| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
|---|---|---|
Robert Pasick | Robert Pasick, Ph.D. is a prolific writer and featured speaker on the complexities of the human condition. Being a Harvard educated psychologist and a University of Michigan trained executive coach, he has helped hundreds of private sector and nonprofit leaders, educators, government officials, and healthcare professionals reach their optimal level of performance. He teaches at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business and serves as a consultant to the University of Michigan football team. He served as an advisor to companies who lost employees in New York City after 9/11 and provided services to the President of Rwanda following that country’s period of Genocide. Dr. Pasick has written eight books, resulting in appearances on Oprah, The Today Show, and National Public Radio. Dr. Pasick’s books draw on his experience as a human being, a clinical and organizational psychologist, and an executive coach to help people find and express themselves. | |
Shutta Crum | Shutta Crum is a long-time resident of Ann Arbor who now divides her time between Ann Arbor and St. Augustine, Florida. She served as a public librarian at both the South Lyon Public Library and the Ann Arbor District Library for more than twenty four years and was awarded the Michigan Library Association Award of Merit as the youth librarian of the year in 2002. She is the author of many middle grade novels, picture books, books of poetry, poems, and magazine articles, including THUNDER-BOOMER! an American Library Association and a Smithsonian Magazine “Notable Book” of the year. She’s won four Royal Palm Literary awards, with a gold for her chapbook When You Get Here (Poems for Adults), and she has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. In 2005 Shutta was invited to read at the White House. In 2010 she presented to students in Japan, hosted by the Dept. of Defense Schools. Now she writes the monthly Wordsmith’s Playground newsletter for writers, blogs for the Florida Writers Association, and writes a column on craft for the OPAP magazine (Of Poets & Poetry) for the Florida State Poet’s Association. Her presentations include author talks, lectures, and workshops for writers, teachers, and librarians. | |
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. | |
Raymond De Young | Raymond De Young is a broadly trained psychologist, planner, and engineer. He is Associate Professor of Environmental Psychology and Planning in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He focuses on the process of re-localization, a response to emerging biophysical limits and the consequences of having deeply disrupted the Earth's ecosystems. He applies conservation and environmental psychology to the challenge of helping people envision and adopt behaviors that support an urgent transition to a life lived within local resource limits. Despite what for some people is a dismal forecast, his work is decidedly hopeful. His theoretical and empirical research includes exploring how people pre-familiarize themselves with the coming resource downshift, motivate stewardship, and use nature to restore the mental vitality needed for responding to the lean yet fascinating times ahead. Current projects include examining the psychological foundations of behavioral entrepreneurship and voluntary simplicity, and the benefits embedded in pursuing a low-input agrarian society. | |
A.H. Kim | A.H. Kim (Ann) was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the U.S. as a young child. Ann was educated at Harvard College and Berkeley Law, practiced corporate law for many years, and served as chief of staff to the CEO and head of investor relations at a Fortune 200 company. Ann is the proud mother of two sons, a long time cancer survivor, and community volunteer. After raising her family in the Bay Area, Ann and her husband now call Ann Arbor home. |  |
Marianne K. Martin | Marianne K. Martin is one of the best-selling lesbian romance authors in the history of the genre, and her books have gained a wide international readership. She is the author of eleven novels. Her highly successful novels include the Lambda Literary Award finalists Tangled Roots, Under the Witness Tree, Mirrors, and For Now, For Always. In 2012, she was honored with the Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society and in 2013 she was inducted into the Saints & Sinners Hall of Fame. Marianne is also one of the founding partners of Bywater Books. Her responsibilities include managing general operations, as well as the Bywater Prize for Fiction, and working with Bywater’s new writers. | |
Liz Crowe | A Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville living in South Carolina, Liz Crowe lived in Ann Arbor for almost 20 years. Many of Liz’s books take place in southeast Michigan, and one in Ann Arbor specifically. She's spent her time as a three-continent expat trailing spouse, mom of three, real estate agent, brewery owner and bar manager, and is currently a digital marketing and fundraising consultant, in addition to being an award-winning author. With stories set in breweries, on the soccer pitch, inside fictional television stations and successful real estate offices, and even in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are compelling and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished. | |
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. | |
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. | |
Juan Cole | Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Cole has devoted his career to understanding the Middle East and the Muslim world more generally, and to critically evaluating its relationship with the North Atlantic states. His most recent book is The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian. Among his other recent works are Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires (Bold Type Books, 2018) and The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2014). He has translated works of Lebanese-American author Kahlil Gibran. He has appeared widely on media, including the PBS NewsHour, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, the Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes' All In, CNN, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many others. He has written about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the Gulf and South Asia and about both extremist groups and peace movements. He is proprietor of the Informed Comment news and analysis site. Cole conducts his research in Arabic, Persian and Urdu and Turkish as well as several European languages. He knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for more than a decade, and continues to travel widely there. He has written, edited or translated 21 books and authored over 100 articles and chapters. | |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
