Authors/Presenters Biographical Information
Authors with asterisks after their names are presenting as well as signing at the festival.
David Baldacci* has published sixteen novels including his newest thriller, The Whole Truth, which takes readers on a global adventure that traces some of Mr. Baldacci’s own recent European travels. He practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., as both a trial and corporate attorney. The Wish You Well Foundation, established by Michelle and David Baldacci, supports family literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs.
J.S Borthwick* is the author or thirteen mysteries featuring Professor Sarah Dean and Dr. Alex McKenzie.
Gerry Boyle* is a Maine-based mystery novelist best known for the Jack McMorrow mysteries including Homebody, Pretty Dead, and Borderline.
Henry Braun* is the author of Loyalty: New and Selected Poems (Off the Grid Press) and The Vergil Woods (Atheneum). Formerly a teacher at Temple University, he lives in Weld, Maine.
Franklin Burroughs taught English literature at Bowdoin college from 1968-2002 and has written three books, including Confluence: Merrymeeting Bay, and many essays for literary quarterlies.
Portland-born Peter Clenott* is the author of Hunting the King.
Ellen Cooney* is the author of seven novels, including Lambrusco (Pantheon 2008), Gun Ball Hill and A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker and many literary journals. She has taught creative writing at MIT, Harvard, Boston College, and the University of Maine.
Ron Currie, Jr.*’s short stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, The Sun, Other Voices, and Night Train. He was shortlisted for the Fish International Short Story Award and Swink Magazine’s Emerging Writer Award. God Is Dead (Viking Penguin 2008) is his first book, and he is currently completing his second.
Elizabeth De Wolfe is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New England and the author of The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories.
Brooke Dojny* is the author or co-author of more than a dozen cookbooks, including Dishing Up Maine and AMA Family Cookbook, which won the James Beard Award in 1997. From 1990 to 2004, she co-authored Bon Appetit’s monthly “Every-Night Cooking” column. She started her culinary career in the late 1970s when she worked as a catering directress for Martha Stewart.
Martha Tod Dudman is the author of Expecting to Fly and best-selling Augusta, Gone, Her new novel is Black Olives.
Mary Duncan’s love of genealogy and history were the sparks that ignited her writing about eighteenth-century Scotland in her novel Eyes of Garnet.
Annie Finch* is the author of Eve, Calendars, and many other books of and about poetry. She directs the Stonecoast MFA program at USM. www.anniefinch.com.
Kate Clark Flora is the author of ten books including Stalking Death, and Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine, a 2007 Edgar nominee.
Mary Lee Coe Fowler, author of Full Fathom Five: A Daughter’s Search is a writer and teacher of English and ESL.
Melinda Josiah Geaumont is the author of Becoming Auma, her first novel.
Cynthia Fraser Graves previous work includes Eyes Like Jewels. She is past recipient of First Prize in Nonfiction from the Ocean Park Writer's Conference.
William C. Hammond*, author of A Matter of Honor, lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his wife and three sons. An avid sailor, he sails when he can on the coast of Maine.
Rosemary Herbert* is editor in chief of The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing, and co-editor (with Tony Hillerman) of A New Omnibus of Crime and The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories.
Kerck Kelsey is the author of Remarkable Americans. After careers in publishing and banking, he received a Master’s Degree in History from Harvard University just before his seventieth birthday.
Valerie Lawson, author of Dog Watch, participated in the first Women of the World poetry competition in Detroit in March.
Marcus LiBrizzi, author of Dark Woods, Chill Waters: Ghost Tales from Down East Maine, teaches at the University of Maine at Machias. He reports that “there are no ghost stories as chilling, as … those from the ‘lost coastline,’ the remote part of the Eastern Seaboard forgotten somewhere between Bar Harbor and Campobello Island.”
Michael Maglaras* is a filmmaker, independent businessman, and acclaimed reader of American poetry. He has just released a complete recording of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” and will premiere his new film Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet in September 2008.
Stacy Mitchell, author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, is a senior researcher and writer with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
James L. Nelson*, a former professional sailor and resident of Harpswell, is an award-winning author of maritime fiction and non-fiction. His new book is called George Washington’s Secret Navy.
Julia Older’s Shoals novel This Desire Place received a gold medal for Northeast Regional Fiction in Independent Publisher Book Awards.
Lincoln P. Paine* is the author of Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia and Down East: A Maritime History of Maine.
Rev. Peter Panagore* reaches nearly two million viewers, listeners and readers weekly through TV, radio and the web for First Radio Parish Church of America. www.dailydevotions.org.
Christos Papousty* is a second-generation Greek American and the author of Ships of Mercy: The True Story of the Rescue of the Greeks at Smyrna.
A photographer who loves being underwater, Heather Perry’s stock imagery collection is currently represented by National Geographic Image Collection.
Richard Roberts, author of I was Much Happier When Everything I Owned Was in the Back Seat of My Volkswagon: A wake-up call for the biggest generation, is a former Boston advertising executive, semi-retired in Maine, Harvard and University of Iowa graduate; boomer, activist, ex-Army Sergeant, and adjunct college professor.
Neil Rolde, author of Continental Liar from the State of Maine: James G. Blaine is a historian and former legislator.
Author and illustrator of the textbook Basic Book Repair Methods, Abraham A. Schechter* teaches book conservation, bookbinding, and photo conservation at national and state library conferences and at various historical societies and libraries, including those at Harvard University.
Catherine Schmitt, author of A Coastal Companion: A Gulf of Maine Almanac, from Canada to Cape Cod, is a science writer for the Maine Sea Grant College Program.
Aurelia C. Scott* is a Contributing Editor to AudioFile Magazine. Her essays and articles appear in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, Down East, Cottage Living, and Garden Design.
.
Translator Sagaree Sengupta* is writer and scholar of Indian literature. Krishna Baldev Vaid, whose work Sengupta will discuss, is a prominent Indian novelist and dramatist who writes in Hindi.
Lee Sharkey* is the author of three full-length volumes of poetry, including the just-published A Darker, Sweeter String, and the editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.
Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.* has been the director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission since 1976 and State Historian since 2004.
Bruce Snider* is a senior editor at Custom Home magazine and the author of At Home by the Sea: Houses Designed for Living at the Water’s Edge.
Elizabeth Strout* is the author of the national bestsellers Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker.
Amy Sutherland* is the author of three books, her most recent being What Shamu Taught Me About Live, Love and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers. That book is based on a column she wrote for the New York Times, which was the paper’s most emailed story of all of 2006.
Lea Wait* writes the Agatha-finalist Shadows Antique Print Mystery series (Shadows at the Fair, Shadows on the Coast of Maine, Shadows on the Ivy, Shadows at the Spring Show). www.leawait.com
William H. White* is a sailor, maritime historian, former naval officer and author. His novels of naval action in the age of sail, include his latest, In Pursui tof Glory.
Brian Vanden Brink* is an architectural photographer whose work graces At Home by the Sea: Houses for Living at the Water’s Edge and At Home in Maine; Houses Designed to Fit the Land.
Brian Wood* is the Eisner-Award-winning creator of a number of comics works, including Demo, DMZ, Local, which follows the protagonist to a different place each issue, and the upcoming New York Four from DC Comics and Local from Oni Press. http://www.brianwood.com/
Crystal Zevon* is the former wife and lifelong companion of the late musician Warren Zevon. Janet Maslin of the New York Times named I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon to her list of Top 10 Books of 2007.
Young Adult and Children’s Authors/Illustrators Biographical Information
Authors with asterisks after their names are presenting as well as signing at the festival.
Debby Atwell has been writing and illustrating books for fifteen years, her most recent book is The Warthog’s Tail. XXXXX
Lisa Bossi is the co-creator of Ambledance Pictures and Verse and illustrator of January’s Child and Welcome Tiny Star.
Rochelle Draper* is the author of The Stone Wall Dragon and has illustrated two of the Carol Rhoda “On My Own” biography series.
Jody Fein* has training and experience in theater, early education and social work. She incorporates rhythm, song movement and characterization in her storytelling. She also offers workshops for parents and teachers.
Sandra Palmer Fish, author of S.isters E.verywhere W.ishing for Peace, enjoys traveling with or being home with her husband and three children.
Phillip Hoose*'s memoir Perfect, Once Removed, was hailed by Time Magazine "one of five sports books of 2007 worth cheering about." For young readers, his 2001 We Were There Too! was a National Book Award Finalist. Hey Little Ant, co-authored with his daughter Hannah, was a 1999 Jane Addams Award honor book. More at http://www.philliphoose.com/
Paul Janeczko has published 45 books including A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms and Wing Nuts: Screwy Haiku. Two time Maine Lupine Award Winner.
Carrie Jones* made her YA novel debut with Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend. The follow-up, Love (And other Uses for Duct Tape) was released in March 2008.
Robin Merrow MacCready* is the author of Buried, the 2007 Edgar Winner for Best YA, and a New York Public Library Best Book of the Teen Age.
Sarah Sherman McGrail is a seventh generation Southport Island native and has written five books, her most recent being Harbor Journal Vol. II.
Susan Meyer is the author of Matthew and Tall Rabbit Go Camping.
Scott Nash, author/illustrator of Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie’s Missing Brain is the creative director of Scott Nash Productions.
Rosemarie Nervelle is the author of The Witch of Beaver Creek Mine, her first young adult novel.
Maria Padian*, author of the YA novel Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, has worked as a news reporter, an essayist for public radio, a press secretary for a U.S. congressman, and a freelance writer.
Lynn Plourde* is the author of 20 picture books, including Pigs in the Mud, Dino Pets, and Margaret Chase Smith: A Woman for President.