Jamie Meckel Tablason is a gifted children’s-book illustrator. She cites her love of Japanese and California culture, sea creatures, and good food as the inspirations behind her vivid drawings. With her art, Tablason hopes to encourage young readers to tell their own stories.
Born and raised in Southern California, Tablason graduated from California State University Long Beach School of Art, where she earned both her BFA and her MFA in illustration. She has also taught art classes at the college. Sippi Sue and the Cool Cat Blues marks her third collaboration with author Beth Greenway.
Tablason resides in Lakewood, California, with her husband and two dogs.
Robert Tallant was one of Louisiana’s best-known authors. Born in New Orleans in 1909, he attended the city’s local public schools. Before “drifting” into writing, Tallant worked as an advertising copywriter, a bank teller, and a clerk. It was his friendship with Lyle Saxon that led Tallant to his position as editor on the Louisiana WPA Writers’ Project during the 1930s and 1940s. In that position, he coauthored Gumbo Ya-Ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana with Lyle Saxon and Edward Dreyer.
By 1948, Tallant’s career had launched, and over the next eleven years he produced eight novels, six full-length works of nonfiction, and numerous short stories and articles on subjects of local interest. He is also known to have corresponded with, as well as applied to, the Julius Rosenwald Fund for a fellowship in creative writing. During the last years of his life, he was a lecturer in English at Newcomb College as well as a reporter for the New Orleans Item. Robert Tallant died in 1957.
Following the advice of famed culinary artist Julia Child, Elaine Tammi has established herself as an authority in the field of preparing and cooking scallops. After spending forty years in the kitchen, making meals her family, and taking gourmet cooking classes, she now enjoys concocting her own recipes. When not cooking, her energy is devoted to writing. Tammi and her daughter, Karin, have shared their extensive experience by coauthoring articles for Food Arts and Coastal Living magazines and teaching food preparation classes in their local area.
A former teacher, Tammi is a member of the Northeast chapter of the Women's Fisheries Network, Cape Cod Writers Center, the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, and the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. She graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and earned her masters degree in reading from Fitchburg State College. She also enrolled in graduate courses in South Asian history at the University of Sydney.
She was married to the late Carl Tammi, a college professor, and has two adult children. When not in the kitchen, she is out at sea and enjoys beaching, boating, and reading her favorite mysteries and cookbooks. She resides in Sandwich, Massachusetts.
Fondly referred to as “The Scallop Queen” by her students at Roger Williams University, Karin A. Tammi manages the Shellfish Hatchery and supervises research in Bristol, Rhode Island. The work she completed on the restoration of bay scallops at the University of Rhode Island proved instrumental in the formation of the Bay Scallop Restoration Project in Massachusetts. This pioneering research team was the first in New England to use innovative aquaculture techniques to restore scallop populations. As an expert in the field of marine biology, Tammi has been featured on National Public Radio, CNN, and in People magazine.
Tammi has worked within the field of marine biology in locations ranging from the Gulf of Alaska to the ponds of New England. She is vice president of the Northeast Chapter of the Womens Fisheries Network and has served as the shellfish restoration coordinator for the state of Rhode Island.
A graduate of Southeastern Massachusetts University with dual bachelor degrees in biology and marine biology, Tammi completed her masters degree in fishery, animal, and veterinary science at the University of Rhode Island, studying aquatic pathology and aquaculture with a concentration in shellfish biology.
Tammi and her mother, Elaine, have taught cooking classes together and coauthored articles about preparing scallops in Food Arts and Coastal Living magazines. Apart from fishing, boating, and cooking, she enjoys swimming, bicycling, and beekeeping. She considers herself a foodie and a scallop aficionado. Tammi resides in Little Compton, Rhode Island.
Born on Valentine's Day and a native of Boston, Adrian Tans has traveled the world and by his standards has been mostly successful in the hard undertaking of growing up. His travels have taken him from coast-to-coast and around Europe.
Tans has worked as a carpenter, ships cook, stay-at-home dad, five-time Vermont state snow sculpting champ, professional coffee pourer, and photographer's assistant. He currently works as a painter and illustrator, exhibiting in a variety of galleries and venues. He lives with his wife Lina and their three children in New England.
A retired professional who has worked as an executive, entrepreneur, and educator, Mel Tarman is a first-time children's author with a passion for teaching young readers about the history of the Jewish people. Among his other achievements, Tarman is the recipient of the American Legion Merit Award for outstanding writing and the former publisher of New Ventures magazine for young entrepreneurs.
In addition to having worked in publishing for many years, Tarman served in the United States army during the Korean Conflict. A graduate of New York University with a BA in psychology, he went on to receive a MA from New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Tarman, a native of Brooklyn, has lived and worked in various cities throughout the country; he resides in Galveston, Texas, with his wife.
A Louisiana native, John Taylor was born and raised in New Orleans. A life-long lover of music, he has worked a variety of odd jobs to support his passion of performing and entertaining. Taylor has been featured both in print and by television media, and he contributed to the compilation book The Beatles and Me.
A bass player like Paul McCartney, Taylor was raised in a music-loving household and now plays with the Louisiana-based group the Meanies. In addition to his band, Taylor has performed with many other musicians over the years and has recorded several original songs. When he’s not recording or performing on stage, Taylor also enjoys acting as an extra and has appeared in more than forty films. He had a small speaking role in the New Orleans-shot Academy Award winner Dallas Buyers Club.
Taylor is a member of the Journey Fellowship Church in Slidell, Louisiana. He comes from a large family of six siblings. A father of two daughters, he resides in Slidell with his wife, Janet.
An accomplished chef, teacher, and school administrator, Jude Theriot successfully blended two seemingly incongruous careers for thirty-seven years. If you ask him, he'll tell you he just followed his passions and did what came naturally. His love for teaching, his skill for managing, and his talent for cooking all combined to produce an extraordinarily rewarding livelihood.
Needing to bolster his schoolteacher salary early in his career, he took a part-time kitchen job. Theriot's choice for moonlighting work landed him in familiar territory. Under the tutelage of his Cajun grandmother, he had begun absorbing cooking fundamentals as a young boy of six. Through the years, he's learned to be creative, using ingredients that are fresh and available while adding just the right amount of spices and seasonings to draw out the natural flavors.
Advancement in his two careers demanded extended formal education and training. Theriot received professional training in traditional French cuisine and served as executive chef at Le Champignon and Gatsby's Top of the Lake, both in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and at the Old Vienna Restaurant in Austin, Texas. A certified culinary professional, Theriot is an active member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. In 1999 he served as executive chair of the IACP Foundation—a philanthropic arm of the association—a high honor considering Julia Child was the honorary chair that year. He has won numerous cooking awards at the local, regional, and national levels.
Theriot also earned his master of education degree and educational specialist degree in psychology and guidance. Those degrees, combined with postgraduate work in administration and supervision, strengthened his ascent to the office of superintendent of Calcasieu Parish schools, where he was recognized as top superintendent of schools in Louisiana. Having recently retired from that post, Theriot is proud to point out that although he pursued both careers simultaneously, he never shortchanged either one, allotting both careers his full attention.
Chef Theriot's seven Cajun cookbooks preserve and expand upon what he describes as the essentials of south Louisiana cooking while still remaining health conscious. He also practices what he preaches, having lost more than one hundred pounds eating the recipes he developed for his Cajun Low-Carb cookbook. Chef Theriot travels extensively to promote Cajun cuisine and healthy eating by giving demonstrations and lectures and conducting classes. You can book an appearance by Chef Theriot by calling the sales department at Pelican Publishing. He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with his family.
When he compiled this bibliography, Carl A. Thimm, F.R.G.S., late Captain 2nd London Rifles, realized “from past experience how impossible it is for a work such as this to be complete.” Yet, more than one hundred years after its initial publication, A Complete Bibliography of Fencing and Duelling remains one of the preeminent books on the subject.
Thimm was a contemporary of Captain Alfred Hutton and Edgerton Castle in the late nineteenth century, when fencing and its traditions were facing competition from modern ballistic weapons. Thimm's book, A Complete Bibliography of Fencing and Duelling, is an examination of the sport “As Practised by all European Nations from the Middle Ages to the Present Day”—the present day being 1896—as well as a chronicle of the fascinating world of fencing and dueling. In addition to the informative bibliography, the “Notes on Fencing and Duelling” section intrigues readers with its accounts of duels as reported in various publications of the time. One story from the September 21, 1890, edition of the Sunday Times startlingly reveals, “After a French duel, if ‘honour has been satisfied,’ and nobody has been assassinated, a grand breakfast usually takes place.” Today, this book functions as an exemplary historical reference.
Deborah Kadair Thomas is an author and illustrator of twelve children’s books. Having worked with young students in the classroom since the 1990s, she understands what children like to see and hear when reading picture books. As a writer and illustrator, she makes her books come alive with collage-style illustrations and lively text. She received the National Parent Publication Award for her dedication to children’s writing.
Thomas obtained a two-year degree in child development at the College of the Mainland in Texas. She went on to obtain her Montessori certification in Omaha, Nebraska, and later her bachelor of arts at Louisiana State University, where she also participated in the Golden Key International Honour Society and Pi Alpha Theta, an academic organization.
Having lived in the South most of her life, Thomas describes herself as “southernality at its most diverse.” She lives in Cedar Park, Texas, with her husband, Gregory, and their son.
Peggy Thomas is fascinated by the world around her. She was inspired to write her first fictional children's book, Joshua the Giant Frog, by the tall tales she heard as a child and by her adult readings of Erie Canal folktales. Growing up outside Buffalo, New York, she and her brother, illustrator Paul Facklam, did not have to wish too hard for snow, but the weather inspired them to create Snow Dance, so that every child could enjoy a snow day.
Ms. Thomas received both her bachelor's and master's degrees in anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has penned stories for Cricket Magazine and Hopscotch for Girls magazine. Joshua the Giant Frog was nominated by NYLA as one of the Best Books of the Summer for 2005. She has also published twelve nonfiction books on the natural sciences, including The Science of Saving Animals Series, of which the Marine Mammal Preservation volume was named NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children; Medicines from Nature, chosen by the New York Public Library as a 1999 Book for the Teen Age; and Volcano!, which was an ALA- recommended Book for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.
Her personal interests include studying the natural world, singing, pottery, and speaking to children in schools across the country about writing nonfiction. A member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, she lives with her husband and two children in the canal town of Middleport, New York, where she is an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature.
Wes Thomas is a native of New Orleans who continues to be attached to the culture in which he was raised. Thomas received his bachelor's degree in visual arts from Southeastern Louisiana University. Although he then left Louisiana to live in Mexico and California, and is now a graduate student in Madison, Wisconsin, he maintains close ties with his hometown.
Thomas's philosophy on life appears to reflect his favorite quote from Dr. Seuss: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” Thomas has had many different jobs, ranging from line cook to deli manager to offshore oil worker in the Gulf of Mexico. However, he has spent most of his time pursuing his passions as a printer and artist in the silk-screening industry.
As an artist, Thomas's favorite pastimes include drawing and etching. He also enjoys spending much of his time outside, particularly camping or fishing. Besides his love for Cajun culture, Thomas is also interested in learning about the lifestyle and history of Native Americans. In the time he has left over from pursuing his other interests, Thomas likes to watch football and listen to music from the eighties.
Thomas's first children's book, Down the Crawfish Hole, published by Pelican, describes the adventures of Maurice as he follows a little blue crawfish down its hole and travels through an enchanted and mysterious bayou land. Thomas chose to create this Cajun version of the classic Alice in Wonderland story because “the original Alice in Wonderland was a wild, and unusual tale, so I decided that a Louisiana perspective would fit perfectly with our unique and unusual culture.” As writer and illustrator of this colorful and imaginative tale, Thomas is able to continue to explore his connection to his Louisiana background and his love for Cajun culture.
Born in 1959 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Tynia Thomassie spent most of her childhood with her Cajun French Grampa Clarence, Irish Gramma Netta, and Aunt Shirley, all positive influences who created what she called “her haven and heaven.” She studied dance from age four until adulthood, and majored in theatre at Louisiana State University. After pursuing acting with some success throughout her early twenties, she began taking children's book illustration classes at the New School in New York City, which led to her eventual publication.
Currently Ms. Thomassie lives in West Orange, New Jersey, with her husband, jazz guitarist Dave Stryker, and two sons. In addition to writing, she enjoys playing piano, watercoloring, and supporting public education in her hometown.
Her other books include Cajun Through & Through, and Mimi's Tutu.
Helen Thompson is a Texas-based food writer and editor who serves as the city editor for Metropolitan Home magazine and is a regional editor for the Meredith Corporation. The former editor and creative director of TRIBEZA magazine in Austin, Texas, she has also worked for Texas Monthly for nearly two decades as a writer and editor. Thompson's love for Texan food and passion for cooking shine through in Dallas Classic Desserts.
The author of multiple cookbooks, Thompson has covered various topics in her previous titles such as food, kitchen design, and wedding organization. Her manifold interests also led her to publish hundreds of articles in magazines including InStyle, Better Homes and Gardens, and HOME Magazine. In addition to being a writer, she is a passionate photographer and has produced photo shoots for Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, and Western Interior & Design.
Thompson graduated cum laude with special honors from the University of Texas at Austin where she received a BA and a MA in English. A member of the advisory council at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, she serves on the advisory board for the Charles Moore Foundation, an institution dedicated to preserving the Moore/Andersson Compound and promoting Charles Moore's teaching on architecture. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Mary Thompson, of St. Francisville, Louisiana, is the great-niece of the three legendary Bowman daughters who devoted their lives to the maintenance and preservation of their family home.
Egil Thompson specializes in a unique perspective that is both photorealistic and fantastical. His interest in Old World craftsmanship and focus on historical imagery lead him to work with various forms of traditional media, such as oils, egg tempura, gouache, and watercolor. He grew up in rural northern California and the landscape continues to inspire his art as it grows in complexity and narrative.
Born in San Francisco, Thompson resides in Cloverdale, California. He has an associate's degree of art from Santa Rosa Junior College and graduated summa cum laude in 2007 from Sonoma State University with a bachelor of fine arts degree. He also attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco and had a recent retrospective of nine paintings at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, California. Uncle Arnel and the Swamp Witch is his first children's book.
R. Gordon Thornton, the great-grandson of a Confederate soldier, is an avid student of history. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the League of the South. Mr. Thornton grew up on a farm in Hermitage, Arkansas, where his family had lived since the 1850s. As a child he thought that everyone lived in a sea of cotton—until his family was no longer allowed to grow cotton. As his childhood home shaped his development, so did the portrait of his great-grandfather, hanging at the end of the hall, shape his interest in Southern history.
Mr. Thornton spent many years studying the South and its complex history. Through his journeys he learned that there are still deep-rooted prejudices against the South and that college students were ashamed of their Southern roots. Thornton was an oddity in that he was proud of his heritage. He turned to writing to promote that same love of the South in others.
The Southern Nation: The New Rise of the Old South discusses the controversial topic of Southern nationalism. According to Thornton, the Southern states have the right to be “left alone” and to form their own nation, independent of the United States. He vehemently believes that the South needs to secede from the U.S. and reclaim the freedoms, wealth, culture, and traditions it has lost. This book explores how to reclaim the Southern birthright by developing Southern nationalism in the community and the four principles that Southerners must realize and embrace before they can fulfill their destiny as an independent people.
Today, Rob Thornton resides in Hermitage, Arkansas.
Jessie Tirsch knows good food and cookbooks. A former New York advertising executive, she moved to New Orleans after a trip to Jazz Fest in 1988. What both cities have in common, of course, is food—from haute cuisine to late-night dining spots.
Tirsch has creatively combined her love affair with food with her flair for writing. Since she moved to the Crescent City, Tirsch has lent her considerable talents to numerous cookbooks.
Here, Tirsh turns her attention to a landmark of Pensacola, Florida: the renowned McGuire’s Irish Pub. Tirsch ably captures the magic of the pub and presents some of the recipes that have garnered McGuire’s four consecutive Golden Spoon Awards, which recognize the pub as one of Florida’s top restaurants.
From the cuisine of the Far East to that of the Emerald Isle, Jessie Tirsch knows it all!
Bruce G. Todd's early peripatetic life led him to settle in Amarillo, Texas, where he took an interest in the history of Amarillo's settlers and early cowboys. Surprised by the lack of information on black settlers, he founded the Potter County Oral History Project and began interviewing the descendants of black settlers.
Mr. Todd was born in Nashville and spent most of his adolescence travelling with his mother, one year attending ten different schools. He eventually moved with his father to New Orleans to work on offshore oil rigs. After living several years following “in the hobo tradition,” he joined the Marine Corps. After his discharge, he reverted to his nomadic lifestyle, travelling on trains throughout the country. He eventually returned to his grandparents in Tennessee. He also returned to his Christian roots, joining a street ministry in Tennessee and helping to establish a branch of the Salvation Army in Santa Fe. When he entered a temporary living community years later in Amarillo, he began writing.
Bones Hooks captured his interest and Mr. Todd began researching the life of the famous black cowboy who defied the prejudices of his day. Hooks was the first black man to serve on a grand jury in Texas and founded the first black church in the Texas Panhandle. With the help of others, including several influential white friends, he established North Heights, a black community where members were free to purchase property and live unhindered by outside white influence. In North Heights, Hooks became the “unofficial mayor,” working as a community activist and helping to establish vital black community centers and projects.
Bones Hooks: Pioneer Negro Cowboy is Mr. Todd's first published work. When not writing, he works as a chef and preaches regularly at his church. He has lectured at the Hutchinson County Museum and at Frank Phillips College on black history.
Roulhac B. Toledano is an award-winning author of more than a dozen books as well as a prominent lecturer, authority on historical architecture, and artist. In 1997, Toledano was honored as the recipient of the prestigious American Institute of Architects International Book Award. She has contributed articles pertaining to travel, history features, and architectural history to various publications, including the Washington Roll Call, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and Richmond Times Dispatch.
Her contributions to the field of architecture are not limited solely to the written word. Toledano regularly conducts lectures to college students and adult groups, discussing historic architecture and art. She has also worked tirelessly to preserve the historic architecture she so loves by cofounding several historical preservation organizations such as the New Orleans Preservation Resource Center. In addition to preserving national architectural gems, Toledano fosters a global community as a member of the board of directors of Alliance Français of Charlottesville. She is active in developing a sister program in Besançon, France.
Toledano received a BFA in art history from Newcomb College of Tulane University. In her her most recent book, a biography of François Coty, Toledano puts her meticulous research skills to work in researching the life of the perfume industrialist.When she is not occupied by lecturing, writing, or historical preservation, she indulges her artistic tendencies through her textile designs. She specializes in silk scarves and toiles featuring historic architectural imagery. Toledano lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Gerald R. Toner was born and raised in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky, a city on the hills and bluffs of the Ohio River in the northern part of the state. Toner was educated at Harvard University and Vanderbilt Law School, relocating to Louisville, Kentucky afterwards to practice law.
Toner says, “I took up law in part from a desire to re-create my family history, insofar as my maternal grandfather, who died five years before my birth, was a lawyer, and partially from watching Perry Mason.” Toner's father, who had gone to work in a steel foundry when he was fourteen years old, wanted a secure occupation for his son, steering him away from a career in writing and towards the law. Having done well in school and desiring both to please his father and to be able to feed himself, he pursued law as a profession and an occupation, and writing as an avocation and a release.
When Toner's children were born, and time outside the home became less desirable, he began to cultivate his ever-present interest in creative writing, particularly the writing of short stories. Always a lover of Christmas, many of his stories were devoted to the magic of the Christmas season, and the ephemeral spirit of Christmas that pervades even the most cynical during the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's. After much hard work, several of his stories were chosen and published in various magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and Redbook.
Toner is a member of the church elders of his local Presbyterian church, a member of the Harvard Club of Kentucky and the Louisville Economic Development Corporation, and has been on the boards of other community groups over the past dozen years. He cites as the most significant and satisfying accomplishment in his life the raising of his family.
A native New Orleanian, Poppy Tooker is passionate about food and the people who make it. She hosts the popular weekly radio show Louisiana Eats! A writer for publications such as Fine Cooking, Tooker informs readers on the importance of preserving foods pivotal to Louisiana and New Orleans culture. The International Association of Cooking Professionals has recognized her support of New Orleans cuisine globally. Southern Living magazine named her a Hero of the New South. Her book, Louisiana Eats!: The People, the Food, and Their Stories, received the Literary Award of the Year in 2014 from the Louisiana Library Association. Tooker is just as talented in the kitchen and holds the distinct honor of having beaten Bobby Flay with her delicious seafood gumbo when she competed on Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Tooker lives and, more importantly, cooks in the city of New Orleans.
Sheryl Towers is the founder and owner of Life Enrichment Skills, a company dedicated to empowering organizations and individuals to achieve success through training and personal coaching. She has more than twenty years of professional experience in the development of personal growth. As a teacher, speaker, and trainer, Towers has presented seminars on topics such as leadership skills, self-esteem, and stress management to a diverse group of clients, including Smith Barney, Inc. and the Boeing Company, among others.
A grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, which was based on her contributions to the community, allowed Towers to visit wellness centers throughout the United States. For several years, she produced and hosted a community television program that educated and encouraged audiences to maintain a wellness lifestyle. She has garnered knowledge from workshops offered by some of the leading teachers in the field of personal and professional growth, and her life's mission is “to inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in love, joy, and faith.”
After graduating with a bachelor of science degree in behavioral science from the University of Georgia, Towers earned a master of liberal studies degree in psychology from Mercer University. She has received workshop certifications in stress education, assertiveness training, leadership skills, and effective parenting. She lives in Macon, Georgia, where she supports the performing arts and the Macon Symphony Orchestra.
Una Belle Townsend is an award-winning teacher and author. She was born and raised in Marshall, Texas, but moved to Oklahoma after she got married. Intrigued by the state’s history, she was inspired to become a children’s book author.
Her first children’s picture book, Grady’s in the Silo, is based on an actual event that occurred in 1949; it tells the humorous true story of a cow who mysteriously finds herself stuck in a silo and must depend on help from around the world in order to get out of the tricky situation. The book received the 2004 Oklahoma Book Award and was a 2004 IRA/CBC Children’s Choice selection. Her third book, Oklahoma Land Run, is based on the dramatic opening of two million acres of land in Oklahoma on April 22, 1889, and was published in time for the 120th anniversary.
Townsend has won a variety of writing and teaching awards, among them the Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom Teacher of the Year and Oklahoma Celebration of Reading best teacher’s essay. She has three times been named the Teacher of the Year at Riverside Elementary in El Reno, Oklahoma, where she works as a library media specialist/Title I reading teacher. In 1999, she was a winner in the Teacher’s Essay contest at the Oklahoma Celebration of Reading. As a member of Epsilon Sigma Alpha, Townsend wrote an article on women’s safety, which was published in an issue of the sorority magazine, The Jonquil.
Townsend received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from East Texas Baptist College (now known as East Texas Baptist University). She continued her education and earned a master’s degree in elementary education from Stephen F. Austin State University.
She lives in Yukon, Oklahoma, with her husband.
Elizabeth Steger Trindal has worked for fifteen years to chronicle the live of this little-known but important figure in American history. In its grief over the death of President Lincoln, did America comdemn an innocent woman to her death? In the embarrassment over this wrong, most historians have neglected to tell the whole story behind President Lincoln's assassination.
This heavily documented work brings up timely issues of government invasion of rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy is a moving account that will no doubt elicit new debate on the subject of the Civil War and on the agencies in which citizens of the United States invest their trust.
Elizabeth Steger Trindal is a free-lance writer who lives in Edinburg, Virginia. She was recently awarded first place in nonfiction in the Shenandoah Valley Writers' Guild competition. Mrs. Trindal is a member of the National League of American Pen Women.
Richard Trout, an environmental biologist, consultant, and college professor, researches the details of his adventure tales to make them “meticulously accurate” and relishes the fieldwork involved. He dives the Cayman coral reef; he spends time with elephants. More importantly, he knows his young-adult readers.
Mr. Trout spends countless hours in schools and libraries talking with young people about his stories and his travels, environmental issues, the pleasure of reading, and the craft of writing. He provokes lively discussions that engage his audiences and help him better understand their interests.
Trout's Cayman Gold: Lost Treasure of Devils Grotto, the first novel in his MacGregor Family Adventure Series, was chosen by National Geographic as a JASON literature selection. The author spoke at the Washington, D.C. JASON Action Summit in July 2006 as part of JASON's Monster Storms curriculum. Trout's Czar of Alaska: The Cross of Charlemagne was selected as a 2006 finalist for the Teddy Award by the Writer's League of Texas. The title also earned him a finalist position for the Oklahoma Center of the Book Award in 2005.
Trout has degrees in biology and natural science and works as an Associate Professor of Biology at Oklahoma Christian University. The father of two grown daughters, he and his wife reside in Oklahoma City.
The late August P. Trovaioli was both an educator and an artist. Born in Rome, Italy, Trovaioli enjoyed American and Italian citizenship. He was born into a family who had worked as artists, ceramicists, and conservators for at least four generations. He spent his life restoring art for private collectors and public exhibits, specializing in early American art.
In addition to his interest in restoration, Trovaioli was passionate about education; he helped broaden the education of art to public and private schools across the United States Gulf Coast. Trovaioli was deeply commited to the spread of art through Alabama and served the community as the founding member of the Mobile Art Association, the Eastern Shore Art Association in Fairhope, and the Pine Belt Painters in Jackson. He extended his expertise and talents into Mississippi by forming the Singing River Art Association.
Trovaioli graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and was then stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, during World War II. It was here that he met his wife, Iris, and they settled in Grand Bay, Alabama. After the war, he earned a master's degree in education from the University of Alabama. He became a teacher in the Mobile, Alabama, school system, eventually rising to be the supervisor of education and principal of Grand Bay Elementary School. Trovaioli and his wife resided in Grand Bay until his death in 1975.
Dr. Gail Tumulty, RN, BSN, MSN, CNAA, (1945-2015) was an accomplished nurse and nurse administrator. She was professor emeritus at Loyola University New Orleans, where she was instrumental in the development, coordination, and implementation of their online health care system management program. During her tenure, the innovative format of her program became the university’s model for course management during times of disaster. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, the program was the only one to continue with virtually no interruption, allowing enrolled students to graduate on time.
Tumulty received her PhD in nursing administration from the University of Texas and was nurse executive advanced-board certified. Over the course of her career, she investigated and directed several research projects that examined the learning needs, influences, and collaborative practices of nurses on a global scale. Tumulty served as associate center executive director at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre in Saudi Arabia, where she oversaw a staff of more than 1,600 from 41 countries to teach transcultural care of the highest standard. She received numerous competitive grants to fund her research, which she published in various refereed journals and books targeting significant issues in the health care system and work redesign. She exhibited her work at conferences worldwide, including a presentation at the 2007 International American Nurses Association Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with her coauthor, John R. Batty.
Tumulty was born in Council Grove, Kansas, and lived in the New Orleans area during her life. She passed away shortly after completing Voices of Angels: Disaster Lessons from Katrina Nurses.
Karyn W. Tunks grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but she fulfilled her dream of living near the coastline by moving to Mobile, Alabama, for college. She is now an associate professor at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. Tunks also teaches courses in adolescent and children’s literature, along with courses on motivating and teaching in the elementary classroom.
She graduated with a BS in early childhood education from the University of South Alabama. While pursuing her MEd, she began teaching kindergarten and first grade in the local school system. Tunks then obtained her PhD in early childhood education from Florida State University and began teaching at the university level. She is a member of the International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, Southern Early Childhood Association, and the Alabama Association for Young Children.
When she is not writing or teaching, Tunks enjoys running—an activity that allows her to concoct new stories, like Jubilee!—and rejuvenating. She also shops, relaxes on the beaches of Alabama, and spends time with her husband and son. The family lives in Fairhope, Alabama, with their cat, Maggy.
Dean P. Turnbloom is a cartoonist, editor, defense contractor, and former navy officer. His work has been published in regional and national newspapers, and Pelican's Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, as well as online by establishments such as CNN.com. In Prizewinning Political Cartoons, he celebrates the art, the artists, and the organizations that honor the genre of editorial cartoons.
Although this book does not contain any of his own artwork, Turnbloom anthologizes the top editorial cartooning awards of the year along with their winners. Featured awards include the Pulitzer Prize, National Headliner Award, and the Herblock Prize, to name a few.
Born and raised in Oakland, Indiana, Turnbloom joined the United States Navy in 1973 as a seaman's apprentice. Training as an electronics technician, he worked his way up the ranks to the position of chief warrant officer and retired from the rank of CWO4 after thirty-one years of dutiful service. Turnbloom began having his cartoons published after he retired.
Subsequent to his naval career, Turnbloom was employed as a defense contractor. He is a naval civilian, working with the navy installing shipboard network systems on fleet ships. He and his wife of thirty years, Nanette, have three children, Lucas, Bethany, and Jacob. They are residents of San Diego, California.
Thomas Turner, an only child, was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. The pursuit of knowledge and the desire to help people, especially children, remained important to him throughout his life. These combined passions led him to attain degrees in education up to a doctorate degree. He worked at several notable universities, during which time he began writing for the purpose of sharing his wisdom regarding, among other things, teaching styles.
Mr. Turner continues to write and has had over a hundred articles published in professional journals and featured in five textbooks. He worked as the social-studies consultant for Instructor, a widely circulated magazine for teachers, and as an editor of the Tennessee Association of Middle Schools Journal. He has shared his knowledge with others by giving author and poetry workshops, conferences and meetings for educators, and presentations geared toward schoolchildren and teachers.
Currently residing in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his beloved wife, Nancy Hickman Turner, Thomas Turner is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee, as well as the program area leader of holistic teaching/learning.
Gary Undercuffler is a decorated art designer, whose work has been featured in numerous magazines, including Reader’s Digest. He has received three Illustration of the Month awards and three Illustration of the Year awards from Highlights for Children Magazine, along with consecutive awards from 1981 to 1986 from Rittenhouse Square Fine Arts Show for outstanding drawing display. His distinguished work and his passion for art are apparent in his illustrations.
The illustrator of several children’s books, textbooks, and advertisements, Undercuffler also teaches art and design. He has been an instructor of illustration at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia for twenty years, and he has taught illustration, drawing, and computer graphics for ten years at Montgomery County Community College. Undercuffler’s work can be viewed at the Independence Seaport Museum (formerly the Philadelphia Maritime Museum) and the Franklin Institute Science Museum.
Undercuffler graduated from Rowan University (formerly Glassboro State College) where he earned a BA in art education. He lives with his wife in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
John Uglesich is the grandson of Uglesich's Restaurant founder Sam Uglesich, and he is the son of the current owners, Gail and Anthony. Growing up, he watched his parents work long, hard hours to grow the business into the critically acclaimed restaurant it is was before its closure in 2005. John's father, Anthony, was known for telling customers the straight truth about his seafood. John's mother, Gail, would wake daily at 4:30 a.m. to prepare sauces, crab cakes, casseroles, gumbo, and other specialties.
John Uglesich manages stock portfolios for several companies and family members and has served as editor of the Crescent City Investor's Report, a monthly stock newsletter. He has lived in New Orleans all his life and is a graduate of De La Salle High School and Tulane University. Though people frequently ask whether John and his sister, Donna, will work in the restaurant business, both have chosen to work in other fields—a decision their parents respect. John resides in Cordova, Tennessee.
Eats, drinks, sweets—award-winning photographer John Uher specializes in capturing them all on film. With a delicate blend of light and shadow, soft yet vibrant color palettes, and artful design, he brings elegance to every dish and glass he shoots in his Midtown Manhattan studio. His ability to showcase the drama and beauty of gastronomic delights has won him appearances in publications of every type, and his world-class pictures continually keep mouths watering across the country.
For more than twenty-five years, Uher’s skills and passion have inspired the accolades of his clients, which include Godiva and Bacardi. Since 1985, he has operated out of New York City. His studio, equipped with a fully-functioning kitchen and well-stocked bar, is always ready for the next culinary project to come through the door. Along with photo spreads in magazines, his work has been featured in several books.
Uher keeps his plate full in New York City, New York, with his wife, four children, two sons-in-law, and three grandchildren.
Rosemary Kissinger Updyke was born and raised in east Texas, and she began her writing career in high school on her school newspaper. During World War II she married, moving to New York at the end of the war. After her move to New York she began writing again, stashing pieces away in filing cabinets—never submitting any manuscripts to publishers. Updyke attended numerous workshops over the years in an effort to improve her craft.
Her interest in Jim Thorpe and his life began more than fifty years ago, when her first husband told her about him. Ever since then, Mrs. Updyke has been fascinated by the athlete and the man who was Jim Thorpe. His personal and professional successes and setbacks so intrigued her that she ultimately decided to write Jim Thorpe, the Legend Remembered. During the course of her research, she developed a friendship with Thorpe's daughter, Charlotte. The result of years of research and personal interest is this remarkable book. However, this is not the first time that the life of a Native American has so captivated Mrs. Updyke.
In 1984, following the death of her husband and her early retirement, Kissinger began researching the background of the last great Comanche Indian chief Quanah Parker, the legend of whom she had first heard as a child growing up in Texas. She recalled the menfolk of her hometown swapping tales of Quanah's life as they sat on their front porches after Sunday suppers. In Quanah Parker: Comanche Chief she attempts to present the life of this famous man—the son of a Comanche chief and a blond, blue-eyed young woman who had been abducted as a child by the Indians'as accurately as possible, and she hopes young adults will be intrigued enough to read and learn more about the American Indians.
Rosemary K. Updyke is a member of the International Women's Writing Guild, the Native American Pavillion of Pennsylvania, and the Pocono Writers. She is also very active in the local libraries.
Carmen Aboy Valldejuli is, according to New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne, “the foremost authority on Puerto Rican cooking,” whose cookbooks are “the definitive books on island cooking.”
A daughter of one of Puerto Rico's most distinguished families, Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, born Aboy Ferrer, is niece of the late Monsita Ferrer, the well-known pianist and composer, and cousin of actor/director Jose Ferrer. Brought up in old Spanish traditions that deemed cooking a menial household chore, Valldejuli did not have the opportunity to discover the joys of creating a meal. Her husband, Luis Valldejuli, was a mechanical engineer by profession, but a gourmet at heart. Their marriage in 1936 launched a lifelong adventure of collecting and developing recipes representative of Puerto Rican cookery.
Mrs. Valldejuli hoped that all readers would eventually wend their way to Puerto Rico to sample the island's delicacies in the land of their origin. In the meantime, she was certain that the recipes in her books will bring the flavor of the island to the reader's table. The author offers this toast to accompany a Puerto Rican meal: “Salud, amor, dinero, y tiempo para gastarlo!”
Mrs. Valldejuli died in 2005.
KEVIN VANDIVIER
A lover of nature and wildlife, Kevin Vandivier has more than thirty years experience in outdoor photography. While still a photography student at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1970s, Vandivier began working assignments for Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic World, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. During the course of his career, Vandivier's work has been featured in numerous national magazines, including Life, Newsweek, Time, and Popular Photography. His commercial clients include Dell, Inc., IBM, Exxon, Citgo Oil, and many others. He has published his photographic essays in multiple books and works as the photo editor at Texas Highways Magazine. He and his family live in Lakeway, Texas.
EARL NOTTINGHAM
Earl Nottingham has worked as a professional photographer for the past three decades. The recipient of numerous state and national awards for his photography dealing with conservation issues, Nottingham has been widely featured throughout the United States in such publications as Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic Traveler. Nottingham holds a bachelor of science degree in photography from East Texas State University along with a master of photography degree from Professional Photographers of America. Since 1996, Nottingham has served as the chief photographer for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. He lives in Temple, Texas, with his wife and son.
Traci Van Wagoner has always has a talent for creating fun, heartfelt stories, which she brings to life with her fantastical illustrations and designs for children. She earned BFAs in illustration from Utah State University and in toy design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where she met her husband. Van Wagoner has been a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for more than two decades.
In addition to her prolific illustration career, Van Wagoner is an award-winning writer and product developer. Over the last eighteen years, her work has appeared in magazines and newsletters and on games, toys, and giftware products, and her portraits of children and pets are perpetually popular.
If she’s taking a break from painting, Van Wagoner can be found playing pool, reading books, or gardening on her roof. She resides in New York, New York, with her husband and dog and lives by the motto Live, Laugh, and Learn.
Though born in Baker, Montana, Detective Michael Varnado was raised in Franklinton, Louisiana, where he has lived all of his life. After graduating from Franklinton High School, he enrolled in Southeastern Louisiana University, where he remained for a few years before joining the team at the Washington Parish Sheriff's office as a deputy sheriff. After one four-year term, he moved on to the 22nd Judicial district attorney's office, where he served as chief investigator.
It was during this term that the twenty-five year old was appointed to lead the investigation into the murder of Faith Hathaway, a case that gained worldwide attention through Sr. Helen Prejean's best-selling book Dead Man Walking. Prejean counseled Hathaway's murderer, Robert Lee Willie, who served as the primary focus for the Academy Award-winning film starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.
While Willie's story gained international attention, Faith's short life and brutal death were forgotten by all except those closest to her. Victims of Dead Man Walking, coauthored by D. P. Smith, reminds readers of an aspect of the death-penalty debate that is often overlooked—the innocent victims and their grieving loved ones. Since the discovery of Hathaway's body, Detective Varnado has dedicated his life and work to bringing justice and peace to Faith's and Willie's other victims' families.
Serving as a homicide investigator for more than twenty-six years, the author retired in November 2001. He has twice been honored with Louisiana's Victims and Citizens Against Crime Outstanding Law Enforcement Award. The father of four children, he resides in Louisiana with his wife, Debbie.
The Civil War has been a topic of great interest to Charles Edmund Vetter since high school, and his affection for the subject strengthens with time. For the past 25 years, he has been teaching about, researching, and lecturing on the war and, more specifically, on Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Today Vetter is a well-known Sherman scholar, and is Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he teaches both sociology and military history.
In college, his master's thesis was on Sherman's theory of total war, and it was just the beginning of Vetter's curiosity in the man. The publication of Sherman: Merchant of Terror, Advocate of Peace is the culmination of years of research on the Civil War for Vetter's professional writings and public speaking engagements. In his book, Vetter analyzes the complexities and diversities of the man, the evolution of his philosophy of war, his relationship with Gen. U.S. Grant, Sherman's place in the context of American military history, and the sociological impact of his military actions.
For the past three years, Vetter has served as president of the North Louisiana Civil War Round Table and coordinator of the Trans-Mississippi Civil War Symposium. In the summer of 1987 he was selected, along with 40 other teachers nationwide, to attend the Military History Workshop at the United States Military Academy at West Point for a full month of extensive study and travel.
He earned his BA in history and philosophy at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and his MA and PhD at the University of North Texas in Denton. He began his teaching career at Tyler (Texas) Junior College, and later at Stephen F. Austin State University.
Born and raised in Houston, Vetter is married and has four children. He created and hosted a television talk show, “The Heart of Shreveport,” which focused on community issues. In 1984, he started the Center For Learning Enhancement and Research, Inc., a program geared toward working with students who have learning problems. He finds great fulfillment in reading and researching, and travels to Vicksburg National Military Park at least twice a year for study and relaxation.
Beverly Vidrine considers music her personal muse. The attachment came in the fourth grade, when she received instruction on an old upright piano twice weekly after school. Today, she plays her antique baby grand for thirty minutes before letting another muse take over. While she writes, classical music plays in the background for relaxation and inspiration.
Motivation is never far off. Her eight grandchildren are all illustrated in her books and are among her most cherished critics. She enjoys working with illustrators who read her manuscript and then decide how to illustrate them without her comments. Once the sketches are done, she reviews them and collaborates when necessary.
A Louisiana native, Vidrine wrote A Mardi Gras Dictionary, a book that introduces children to the unique language of New Orleans' Carnival season. This success was followed by A Christmas Dictionary, which covers both the secular and religious aspects of the holiday season.
In addition to her two dictionary books, Vidrine has written four holiday books centered around the alphabet. St. Patrick's Day Alphabet explains twenty-six Irish traditions, while Easter Day Alphabet teaches the ABCs of Easter, complete with a golden egg hidden on every page.Halloween Alphabet celebrates the traditions of the year's spookiest holiday, and Thanksgiving Day Alphabet illuminates the classic American holiday with an eye on history and adventure.
A graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Vidrine earned her bachelor of arts degree in elementary education and has had hands-on experience teaching in elementary schools. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators as well as the Writers' Guild of Acadiana. She resides in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Native Texan Benjamin Vincent is a well-known caricature artist and childrens book illustrator whose work is used by magazines, advertising agencies, and corporations. A storyteller at heart, Vincent was initially drawn to illustration as a way of telling stories visually. His work has appeared in such publications as D Magazine, Boys Life, Forbes, and Consumer Reports, among many others.
After starting his illustration career sketching caricatures at Six Flags in Texas during his teenage years, Vincent went on to hone his craft by spending a summer sketching in the Louvre in Paris and another summer drawing caricatures along the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas. Vincent received a bachelor of arts in illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He lives in Dallas, Texas.
Born on the fourth of July in Biloxi, Mississippi, Lloyd Vogt graduated from Louisiana State University in 1971 with a degree in architecture. Upon graduation he moved to Miami, Florida, where he worked for three years. After leaving Miami, he moved to New Orleans and instantly fell in love with the city's architecture and history.
As an architect, he worked on many developments, including Carillon Beach in Florida, Gorham's Bluff in Alabama, and seven Florida Panhandle communities. In addition to these accomplishments, he was dedicated to the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans. An active preservationist, Vogt fought to preserve the unique cultural identity of the city he loved. He also loved the Carnival season, moving his office to a house on the Uptown parade route so he could catch every moment of the traditional Mardi Gras celebration.
The late author's first book, New Orleans Houses: A House-Watcher's Guide, now in its sixth printing, is the standard reference guide to building styles in the Crescent City. He also wrote a similar book for children, A Young Person's Guide to New Orleans Houses, which is in its second printing. His final work, Historic Buildings of the French Quarter, traces the Crescent City's growth through the development of its architecture. Honored as the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year in 2002, the book traces the history of the French Quarter from its origins to the present with the help of more than one hundred illustrations.
Though Vogt was the recipient of numerous awards, two of his most notable honors were a traveling grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a scholarship to study at the Fontainebleau School of Music, Art, and Architecture in France. He died on May 5, 2002 as he finished his last book.
The combination of Eastern and Western cultures in the city of Anatolia, Turkey, Mrs. Vural's hometown, gave her an opportunity to appreciate different areas of the world and fueled her ambition to bring them home to her own kitchen, where she could make them Turkish.
Mrs. Vural has traveled widely throughout Turkey, including Istanbul, Izmir, and Malatya. She lived in Washington, D.C. for three years, which she considers one of the most exciting times in her life. While there she gave private Turkish cooking lessons to American friends. With her background she has become an authority on Turkish cooking.
Mrs. Vural resides in Istanbul, Turkey.
James Wade is a member of the board of directors for the Louisiana Landmarks Society, where he also the correspondence secretary, chair of the publications committee, and preservation editor. He volunteers as docent at the Pitot House museum. Wade has an MA in history from Louisiana Tech University, an MLIS from Louisiana State University, and an MPS in historic preservation from Tulane University. He is affiliated with the American Library Association, the Society of American Archivists, and Society of Architectural Historians.
John E. Wade II is an investor, philanthropist, and founder of the nonprofit organization Soldiers of Love. He has committed the efforts of Soldiers of Love to improve local schools and provide better mental health for the community, drawing on his own experiences with bipolar disorder. Wade is devoted to encouraging and enabling ordinary people to work together to build a better world. Trained in accounting, Wade held financial and advisory positions in many sectors, including the textile industry, wine companies, and the United States Custom Service. He retired in 1999.
An active member of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church, Wade serves on several committees and volunteers his time at the church. He belongs to the Bienville Club, the Round Table Club, Krewe d'Tat, and the Mississippi State University Bulldog Club. Wade, an avid traveler, has visited China, India, most of Europe, Egypt, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the Holy Land.
He earned a BBA and MA in accounting from the University of Georgia, where he served as president of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting honor society. When not working on his next book or working in the community, Wade enjoys watching the New Orleans Saints and Mississippi State University football and traveling and listening to music. He lives in New Orleans.
Joan C. Waites has been a freelance illustrator for the past fifteen years. She received a bachelor of science degree from DeSales University in 1982 and then worked for fifteen years as a neonatal intensive care nurse in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., while she simultaneously returned to college to study illustration and launch her freelance career. Her illustration studies were completed at George Washington University, the Corcoran School of Art, the Maryland College of Art and Design, and the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she received a certificate of illustration in 1990.
While the majority of her work has been commissioned for the children's market, she also has experience in textile and surface design, medical illustration, and advertising art. To date she has illustrated more than thirty-five books for the educational and trade marketplace, several children's magazines, and poster art.
Mrs. Waites illustrated another Pelican Publishing book, Moon's Cloud Blanket, which was selected for an IRA/CBC Children's Choices Program 2004 Selection. She has also been awarded a prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award (2001) and the Educational Press Award from Hopskotch magazine for her illustrations and has been featured in The Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market Place, published by Writer's Digest Books.
Mrs. Waites lives and works in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband, Gerard, and their three children, Taylor Anne, Caitrin, and Haley.
Christina Wald, the sole proprietor of Christina Wald Design and Illustration, specializes in illustration, toy and giftware design, and product design. Experienced with a variety of media such as acrylic, watercolor, ink, digital, and vector, Wald has worked for companies such as Scholastic Inc., National Geographic, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Kaplan Publishing, Weekly Reader, Gibson Greetings Inc., and Hasbro Inc..
Wald graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning with a BS in Industrial Design. Her previous work has earned her many awards, including a gold Mom’s Choice award, a Tillywig Toy Award, and a gold Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. She is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
In her free time, Wald enjoys urban sketching, movies, comedy, listening to podcasts and audio books, comics, reading science fiction and fantasy, and watching television. She loves working on her web comic and traveling for artistic inspiration. When not travelling, Wald visits schools and libraries to share information about the life of an illustrator with young people. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and two geriatric cats.
Gary Chitwood Walker was born in 1946 in Wytheville, Virginia. He attended Spiller Elementary School, and it was there, when he was in seventh grade, that he first became interested in the Civil War, especially in his home state.
Walker attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and received a bachelors degree in science. Shortly after graduation, he married his longtime sweetheart Sue Adams. Still passionate about history, Walker began to investigate genealogy. Soon, he wrote The War in Southwest Virginia, and Walker knew that he had found his calling.
An active member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Walker often participates in Civil War reenactments and gives public presentations on the subject. He has written several other books on the Civil War in Virginia, including the historical novel Son of the South. He is also a member of the Civil War Round Table and several other historic and preservation societies.
Walker lives in Wytheville, Virginia, with his wife and two sons.
Enthralled with a good adventure tale since childhood, it’s no surprise that the military significantly influenced the life of Paul D. Walker. Walker was born in Bakersfield, California, and he served two successful tours in Vietnam. As a result, he decided to continue his career there in the armored cavalry division, spending thirty years in the military and earning sixteen awards for valor and achievement.
A distinguished military graduate of Missouri State University, Walker later earned two master’s degrees in international relations and public administration from Shippensburg University. He vigorously studied American and military history and, during this time, became particularly interested in cavalry warfare. After his time in the army, Walker was a teacher of political science and history at a local university in Salt Lake City. Walker is a member of the Civil War Round Table, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Purple Heart Society, Vietnam Veterans of America, and American Legion.
Walker has published two books on military strategy and history with Pelican: The Cavalry Battle That Saved the Union: Custer vs. Stuart at Gettysburg and Truman’s Dilemma: Invasion or The Bomb. Now retired from the United States Army, Mr. Walker is married to his high-school sweetheart and is the proud father of six. He resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, and devotes his time to history, writing, and local politics. He is an avid backpacker and golfer and enjoys painting with oil and watercolors.
Award-winning Daggi Wallace is a self-taught artist and illustrator who began taking art lessons at age five. Her artwork has appeared in Pockets, Pastel Artist International, and International Artist magazines as well as the “Master Pastel Painters of the World” showcase. Her work is included in many private collections and art exhibitions including the permanent collection of the Wichita Center for the Arts.
Wallace is a member of numerous art associations including the Pastel Society of the Southwest, Portrait Society of America, and Degas Pastel Society. She lives with her two daughters in Dallas, Texas, where she teaches art workshops and gives painting demonstrations.
Richard M. Walsh is an educator who has taught at the middle school, high school, and university levels. Currently an adjunct professor specializing in American and European history, he teaches courses on the American Revolution, Civil War, Native American-US government relations, imperialism, and the history and culture of Ireland. Walsh received a bachelor of arts in economics and history from Siena College and a master of science in education and history from Long Island University.
A prolific author, father of four, and grandfather of two, he lives with his wife and two large Newfoundland dogs in Northport, New York, where he also explores his interests in Irish music and sports, especially lacrosse and hockey.
Sue Marshall Ward was born in Houston to a family of artists. Her mother worked as an illustrator, while her grandmother and aunt were both painters. After studying art at Arlington State College, now the University of Texas at Arlington, Mrs. Ward began a long career in art direction, advertising, and illustration.
An illustrator at heart, Ward left years of advertising illustration, where computers had gained a firm foothold in graphics, and jumped into children's books. “It took me a long time to find myself,” she says, “but I love illustrating children's text and taking the art a few steps beyond the word, when there is an opportunity. I love the feel of illustrating for children and the people I've met along the way.”
Sue Marshall Ward is also the illustrator of the Children's Choice Award book Ten Redneck Babies. Another Pelican title she illustrated, Texas Mother Goose, was named one of the “Best Books of the Year in Texas” by the San Angelo Standard-Times. She lives in Arlington, Texas, with her husband and pet dove. She's crazy about her grandchildren, animals, and shopping with friends. She is a supporter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and speaks to children and adult groups on the importance of “creating for yourself.”
Through his career as an architectural interior designer and construction manager, Greg Watkins learned to foster understanding and bring people with differences together. In 2001, after being seriously injured in an auto accident, he seized the opportunity to change careers and follow his dream of being a full-time author and illustrator.
Watkins has given numerous presentations and has written articles in various publications to teach children about bullying, forgiveness, and friendship. The father of four and the youngest of eight children, he draws on his personal experiences to write his Big Bill and Buddies Series. His first book, A Big Beaked, Big Bellied Bird Named Bill, featured on Dr. Laura Schlessinger's syndicated show, teaches children the value of treating everyone with love and compassion, even the bullies. Brendon Mouse's Big Idea to Save the Bad Bird Bunch continues with the bullying theme and teaches children the important lessons of accepting one another's differences and the value of forgiveness.
Watkins loves entertaining and teaching children as a part of the Authors in Schools program and is involved in fundraising projects such as the “Mustard Seed Communities,” a charity for abused and abandoned children.
A former Marine, Watkins served during the Vietnam era and then earned his bachelor's degree from Kendal College of Art and Design. He lives in Roswell, Georgia.
Mark Weakland is a teacher, literacy consultant, and author. He is the recipient of a Master’s degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh and taught in the public education field for twenty-three years before going on to start his own business, Mark Weakland Literacy. His organization has published dozens of educational and instructional books for children. Weakland facilitates workshops and provides resources to teachers and students, especially children in the middle-reader demographic.
Weakland resides in Hollsopple, Pennsylvania.
After producing four books on home stereo systems and being published in science magazines from Popular Electronics to Science & Mechanics, David B. Weems turned his writing to history. Initially this may seem like an odd switch. But this was a case where the characters and the author have something in common.
Weems picked up his interest in the subject when a relative approached him about writing a family history. His research got sidetracked when he noticed how many of his own ancestors immigrated to North Carolina. Curious as to why so many Scots had chosen that particular colony as a place to settle, Weems focused his research on Scottish and North Carolina history. This introduced him to historical records that showed that many of the Scots in the Carolinas were originally indentured servants. He put aside his genealogical research, trading it for writing his first children's novel.
Part of the change that would occur in Weems' writing is the new audience for his books. However, Weems is quite comfortable writing for children. A former high school science teacher, he felt his book would have the most significant impact if geared to younger readers.
Now in retirement in his homeland of the Ozarks, Weems continues to probe his family's history in the hopes of locating other relatives in Scotland. He feels fairly sure that the fictitious James Gour, or anyone in his predicament, is not in his family tree. But then again, only research will tell.
“Both kids and adults can enjoy children’s author/illustrator Peter J. Welling’s explorations into the fun and fancy tales behind seldom-celebrated holidays with each quirky page.”
—Herald Bulletin (Anderson, IN)
Peter J. Welling is the kind of person who tries to find the humor in everything. An avid artist, Welling got the idea to write children’s books from paper lunch bags he drew for his sons when they were schoolchildren. Here’s how he puts it: “I am a drawer. Now I hear I might be a renderer. Renderer might be better, though, because [my] brother said drawers go in bureaus.”
Welling’s skill as a storyteller came into focus at the age of eleven when he would entertain neighborhood children with stories he created. He continued telling tales through his young adulthood. Following military service, he earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Indiana University South Bend. He then put the stories of several decades down on paper. He received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2003 and the Indiana University Continuing Studies Teaching Excellence Award in 2005.
Some of Welling’s books are based loosely on myth, legend, or history and involve a US holiday and residents or descendants of a foreign land. He creates a new spin on an old tale, inserting historical anachronisms in the art. He also includes a brief glossary of the appropriate language, whether Gaelic, Celtic, French, Russian, or Dutch.
In his spare time, this father of four volunteered at his youngest son’s school, where he won the Parent Volunteer of the Year Award twice. With five grandchildren, he visits their schools from time to time for storytelling and writing lessons. He is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. He has had several “moral stories” published and has illustrated several stories for other authors.
To learn more about Peter Welling, visit his Web site at www.peterjwelling.com.
Nancy Easter White grew up in rural Virginia, where her love for art began. As a child, she spent hours sketching, painting, and making little sculptures using nature's craft supplies. While attending the University of Virginia, her coursework veered toward English and the arts. She graduated with a bachelor of arts in English, from which she began an editorial career.
Still not satisfied, Ms. White completed her graduate work at Savannah College of Art and Design, earning a master of fine arts degree in historic preservation. The inspiration for her graduate thesis and her passion for architectural photography came when she turned onto King Street in Beaufort and was awestruck by the front façade of the First African Baptist Church. Since that day, she has continued to pursue this passion and has produced a collection of photos of stately mansions, cozy cottages, architectural landmarks, and the numerous attractions that Beaufort, South Carolina, has to offer in The Majesty of Beaufort.
Presently, Nancy Easter White owns her own photography business in the South Carolina Lowcountry, specializing in architectural, portrait, and fine-art images. She loves to run and garden and enjoys the peacefulness and overall presence of her home framed by tremendous oak trees.
As a child, Mary Lou Widmer was entertained by the Sunday night vaudeville-style shows at City Park. She whiled away the summers blithely stringing clover necklaces and feasting on nickel snowballs that turned her tongue different colors. Her deep sense of family was fostered by the fact that her parents, brother, and both sets of grandparents lived in various parts of the same two-story double. Maybe that's why she favors Hallmark-type family stories; although she grew up during the Depression, Widmer has sweet memories of a simple childhood in her native New Orleans. Her popular historical series began as her reminiscences in print so that others might relive their own memories of New Orleans at that time.
Widmer graduated from Loyola University and then became a high-school teacher of English, journalism, and history. She also has served as the president of the South Louisiana Chapter of Romance Writers and has written several articles featured in New Orleans publications. She is a certified descendant of settlers in the area prior to the Louisiana Purchase and is a member of the Louisiana Colonials and the Daughters of 1812. She considers Rosamunde Pilcher her favorite author and enjoys reading suspense, historical novels, and family-based stories. Widmer, a mother of two and a grandmother of four, resides in Kenner, Louisiana.
Mary Lou Widmer has an extensive writing background, including New Orleans in the Twenties, New Orleans in the Thirties, New Orleans in the Forties, New Orleans in the Fifties, New Orleans in the Sixties, and Margaret, Friend of Orphans.
Richard G. Williams, Jr. is an award-winning author and frequent speaker on subjects related to the Civil War. A former contributor to the “Military History” column of the Washington Times, he has spoken at Liberty University’s Annual Civil War Seminar, at Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia, and at West Virginia University’s Jackson’s Mill. In addition, Williams regularly contributes articles about the Civil War and Virginia history to various publications and websites, including his own Old Virginia Blog. He coproduced the video series Institute on the Constitution, which won a national award from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
Williams was selected for membership in the Bonnie Blue Society, a literary organization focusing on the history of the Confederacy, and was also awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Virginia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans. The United Daughters of the Confederacy awarded Williams the Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal, the highest award bestowed by the UDC to non-members. In 2007, Williams was presented with Kappa Alpha Order’s prestigious Robert E. Lee Appreciation Award. It marked the first time the award has been given since 1997.
A former publisher, freelance writer, columnist, book reviewer, and documentary film consultant and producer, Williams was also a gubernatorial appointee, field representative for the Christian Law Association, and a magistrate for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He has been active in his local community as a Sunday-school teacher, 4-H leader, and YMCA youth basketball coach.
Williams is the descendant of three Confederate soldiers and is a ninth-generation grandson of the Rev. Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island and of the first Baptist church in America. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Civil War Chaplains Research Center and Museum Foundation in Lynchburg, Virginia. Williams also serves as chaplain for the Stonewall Brigade Camp #1296, Sons of Confederate Veterans in Lexington, where he also conducts tours of that historic town. He lives with his wife in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and enjoys spending time with his eighteen grandchildren.
Chet Williamson attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his BS in English education. From there, he went on to become a teacher and a producer and writer of business theatre.
Williamson worked as a freelance writer, as well as contributing editor at Wentworth Publications for Healthcare Advertising Review and the Doctor's Office.
Williamson has written over eighty short stories, which have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, and the Twilight Zone. He has also worked on novelizations of both films and computer games.
Williamson has been a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. He is also a six-time final nominee for the Horror Writers Association's Stoker Award and has seen his work adapted for radio and television productions.
Currently, Williamson works as a freelance writer for various companies, including Williams/Gerard Productions, Excel Productions, and Lynch Films. His Pelican titles include Pennsylvania Dutch Night Before Christmas, Pennsylvania Dutch Night Before Christmas Coloring Book, and Pennsylvania Dutch Night Before Christmas Audiocassette. He lives in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Laurie, and his son, Colin, a college student who, like his father, writes professionally.
A retired submarine officer, deep-sea diver, businessman, writer, and life-long adventurer, Robert G. Williscroft has earned the qualifications to take on the naysayers in his book, The Chicken Little Agenda. His commitment to uncovering scientific proof that the sky is not falling has included spending twenty-two months conducting underwater research, a year in the equatorial Pacific, three years in the Arctic ice pack, and a year at the geographic South Pole.
Williscroft confronts the issues of today, global warming, the ozone layer, and thermo-nuclear energy, with a level of detail impossible to achieve through television's spin zone. By methodically revealing scientific evidence, he exposes the rationale of the doomsayers and further explores what he believes are the issues really endangering mankind: the crisis in education, the intrusion of big government, and the decline of morality.
Williscroft, a native of Studio City, California, is a contributing writer to mensnewsdaily.com and the popular online periodical Defense Watch Magazine. He earned his BA in oceanography and meteorology from the University of Washington and his MA in science and PhD in engineering from California Coast University.
Not many cowboys roam the plains of Ohio. True, there are some (baseball variety) Indians in Cleveland, but no cowboys. Jim Willoughby, born and raised in Ohio, moved to California in 1947 and then to Prescott, Arizona, in 1985. Drawing on the folklore and legends surrounding cowboys, Willoughby is able to present a humorous view of the lives they lead.
The author is no stranger when it comes to cowboys and western lore. From 1978 to 1988 he sculpted Western subjects, and had these then cast in bronze. His first casting was of an Indian woman with a pot on her head, and was purchased by none other than the Duke himself, John Wayne!
Willoughby's career includes working for more than 20 years as a layout artist and storyboard artist for various animation studios, including Hanna Barbera. He is the author and illustrator of several books. Among these, he illustrated Arizona Humoresque, also published by Pelican.
Jim Willoughby has collaborated with his wife, Sue, on their next book, A Dude's Guide to the West, due out this fall from Pelican.
Inspired by the stories of her Italian American mother-in-law, Angelina Culotta, Mrs. Wilson undertook Louisiana's Italians, Food, Recipes, and Folkways thirty years ago as a way to preserve Ms. Culotta's ethnic and religious pride for future generations. She was so inspired by collecting and documenting original Italian recipes, stories, and traditions for this book that she built a mud oven in order to bake her own authentic Italian bread at home!
In addition to her interest in Louisiana's cultural history, Mrs. Wilson's personal interests include cooking and baking, heirloom sewing, collecting antique linens and lace, and writing for preschool children. Her other books include St. Charles Parish, A Brief Look at the Past, Mam Papaul's Country Creole Basket, and Now You're Cooking Louisiana Style.
Mrs. Wilson earned her bachelor's degree in home economics education in 1964 at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and her master of science degree in family life and child development at Louisiana State University in 1967. She has taught home economics at the high-school level and has been a kindergarten and Head Start teacher. Since 1972, she has been president of Louisiana Gourmet Enterprises, Inc., a family-owned business that manufactures Cajun-Creole dinner mixes and specialty gourmet cake and frosting mixes under the Mam Papaul brand name.
Mrs. Wilson lives in Hahnville, Louisiana, with her husband. They are the parents of four grown children.
James Wilson served as editor of the Natchitoches Times for six years. In addition to performing his professional duties in that role, Wilson found time during the period to interview people in the area. Located on the Cane River, Natchitoches is near Louisiana’s Melrose Plantation, which was the home of well-known folk artist Clementine Hunter. Wilson became well acquainted with Hunter, a relationship that enabled him to compile a biography on this extraordinary person. Eventually, Wilson chose to pursue a career outside of journalism. He lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, and works as an advertising executive.
These four friends from Point Clear, Alabama, spend a lot of their time traveling, each trying to find the most “hidden gems” in an area. For example, these ladies were able to find places with unusual qualities, such as the smallest police station on the North Carolina coast (which happens to be in a phone booth), a place where you can attend a mullet toss, and the history of the only U.S. mail water route in the country. These women have a knack for finding the places less traveled.
Judy Barnes, born in Memphis, Tennessee, attended Memphis State University as well as several other universities. She is married to Dr. Roy J. Barnes, and they have seven children between them. She is driven by her desire to write guidebooks covering all of the wonderful places she has been.
Jolane Edwards grew up in Mobile, Alabama, where she graduated from the University of Alabama. She married Jack Edwards in 1954, and they have two children together. She enjoys painting, sculpture, writing, and volunteer work.
Carolyn Lee Goodloe has spent her life in Alabama. She graduated from the University of Alabama with a bachelor of science degree in textiles and a minor in journalism. She is married to James William Goodloe, Jr., and they have three children together. She is interested in working with regional leadership programs, gardening, and reading.
Laurel L. Wilson is no stranger to travel, having moved around a lot in her lifetime. She is the mother of four grown children and has worked for charities. A freelance writer, she enjoys photography, needlework, walking, and reading.
During his lifetime, Justin Wilson was much more than a Louisianan chef. In fact, for much of his life, he didn't consider himself a chef. Wilson was the first to say that he was a Cajun cook—not a chef. He was a humorist—not a comedian—who appeared on television programs across the country, including The Tonight Show.
Born in 1914, Wilson started his career as a safety engineer, who traveled across the state to give lectures to refinery workers. During these lectures, Wilson realized that he had a talent for telling Cajun humor, and from there, his career as a humorist grew. Wilson appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and began to tell stories and cook Cajun cuisine for a living.
Wilson learned much of what he knew about cooking from his Cajun mother. He took that knowledge, developed his personal cooking style, and helped to pioneer the Cajun food craze that caught the country by storm when he appeared at the ABA in 1974.
Politically active, Justin Wilson became one of Louisiana's most iconic men in the twentieth century. He spent more than three decades producing cookbooks, entertaining people of all ages with his jokes, and teaching people from Los Angeles to New York how to cook Cajun. His twenty-seven comedy albums have charmed audiences everywhere, at one point even outselling Elvis Presley! Wilson died in 2001 in Pike County, Mississippi.
Kirt Witte is a professional freelance photographer. He started shooting photographs in 1985 and earned a BS in photography from Sam Houston State University in 1991 and a MFA in computer art from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005. In addition to his work in photography, Witte is also a professor of visual effects at the Savannah College of Art and Design and is an Autodesk-certified Maya instructor. Originally from Dallas, Texas, he has been living in Savannah since 2001.
Kit Wohl is a cookbook author, photographer, graphic designer, and artist. She has worked with chefs, restaurants, and hotels across the country as the CEO of Wohl & Company, and she drew from her passion for the culinary arts to produce Arnaud’s Restaurant Cookbook.
After she completed that cookbook in 2005, Wohl produced New Orleans Classic Desserts for Pelican. The series has grown, and each of Wohl’s volumes covers a different aspect of New Orleans’s traditional cuisine. New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups was chosen by Gourmet Magazine as their February 2009 Cookbook Club selection.
For each of her cookbooks, Wohl chooses recipes from the repertoires of a wide range of restaurant kitchens and professional chefs. All recipes are tested and adapted to home-kitchen standards, and each is illustrated with one of her photographs.
“Cooking is an art and a form of creative expression,” she says. “Food is distinctive in form, color, texture, and flavor. The selection, preparation, and presentation of a meal are as creative as any art project. Best of all, it nurtures both the body and the spirit.”
Her energy and artistic talent have resulted in numerous awards for design and production in various fields, including a Clio Award, the advertising industry’s equivalent of the Emmy. She was a longtime board member for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and has been active in many of the city’s civic, educational, and charitable organizations. Wohl and her husband, Billy, live in New Orleans with a trio of Abyssinian cats.
“Art Wolfe's photographs are a superb evocation of some of the most breathtaking spectacles in the world.”
—Sir David Attenborough
Art Wolfe's photographs are recognized throughout the world for their mastery of color, composition, and perspective. His vision and passionate wildlife advocacy affirm his dedication to his work. Over the course of his twenty-year career, he has worked on every continent and in hundreds of locations. Wolfe has taken an estimated one million images in his lifetime, and has published thirty-three books.
In 1997, Art Wolfe was named Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photography Association, and in 1996 was named photographer of the Year by Photo Media magazine. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, Life, Outside, and National Geographic magazines.
Wolfe's stunning images interpret and record the world's fast-disappearing wildlife, landscapes, and native cultures, and are a lasting inspiration to those who seek to preserve them all. Art Wolfe is a native of Seattle, Washington.
Award-winning author Larry Wood is an avid writer with a strong passion for the history of the Civil War and the Ozarks. In addition to penning several books on these subjects, he has contributed articles to publications such as Show Me the Ozarks Magazine, the Ozarks Mountaineer, Missouri Life, and the Ozarks Reader.
Wood earned his BA in English from Missouri State University. After two years in the US Army, he returned to his alma mater and earned an MA in English. Wood was an English teacher in Joplin, Missouri, for more than twenty years before becoming a full-time freelance writer. He continues to teach a correspondence class for the Long Ridge Writers Group of West Redding, Connecticut.
Wood is a member of the Joplin Writers Guild, Missouri Writers’ Guild, Ozarks Writers League, and Joplin Genealogy Society. When not busy writing or researching, the author enjoys genealogy, sports, and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. Wood lives with his wife in Joplin.
Growing up is Charleston, it looked like Tommy Woodrum was destined for a career at the family furniture store, WOODRUMS' then located on Virginia Street. But things took a different course for him. By the age of fourteen he was writing for the Charleston Gazette and soon after, entered broadcasting with WTIP where he announced high school basketball and football games for STONEWALL JACKSON and CHARLESTON HIGH.
After graduating high school and a tour in the Navy, Woodrum returned to his hometown to continue his broadcasting career. Covering local sports events from baseball to basketball to football, he called the games for a number of sports legends from West Virginia before their names were even known. From both radio and TV appearances, Woodrum was something of a personality to sports fans in Charleston. He later went on to serve as general manager for the first edition of the Charleston Rockets professional football team. Before leaving to begin a career in advertising, he had broadcast more than 2,000 sporting events, written golf columns for local newspapers, and freelanced for five radio stations.
Woodrum now is a franchise owner of Shoney's restaurants throughout the south. He also raises and races thoroughbred horses and is the creator of WAGS-32 a cable access television channel. His sports interests continue, but focus a lot more on golf these days. Living in Myrtle Beach, SC, he plays some of the best courses in the Southeast along the famed Grand Strand stretch which is the subject of his latest book. It is also the topic of his syndicated television show “Grand Strand Golf with Tommy Woodrum.”
Munich-born Konrad Wothe is one of the world's leading natural history photographers and wildlife cameramen. Since 1997, he has been working freelance, and has won several awards, including the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year. He has been published in many international publications, including Stern, Geo, and National Geographic.
“Dick Wright is one of America's best cartoonists . . . His work is funny and clever, and he has a knack for capturing events—especially events in Washington—with the kind of clarity and common sense that causes the average reader to nod in agreement. This is one cartoonist who almost always seems to hit the nail on the head.”
—Dan Quale
Forty-fourth vice-president of the United States
What began as drawing the ushers in church and spending too much time doodling in school turned into a lifelong career for Dick Wright. As he got older, he found an interest in politics, which soon intertwined with his love of cartooning.
Mr. Wright began his professional cartooning career in 1974 and has contributed to many publications. He is syndicated in 360 newspapers from coast to coast, including San Diego Union Tribune, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Salt Lake Tribune, Seattle Times, and Vindicator. He has contributed to Conservative Chronicle, and his work can be seen regularly in World Magazine and Focus on the Family newsletter.
He continues to draw political cartoons and maintains an active church life. He helped start a new church in northern Virginia and remains a committed adult Sunday school teacher and church leader.
“It is this almost clairvoyant power of reading the human soul that has made Mr. Wright's books among the most remarkable works of the present age.”
—Oregon Journal
Harold Bell Wright, born in Rome, New York, in 1872, did not lead a life of luxury. He was a self-taught man who had to overcome many challenges, including his constant fight against tuberculosis. While still young, Wright traveled extensively. Being a religious man, he decided to spend his time as a traveling minister, eventually settling down with permanent churches in Missouri, California, and Kansas. His religious practices led him to write the first of many books, all of which address particular problems. His main goal for writing lay within his desire to write about the goodness of mankind.
He has an extensive written legacy that shows itself through his many books, including The Uncrowned King, The Eyes of the World, When a Man's a Man, The Re-creation of Brian Kent, Helen of the Old House, The Mine with the Iron Door, A Son of His Father, God and the Grocery Man, Long Ago Told, Exit, Ma Cinderella, The Devil's Highway, and The Man Who Went Away.
Harold Bell Wright died in 1944; however, his spirit will forever live on through his writing.
Award-winning author Caryn Yacowitz was born in New York City and grew up in New York, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey. She now lives in Palo Alto, California, where she teaches writing at several colleges and universities.
An avid reader and lover of stories since childhood, Ms. Yacowitz's entry into children's book writing was through the Palo Alto Children's Theater, for which she wrote a book and made a film called Onstage/Backstage. She has since published eleven children's books, including a series of books on Native Americans, and her poetry and plays have appeared in several anthologies.
She has also earned several awards for her writing. Ms. Yacowitz won second place in the California Writer's Club Contest for juvenile nonfiction and was a grant recipient at the Chautauqua Writer's Conference, awarded by Highlights Magazine for Children. Jade Stone was cited among the Best Books of 1992 by the San Francisco Chronicle and Book Links magazine. Her picture book Pumpkin Fiesta was named to the California Collections in 2005.
Ms. Yacowitz holds a master of arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University and an undergraduate degree in history/political science from Rutgers University.
Laurence J. Yadon is an attorney, mediator, arbitrator, and experienced presenter. A direct descendent of relatives of the Younger gang, Yadon became captivated with American history, specifically the Southwest, while pursing his undergraduate degree. He has been interviewed for his expertise on numerous television and radio programs, including National Public Radio and Chronicles of the Old West, and his books have been profiled in various alumni magazines. In addition, Yadon frequently updates his American Outlaw Chronicles book blog, a site dedicated to law enforcement in the American West.
Yadon presents on various legal subjects, Oklahoma history, and crime history. He has also lectured to attorneys and judges on advanced mediation techniques. With more than thirty-five years experience in the practice of law, he has assisted the Department of Justice in litigation matters before the local United States district court and has successfully argued before the Supreme Court. In 2002, he began his own company, Mediation Dynamics, which specializes in mediation and arbitration.
Yadon earned his bachelor degrees in history and political science from the University of Tulsa and his law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his family.
Keri Young's fascination with spirits and the paranormal started at the young age of eight. Instead of the usual princess and dolls that other girls were interested in, Young liked to read about ghosts as well as explore haunted houses. Her interest started when her mother presented her with her first ghost book, The Lively Ghosts of Ireland.
She followed her interest by taking many classes on ghost hunting techniques and training with ghost hunting equipment. From there, she joined and became the co-director of The Indiana Ghost Trackers with Lorri Sankowsky. They've conducted meetings for over seventy members. Together, they were able to organize and guide group ghost tours as well as explore many famous haunted locations, such as the French Lick Springs Hotel, the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and various haunted cemeteries. The inspiration for this book started when many people shared with them their own paranormal experiences at local sites. Some stories they had personally witnessed themselves.
After going to school, she received a BA in English from Indiana University. In addition to being The Indiana Ghost Tracker's co-director, Young works as a copy editor for the Indianapolis Monthly Magazine, along with being a public relations, medical, and freelance/travel writer.
Claiborne S. Young penned his first cruising guide to his native state of North Carolina in 1983. Since then, he has written six comprehensive guides and served as editor to the Cruising Guide to New York Waterways and Lake Champlain.
Young's books with Pelican are considered the gold standard for cruising guides and have been called the “most comprehensive, accurate, and informative on the market.” The famous precision of the books can be attributed to Young's genuine enthusiasm for the subject matter. “I actually felt that I had to go out and see and experience everything I wrote about,” says the author concerning the meticulous nature of his guides.
He and his navigator wife, Karen, are ardent, expert cruisers who have logged countless hours exploring southern coastlines to ensure the accuracy of their descriptions and recommendations. Though incredibly experienced himself, Young writes his guides with captains of all skill levels in mind.
Young seasons his guides with invaluable maps, photographs, and chart references, as well as personal stories to give readers the edge in safety, convenience, and efficiency. The coastal-chart books offer full-color NOAA nautical charts and easy-to-read map characters, and all are cross-referenced to every site and symbol in the cruising guides to make access to information quick and clear.
Unlike most cruising guides, Young's books go the extra mile to offer recommendations about restaurants and historic sites on the land side of boat travel. History and folklore of included locations add detail for the visitor and lend additional flair.
When not cruising the local waters, Claiborne Young resides in Snow Camp, North Carolina, with his family and edits the on-line cruising newsletter The Salty Southeast.
Award-winning writer, Norma Zager was the editor of the Beverly Hills Courier when the legal assistant and environmental crusader Erin Brockovich launched her case against the city of Beverly Hills, the high school, and the oil companies. As a journalist, she dealt with the lawsuits on a daily basis, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the trial. She confronted not only the issues brought up in court, but the personal struggles of Beverly Hills residents. Zager received such honors as the Los Angeles Journalist of the Year and the Los Angeles Best Investigative Series for her work on the Brockovich case. In addition, the Wall Street Journal and the Columbia Journalism Review praised her investigative reporting.
Zager earned her BA in journalism from Wayne State University. She is a member of the National Press Club and the Los Angeles Press Club, where she served on the board of directors. A freelance journalist, she teaches investigative journalism at California State University, Los Angeles. In addition to contributing articles to major publications, Zager has authored several books. The former stand-up comic and avid cook has appeared on HGTV, daytime talk shows, and cooking shows. She lives in West Hollywood, California.
Katherine Zecca is the illustrator of seven children’s books and numerous medical journals and publications. She uses her experience as a scientific illustrator for NOAA Fisheries and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo to depict accurate, vibrant, and detailed wildlife and nature. Her illustration of a historical poster was recognized with a national award at the 125th anniversary of NOAA Fisheries. Zecca teaches nature sketching in the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, Vermont, Maine, and New Brunswick. Additionally, she works as a medical illustrator for the veteran’s hospital in Augusta, Georgia. Born in Germany, Zecca attended the Art Institute of Seattle and now lives in Aiken, South Carolina.
Laura Zeranski served as a health records administrator and consultant for more than thirty-five years. Her experience includes directing large medical records departments, programs, policies, and procedures across the entire scope of healthcare, from major teaching hospitals to physician practices. In addition to consulting with clients throughout the U.S., Canada, and Australia, she made presentations at numerous professional meetings and business conferences.
Laura began cooking Polish cuisine when she married Peter Zeranski. His mother, Alina Zeranska, wrote The Art of Polish Cooking. As Peter’s parents grew older, Laura took over preparations for Sunday family dinners and special holiday celebrations.
Laura graduated with a BS from Carlow University. She occasionally works as a consultant with local medical practices and enjoys gourmet cooking, ballroom dancing, flower arranging, and traveling with her husband. They live in Alexandria, Virginia.
Born in Europe, Peter Zeranski and his family migrated to the United States soon after World War II, but he continues to maintain his Polish heritage. The Art of Polish Cooking, written by his mother, Alina Zeranska, serves as the foundation for his love of Polish food.
In addition to developing his culinary skills, Zeranski spent more than thirty years as a marketing executive with the U.S. Postal Service, and for the last ten years with the company he served as a principal marketing strategist for their small business programs. Zeranski then launched a small consulting practice aimed at helping small businesses grow.
Zeranski received his MBA in marketing from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. An avid ballroom dancer, Zeranski is a director on the board of the Cotillion Dinner & Dance Club with his wife Laura.
Zig Ziglar is one of America's most widely read and most listened to motivational speakers. Since 1970, he has traveled over five million miles across the world, delivering his powerful life-improvement messages, cultivating the energy of change.
A well-known authority on complete and balanced success, Ziglar has been recognized three times in the Congressional Record of the United States for his work with youth in the drug war and for his dedication to America and the free-enterprise system.
Zig Ziglar's corporation, Ziglar Training Systems, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is built on the same philosophies he expounds to his audiences—hard work, common sense, fairness, commitment, and integrity. His client list includes thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, Fortune 500 companies, U.S. government agencies, churches, schools, and nonprofit associations.
In his books, Ziglar outlines his self-improving and life-affirming philosophies. In See You at the Top, he outlines how people can change themselves and their surroundings. With over eight hundred human-interest stories, Ziglar teaches the value of possessing and developing a healthy self-image and clarifies the importance of goals.
Steps to the Top picks up where See You at the Top left off, expanding on its message. Here, Ziglar guides the reader through seven steps to personal improvement.
Zig Ziglar's other works include Confessions of a Happy Christian and Dear Family, in which he offers valuable counseling on the dangers that face the contemporary family and how they can be combated.
Andrea Zimmerman is a teacher, graphic artist, and an author of children’s books. She has written more than ten children’s books.
Zimmerman graduated from Califonia State University, where she earned her Bachelor degree in Fine Arts for Children. She has also received her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Zimmerman has three sons, and lives with her husband, David, in San Diego, California.
Kathleen Welch is a former assistant professor, epidemiologist, and social scientist. She works as an adjunct professor of public health at the University of New England and an adjunct professor in global community health at Tulane University. Her father and grandmother who died from this devastating disease inspired her involvement in public health and Alzheimer’s advocacy.
Welch has a well-rounded and varied educational background. She earned a BA in Russian language and literature and master’s in education from Ohio State University. She also has a Master’s of Public Health, and a PhD in global health, epidemiology, and sociology from Tulane. She and her husband have received various awards and grants for public health campaigns, which incorporate the arts with public health and social justice.
She lives in New Orleans with her husband Alan McGillivray.