling author of romance books and women's fiction, as well as several inspirational nonfiction books. Pamela is also a humorist and inspirational speaker who has been writing and working with writers for several decades. She has a dual BA degree from the University of Michigan in Creative Writing and English Language and Literature, and over 20 years of journalism writing experience. She has self-published a book on writing called Six Steps to Successful Publication. The release of The Things We Know in Part, hit the Barnes & Noble Top 100 bestseller list, as well as a #1 bestseller on Amazon in several different countries. An avid horse enthusiast, she enjoys being outdoors and working in her garden. She also loves chocolate, and prefers to curl up with a good book in her downtime. She lives and writes at her horse farm in Michigan, near the town that inspired the Russo Romantic Mystery series, with her family and a variety of pets. | |
Kay Gray | Kay Gray is originally from Los Angeles, but has chosen four seasons and adorable downtowns over fire in the hills and too much traffic. She lives in a historic home with her husband, dog, and cat, and keeps saying she will succeed at a garden next Spring, but we all know how that goes. She has short stories in Queen of Clocks and Other Steampunk Tales and Fairy Tales Punk'd. Kay is currently working furiously on scripts for her podcast Haunted Mitten, as well as clacking away at the keyboard on three other novels. | |
Bethany Grey | Bethany Grey is an author and dietitian living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her passion for storytelling began with her grandmother and matured during college, after life experience amplified the relatability of a good coming-of-age narrative. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and earned a Master of Nutrition from Case Western Reserve University. Her articles are published in Food & Nutrition Magazine. She holds a special affinity for strong matriarchs and spiritual quests, both found within her debut novel, All That We Encounter. |  |
Lindsay-Jean Hard | Lindsay-Jean Hard is the IACP award-nominated author of Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals (inspired by her Food52 column of the same name) and co-author of a Zingerman's Bakehouse cookbook (Fall 2023). She’s a copywriter at Zingerman’s Creative Services in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she shares her passion for great food, sustainability, and community. |  |
Steven Harper Piziks | Steven Harper Piziks was born with a name that no one can reliably spell or pronounce, so he often writes under the pen name Steven Harper. He lives in Michigan with his family. When not at the keyboard, he plays the folk harp, fiddles with video games, and pretends he doesn’t talk to the household cats. In the past, he’s held jobs as a reporter, theater producer, secretary, and substitute teacher. He maintains that the most interesting thing about him is that he writes books. Steven is the creator of The Silent Empire series, the Clockwork Empire steampunk series, and the Books of Blood and Iron series for Roc Books. All four Silent Empire novels were finalists for the Spectrum Award, a first! Fortunately, his story “Eight Mile and the City” in the anthology When Worlds Collide won the 2022 Washington Science Fiction Association Award for small press. You can find him elsewhere on-line by searching for his social media. | |
Carla Harryman | Carla Harryman is a poet, experimental prose writer, essayist, performance writer, and collaborator in multi-disciplinary performance. The author of twenty-five books, she is known for her boundary breaking investigations of genre, non/narrative poetics, and text-based performances. The influence of improvised music, electronic sampling, and collaborative practices animate her recent works. Recent publications include Cloud Cantata (Pamenar, 2022); the poet's theater play Good Morning (PAJ: Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press, 2022); and Sue in Berlin and Sue á Berlin (trans. Sabine Huynh), a collection of poetry and performance writings composed between 2001-2015 and released in 2018 by PURH "To Series" in separate English and French volumes. Other key publications in the last two decades include Adorno's Noise (2008), an experiment in prose poetry and "the essay as form," the collaborative ten-volume work, The Grand Piano: Experiments in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco 1975-1980 (completed in 2010); the poet's novel Gardener of Stars (2001); W-/M-(2013), and the essay Artifact of Hope (2017). Her awards include an artist award in poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, New York; a grant (with Erling Wald) from Opera America: Next Stage, an NEA Consortium Playwright Commission; several awards from The Foundation for Poetry; and the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award for Creative Activity at Eastern Michigan University. Her work has been translated into many languages and her poetry, prose and plays have been represented in over thirty national and international anthologies. | |
Merrie Haskell | Merrie Haskell's first three books are The Princess Curse, Handbook for Dragon Slayers, and The Castle Behind Thorns. She won the Schneider Family Book Award (Middle Grades) and the DetCon1 Middle Grade Speculative Fiction award, and she was twice a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. Two of her books have been Junior Library Guild selections. Her short fiction has appeared in Nature, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. | |
Stephanie Heit | Stephanie Heit (she/her) is a queer disabled poet, dancer, teacher, and codirector of Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space on Anishinaabe land in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She is a Zoeglossia Fellow, bipolar, a shock/psych system survivor, a mad activist, and a member of the Olimpias, an international disability performance collective. Her hybrid memoir poem PSYCH MURDERS (Wayne State University Press, 2022) takes you inside psychiatric wards and shock treatments toward new futures of care. The Color She Gave Gravity (The Operating System, 2017) explores the seams of language, movement, and mental health difference. Her work has appeared in journals such as Orion, Sonora Review, BathHouse, Venti, Rogue Agent, Ecotone, Anomaly, and About Place. | |
Amy Hepp | Amy Hepp grew up along the Great Lakes and currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is a graduate of Purdue University and has worked in public schools for the last 11 years. Amy writes contemporary romance novellas set in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. Her debut novella, Northern Woods, was published by the Fifth Avenue Press of Ann Arbor, Michigan. She devoured the romance genre as a sleep deprived young mother of three, needing an escape from reality. All three children are grown, but she's still a pushover for a good love story and is excited to share her love of the Boundary Waters with her readers. |  |
Peter Ho Davies | Peter Ho Davies’ most recent books are the novel A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself, long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and The Art of Revision: The Last Word, his first work of nonfiction. His previous novel, The Fortunes, a New York Times Notable Book, won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and the Chautauqua Prize, and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His first novel, The Welsh Girl, a London Times Best Seller, was long-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also published two short story collections, The Ugliest House in the World (winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize, and the Oregon Book Award) and Equal Love (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a New York Times Notable Book). Davies’ work has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post and TLS among others, and been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. In 2003 Granta magazine named him among its “Best of Young British Novelists.” Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts and a winner of the PEN/Malamud and PEN/Macmillan Awards. Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, he now makes his home in the US. He has taught at the University of Oregon, Northwestern and Emory University, and is currently on faculty at the University of Michigan. | |
Kelly Hoppenjans | Singer-songwriter Kelly Hoppenjans creates empowering rock, combining the spirit of riot grrrl tinged with folky introspection. The follow-up to her energetic 2019 full-length debut, OK, I Feel Better Now, her new EP Can’t Get the Dark Out dives deep into relationships, fate, and breaking free of toxic patterns. The EP is inspired in part by Hoppenjans’ journey of finding love during the pandemic: navigating online dating, confinement, and impending life changes to sustain that love. Kelly authored Kelly Hoppenjans Takes Herself Too Seriously, A Collection of Poems, Music, Lyrics and Some Real Arty Shit. "In contrast to what the title says, Hoppenjans brings a playfulness by including drawings, handwritten notes, and QR codes on the pages of the book. Poems and lyrics are distinct but morph into one form or the other when on the page or sung in a recording." —A2Pulp |  |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
