| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
|---|---|---|
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. |  |
Brenda E. Bentley | What started as a hobby during her children’s teen years turned into a passion project for Brenda E. Bentley who wrote River Walks Ann Arbor; Walking Loops Along the Huron River. She spent many days poring over historical maps at the Bentley Library, and many, many days exploring on foot all the streets of Ann Arbor to design pleasing walking loops. Brenda got to know the trees of the city and its wonderful pioneer history. During this time, she fell in love with the ice-age history of the surface geology of Michigan. She decided to make the moraines and river a central theme of the book, interlaced with one-page stories of cultural history. Since the book project, Brenda has continued to explore and learn about the wonderful glacial deposits covering Michigan. She has a rudimentary Youtube channel, Brenda Ellen Bentley, on which (for example) she posts videos focussed on the glacial remains seen from the Kiwanis Rail Trail between Tecumseh and Adrian. She and her husband moved to Ann Arbor in 1992, raised their children there, and now are delighted to be grandparents. They also carry the agony of losing their beautiful 18-year-old son in 2007. They look daily toward spiritual sources of strength along this rugged path. |  |
Aaron P. Dworkin | Best-selling writer and host of the nationally-broadcast Arts Engines show, Aaron P. Dworkin was President Obama's first appointment to the National Council on the Arts. He is a former dean and current Professor of Arts Leadership & Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He is the founder of the Sphinx Organization, with the mission of transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. He has collaborated with a breadth of artists including Yo-Yo Ma and Anna Deveare Smith. He has been featured in several publications and received numerous awards including Newsweek's "15 People Who Make America Great” and BET's History Makers in the Making Award. Aaron is a frequent speaker at several universities and conferences and a member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), in addition to serving on the board of multiple art organizations including the Ann Arbor Foundation. He is an avid kayaker, poker player, and boater, having captained multiple crossings of the Gulfstream. He is married to Afa Sadykhly Dworkin, a prominent international arts leader who serves as President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, and has two awesome sons, Noah Still and Amani Jaise. They reside in Michigan with their two Savannah cats, Mocha and Pekoe, and English Cream Retriever, Rondo. | |
Cassandra Caverhill | Cassandra Caverhill is a Canadian-American poet and editor. She is the author of the chapbook Mayflies (Finishing Line Press) and a winner of the 2021 AWP Intro Journals Award. Her work has most recently appeared in Atticus Review, Peninsula Poets, Coastal Shelf, Last Resort Literary Review, Reed Magazine, and Into the Void. She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University’s MFA program in Poetry. Cassandra earned a certificate in Editing from the University of Chicago and an honors BA in Drama and Communication Studies from the University of Windsor. Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Cassandra lives, writes, and edits with her husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. |  |
Amy Emberling | Amy Emberling has been an avid food lover and baker since her childhood in Nova Scotia, Canada. After high school, she moved to Cambridge, MA, and received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. She then followed her passion for food and learned to cook and bake at L’ecole de Gastronomie Francaise at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, France and Michigan restaurants. In 1999 she received her MBA from Columbia University. Amy came to Zingerman’s Bakehouse when it opened in 1992 as one of the original bakers on the staff of eight. She soon became the first manager of the bread bakery, and then the manager of the pastry kitchen. In 2000, Amy became Managing Partner at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. She is the co-author of the cookbook Zingerman’s Bakehouse. As well as teaching at BAKE! Amy presents for ZingTrain on business practices. A few of the Bakehouse items she is personally responsible for developing are the Old School Apple Pie, Buenos Aires Brownies, and our Gingerbread Coffee Cake. In addition to developing items, Amy is a promoter of classic bakery favorites from many cultures and has brought traditional standards to the Bakehouse such as Paris Brest, Hummingbird Cake, and Dobos Torta. Amy lives in Ann Arbor with her husband Geoff, their two grown children, Jake and Ruby, daughter in-law Emily and grandson Miles. |  |
Linda Cotton Jeffries | My name is Linda Cotton Jeffries and I grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for over thirty years, I taught special education in a variety of settings. I retired from teaching in 2016 and since then have gone from writing part time to writing full time. My first novels, We Thought We Knew You and Who We Might Be, were published by Fifth Avenue Press in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My novel Seeing in the Quiet was published October 1st 2021 by Sunbury Press. Strong women, suspense, and romance are the elements I most enjoy writing about! | |
Polly Rosenwaike | Polly Rosenwaike’s story collection, Look How Happy I’m Making You, was published by Doubleday, and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Best Short Story Collections of 2019” and Glamour’s “Best Books of 2019.” Her fiction and book reviews have appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories, Glimmer Train, the New York Times Book Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in Ann Arbor, where she works as a freelance editor and serves as Fiction Editor for Michigan Quarterly Review. |  |
Jennifer Traig | Jennifer Traig is the author of Act Natural, Well Enough Alone, and Devil in the Details and the editor of The Autobiographer's Handbook and Don't Forget to Write. She holds a PhD in English from Brandeis, and teaches in the Comprehensive Studies Program at UM. | |
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. | |
Petra Kuppers | Petra Kuppers (she/her) is a disability culture activist, a writer, and a community performance artist. Petra grounds herself in disability culture methods, and uses ecosomatics, performance, and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. Her third poetry collection, Gut Botany, was named one of the top ten US poetry books of 2020 by the New York Public Library, and won the 2021/22 Creative Book Award by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Petra is Artistic Director of The Olimpias, an international disability culture collective, and she co-creates Turtle Disco, a somatic writing studio. She is the Anita Gonzalez Collegiate Professor of Performance Studies and Disability Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. | |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
