Michigan Authors

Jim Mangi

Historical Fiction

After somewhat accidentally volunteering for, and serving in, Vietnam, Jim Mangi got a PhD in ecology and spent 40 years in consulting, predicting the effects of things like power plants, dams, pipelines, and military equipment. He wrote over 100 public reports, earning praise for their clarity to the public audience. Jim sold his company to care for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and as a form of respite from caregiving, began writing alternate histories. One of his books rigorously and credibly explores the “What If” of getting the atomic bomb somewhat sooner, and the other later than we actually did. In both books, our modern world, from the geopolitics of Europe, and of East Asia, to US presidential politics, to the space race, to the economy of Michigan, turn out rather differently from what we have today, and from each other.

Jim lives in Saline where he continues caregiving for his wife. He volunteers with the Alzheimer’s Association teaching classes on dementia and caregiving, and he chairs Dementia Friendly Saline, educating communities on how to make life less difficult and more dignified for friends and neighbors living with dementia. He has dedicated both books to his wife, “who has cheerfully lived in an alternative reality for years”, and the dedications further commits that all of Jim’s proceeds go to the Alzheimer’s Association. Saline’s Fine Print bookshop carries both titles: Dropping the Atomic Bomb—on Hirohito and Hitler and The First Atomic Bomb-An Alternate History.

https://www.dfsaline.org/who-is-dfs

Stephanie D. Preston

Academic, Non-Fiction

Stephanie D. Preston is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. She has a master’s degree and a PhD in behavioral neuroscience from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied the neurobiology and behavior of decisions in food-storing animals. Subsequently, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine to study how the brain supports emotion-based decisions in humans. Stephanie’s research is interdisciplinary in focus and methods to address how the brain evolved to support complex behavior at the intersection of emotion and decision making. One focus is on empathy and altruism, particularly how others' states impact our own and motivate helping. Another focus is on decisions about resources, such as food, money, material goods, and charitable gifts, to address issues surrounding consumerism, hoarding, and pro-environmental behavior. She is currently fusing her lines of research to determine how best to promote altruism and charitable giving across racial and political divides and for other species and the natural environment, including collaborations with corporations and non-profit organizations.

https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/prestos.html

Christine Hume

Collection, Poetry

Born into a military family and constitutionally restless, Christine Hume lived in over 25 places in the U.S. and Europe before landing in Ypsilanti. Her latest collection of essays on sex offenders and women’s bodies, Everything I Never Wanted to Know, will be available from Ohio State University Press (21st Century Essays Series). She is also the author of a lyric portrait of girlhood, Saturation Project (Solid Objects, 2021), which The New York Times says, “arrives…with the force of a hurricane,” as well as several books of poetry. She has guest edited two issues of the American Book Review, on #MeToo and Girlhood, and is currently guest editing a folio for The Hopkins Review on walking. Since 2001, she has been a faculty member in the Creative Writing program at Eastern Michigan University.

https://christinehume.com/

Peter Ho Davies

Historical Fiction

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.

http://peterhodavies.com/

Dan Romanchik

Academic, Non-Fiction

Dan Romanchik has been an Ann Arbor resident for more than 35 years and an amateur radio
operator for even longer. A Detroit native, Dan made his way to Ann Arbor to work for Northern
Telecom as an electronics engineer and engineering manager. After a six-year stint there, he
worked for Test & Measurement World, a magazine for electronics engineers, and then worked
as a freelance writer and website developer. He enjoys going to movies at the Michigan Theater
and teaching amateur radio classes. Dan’s books are for those who will be taking their Technician Class, General Class, and Amateur Extra Class license exams, who are recently licensed or are just getting back into amateur radio, and those wanting to learn the art of Morse Code.

https://www.kb6nu.com