| 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. | |
Simone Yehuda | Simone Yehuda is a bilingual (French is her first language) screenwriter who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband, historian Barry Michael Shapiro. Simone’s father was a German Jewish Holocaust survivor escaping from Hitler who met her mother, a French Catholic whose own mother was a leader of the French Resistance. She began as a poet (2 books published: THAW and LIFTING WATER, and a third poetry collection, PIECES OF THUNDER). She has served as Founding Editor for ECLIPSE MAGAZINE and Poetry Editor at BRIDGES JOURNAL. Her BA is from Bennington College. As a graduate student at Columbia University, she played flute with a NY Symphony Orchestra and was a member of the Mass Transit Dance Company. She’s also a multi-produced playwright (including a mystery, WILLING, Off Broadway). She has served as Playwright in Residence at Detroit’s Attic Theater. She later earned a Master’s in Screenwriting at Screenwriting U and became a Top Tier Screenwriter at Roadmap Writers. Professor Emeritus at Siena Heights University, she’s now a full-time screenwriter. Some of her screenplays – JERUSALEM ROAD, THE NEW EVE, and LOVE AND HOMICIDE – focus on the reconciliation of opposites divided by cultural and identity barriers. | |
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. | |
Ari Weinzweig | Ari Weinzweig moved to Ann Arbor from his hometown of Chicago to attend the University of Michigan. After graduating, he went to work washing dishes in a local restaurant and soon discovered that he loved the food business. Ari and Paul Saginaw started Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982 with a bank loan, a staff of two, a small selection of specialty foods and a short sandwich menu. Since then, Ari and Paul have built Zingerman’s into an Ann Arbor institution with over 500,000 visitors every year and a staff of 500+. In April of 1995, Ari and Paul received the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award for their community contributions. In 2007, the two were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari has served on several boards including The Ark, and president of The American Cheese Society. He is a frequent guest speaker in business classes and food conferences from University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University to American Institute of Wine and Food. | |
John U. Bacon | New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon has written thirteen books on sports, business, and history, seven of them national bestsellers. His previous book, Let Them Lead: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America’s Worst High School Hockey Team, was featured in the New York Times, and on Good Morning America, which called him “the REAL Ted Lasso”. He freelances for The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, and others, appears often on TV, including HBO, ESPN, and the Big Ten Network, and delivers weekly essays for Michigan Radio and occasionally NPR, where he won the prize for the nation’s best commentary in 2014. Bacon is a popular corporate speaker and leadership consultant, who occasionally teaches at the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award, given to one instructor annually for “Excellence in Teaching”. In 2019 he was appointed trustee of Michigan Technological University, where he delivered the commencement speech in 2022. John is a decent Spanish speaker, an average hockey player, and a poor piano player, but he still enjoys all three. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and son. | |
Bethany Neal | Bethany Neal is the author of the internationally published young adult novel My Last Kiss (FSG Books for Young Readers/Macmillan). When she's not writing, she is part of the editorial team at Cherry Lake Publishing and teaches writing workshops at the Ann Arbor District Library. | |
Sarah Magee | Sarah Magee is an inveterate traveler, unabashed globalist, and firm believer in always eating dessert first. It is never too early for ice cream. She is a master packer of suitcases and lifelong Michigander. I Never Said I Love You is her literary debut. |  |
Colby Halloran | Colby graduated from the Circle-in-the-Square Professional Acting Workshop in New York City in 1978, where she studied with Nikos Psacharopoulos. From 1977-1980 she performed at his theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, as well as on Off-Off Broadway. In 1979 she became a company member and subsequently Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre Exchange, a 50-seat loft theatre in Lower Manhattan, founded by Charles Clubb. Mr. Clubb was killed in front of the theatre the following year, at which point Colby closed The Theatre Exchange, left the theatre and has been writing ever since. Colby has published three short stories before she turned to writing novels: “The Plateau” in The Southern Review, “The Pension Plan” in Emrys Journal and “Field and Stream” in American Chordata. In November 2024 her auto-fiction/memoir The Northeast Corner was published by Fifth Avenue Press (AADL). Locum Tenens, Portrait of a Country Doctor in Wales, about a hard-working elderly country doctor in North Wales who goes out on a series of strenuous house calls, and Bicycle Boy, A Death in the Neighborhood, about The Theatre Exchange. A third novel, Ffos-y-Rhiew, is about her friendship with an elderly farmer in Shropshire. “Bird of Passage,” her full-length play, premiered at the Bagaduce Theatre in September 2019. (birdofpassageplay.com) Colby is a Member of the Dramatist’s Guild. She lives in Ann Arbor with her husband. |  |
Jonathan Rowe | Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jonathan Rowe has won two Avery Hopwood writing awards at the University of Michigan, the Marion Kirkwood Best Brief award at Stanford Law School, and the Thomas Cooley Prize for Best Brief in the Michigan Supreme Court. After law school, Jonathan worked five years as a Trial Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, prosecuting police brutality and racial violence cases; ten years as a Senior Partner at Dykema Gossett PLLC in Michigan, specializing in media defense litigation; and ten years as a Partner in Soble Rowe Krichbaum LLP in Ann Arbor, broadening his practice to include plaintiff-side securities class action and tobacco litigation, and serving as a private mediator and arbitrator. In 2006 Jonathan Rowe retired from law practice to write novels full-time. He is the author of The Writing on the Wall (2003), A Question of Identity (2005), and The River of Strange People (2010). Jonathan and his wife, Susan Kessler, lived in Hawaii for 11 years, but recently returned to Ann Arbor, to be closer to their two children and grandchildren. | |
Ellen Craine | Grief and Loss Expert Ellen Craine is a licensed clinical and macro social worker in the State of Michigan, founder of Craine Counseling and Consulting Group, and has over 25 years of experience working with couples, families, groups, and individuals in a variety of capacities. She has been a divorce and family mediator and parenting coordinator, working with high-conflict parents to improve their ability to co-parent more effectively. She is a relationship and life coach and therapist, incorporating the science of success with her social work experience. Ellen is a #1 International Bestselling author of Women Who Dream, Women Who Empower, and Leading with Legacy. All are in the Kate Butler’s Impact Book Series. Ellen writes on the topics of childhood cancer, her breast cancer journey, the loss of her husband to a brain tumor––and how to rise above the challenges presented by life. She is a Co-Associate Producer of the documentary, Authentic Conversations: Deep Talk with the Masters, written, directed, and produced by LA Emmy-nominated Dr. Angela Sadler Williamson. Ellen is a co-coordinating producer on the documentary, Authentic Conversations: Voices Rise in Unity, also written, directed, and produced by LA Emmy-nominated Dr. Angela Sadler Williamson. This is a documentary about social justice and pays tribute to the civil rights icon, Rosa Parks. | |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
