Author Illustrator Fair 2016
Kathryn Allen is a children’s author who writes diverse, interactive books for babies and young children about topics like nonverbal communication, manners, and love. Show Me Happy and A Kiss Means I Love You are my most recent. With Eric Futran’s delightful photos of children communicating in many different ways, they have received wonderful reviews from School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews.
Josef Bastian is Midwest author and poet whose sense of humor, depth of spirit and reflective imagination resonate within his poetry and prose. Josef currently has more than a dozen books in print that focus on the power of storytelling for people of all ages. His current projects include the Nain Rouge Trilogy – A Crimson Three, that resurrects a 300-year folk legend from Detroit. Josef has also launched Folkteller Publishing, a storytelling company that targets regional folk tales and legends from around the world.
The author’s career spans 40 years in Information Technologies where providing documentation and training was a major part of developing applications. During this time, the author found the success of any applications was highest when the materials were tailored to the audience. The author found this is also a major factor in writing fiction and tailors his writing to the type of material he likes to read. In fiction, this includes interesting, action-packed adventures, with a historical bent, and chapters that tend to end as cliffhangers. This keep-it-interesting principle applies to the production of non-fiction. Create interest by being able to find a niche market, fill a demand, and meet a need. In either case—fiction and non-fiction—the author summarizes his methodology with the statement “if I won’t read it, I won’t write it.”
Emlyn Chand was born with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). Novel Publicity’s mascot is a sun conure, thanks to her obsession with birds–and she gets to decide anyway since she is the company’s founder and president. Her first novel, Farsighted, won the prestigious Writer’s Digest Self-Published Novel of the Year award in 2012 for the YA category. She now writes most of her fiction under her real name, Melissa Storm.
Falcon Storm was born in the frozen wasteland of Alaska with the unfortunate stigma of being both a daydreamer and left-handed. Starting from an early age, “I’ve filled my life with stories of every sort, from my father’s hunting trips to the Holy Trilogy (read: Star Wars). In the fourth grade, I became more interested in telling stories of my own than listening to those of others. Doctors—being doctors—attempted to medicate them out of me, but the best cure has always been a pen, a notebook, and my crazy, unrestrained imagination.”
Bryan Chick is the author of the Secret Zoo series. He originally had the idea for the series when he was a nine-year-old and wondered what would happen if zoo exhibits had secret doors that allowed children to go inside . . . and the animals to come outside. Bryan Chick lives with his wife and three children in Clarkston, Michigan.
Alison DeCamp grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her family history consists of stories of life in lumber camps and old scrapbooks. A graduate of Michigan State University, Alison is a former middle and high school language arts teacher. She now works at Between the Covers, a bookstore in Harbor Springs, Michigan, and spends the rest of her time with her husband and teenage children. She is the author of My Near Death Adventures (99% True), a 2016 Orion Library Battle Book. Rock DePerno is an author of mysteries, thrillers, and speculative fiction. Some of his childhood heroes were Jack London, James Kjelgaard, Charles Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper, and Mark Twain. He worked in the auto plants in Hamtramck, Highland Park and many other smaller automotive related companies all his life. However, his hobby was always reading and writing. His works include The Making of Man, The Ghost of Khe Sanh and The Ghost and the Girl with Yellow Hair. Nationally recognized author Maria Dismondy is dedicated to inspiring and empowering children. She has authored six children’s books, each with its own unique positive message, and made over 250 speaking appearances. Maria holds an M.A. in education, and served as an elementary school teacher and reading interventionist for ten years before transitioning into her current role as author, blogger, professional speaker and business owner.
Jean Alicia Elster, B.A., J.D. is the author of the novel The Colored Car which was selected as a 2014 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan and Fiction as an Honor Book for the 2014 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. Elster was awarded the 2014 Midwest Book Award in Children’s. Elster is also the author of the novel Who’s Jim Hines, which was selected as one of the Library of Michigan’s 2009 Michigan Notable Books.
A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Matt Faulkner has written and illustrated a number of children’s books. His work has won wide praise for its humor, exuberance and sensitivity. In addition, he is a contributing illustrator to such national periodicals as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Matt is married to author and Orion children’s librarian, Kristen Remenar. They live with their 3 kids and 3 cats on the lower right corner of the Michigan mitten. He teaches illustration at the Art Academy University in San Francisco.
Award-winning author R.L. Herron grew up in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale and has published multiple works of fiction. ~ REICHOLD STREET - Readers' Favorite Gold Medal, favorably reviewed by Kirkus Review. Street Light was a Shelf Unbound "Notable Book of 2015." Blood Lake won a BookLife Prize in Fiction (Publishers Weekly).
Robb N. Johnston is an aspiring artist and author/illustrator of children's picture books from Rockford, MI, currently living in Ann Arbor. He has published two children's picture books titled The Woodcutter and The Most Beautiful Tree (2011) and "Lelani and The Plastic Kingdom," (2014).
Kristin Lenz is a writer and social worker from metro-Detroit who fell in love with the mountains when she moved to Georgia and California. Now she’s back in Detroit where she plots wilderness escapes and manages the Michigan Chapter blog for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Her debut young adult novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go has been on the Michigan’s best seller list in 2016.
Andy Lockwood is a writer of supernatural/ horror books, filmmaker, wanderer, poet, imagineer, bibliophile, cinephile and all-around adventurer. He has two degrees in film, and is currently employed in the education technology field. He is the author of Empty Hallways, House of Thirteen, and At Calendar’s End.
Ruth McNally Barshaw (Author and Illustrator) grew up in the Detroit area, where she began drawing pictures to go with famous stories and kept sketch journals of her childhood. As an adult, she discovered that writing and illustrating kids’ books was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Now living in Lansing, Michigan with her family and two dogs, she pushes herself to do a better job on each book. She is the author of the bestselling Ellie McDoodle series and illustrator of the picture book Leopold the Lion.
Heather Smith Meloche is the author of Ripple, a YA novel about Tessa and Jack, two high school students who navigate their way through all-too-adult lives, struggling to find each other, and most importantly, themselves. Ripple has been published by Putnam Penguin. A portion of Ripple, entitled Him, won Hunger Mountain's Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult Story in Verse in 2011. Meloche also won first place in the children's/YA category of the Writer's Digest Annual Competition for a middle grade short story, "The Emperor's New Crows," in 2011. She lives in Michigan with her family.
Rebecca Moll (nee Sawyers), born and raised in South Jersey to a mother from the north and a father from the south, draws on her rich family history & life experiences both above and below the Mason Dixon Line to create vivid and compelling stories. A graduate of West Virginia University, she now lives far above the dividing line, in Michigan with her husband, Rich, mother-in-law, Joan, and their three children. Her books include For the Love of Charlie, North South: a Collection of Short Stories, and The Beauty of Digging Deep.
Amy Nielander graduated from College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Before becoming an Author Illustrator, she worked as a product designer and digital sculptor in the automotive industry. In 2014 she earned international recognition as the only finalist from the United States for her entry in the Silent Book Contest. Her submission debuted at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and traveled to Milan, Italy for exhibition October of 2014. The Ladybug Race picture book was published in 2015 by PomegranateKids.
Colleen Nye is a Michigan based author that has gone from poetry to content writing, movie reviewing, press releases, short stories and everything in between. Settling on the art of a full length novel, she published her first in 2012, a romantic comedy entitled When in Maui, book one in The Unattainable Series. Her second novel, a tech thriller named Immersion was released May 2015. Since then, she's released several books, including The Long Summer, a coming of age drama. In September 2015, she opened Blue Deco Publishing and helps other authors find a home for their books.
Christopher Wright, is the author of dozens of horror fiction books for children and young adults. He writes under the pseudonyms Johnathan Rand and Christopher Knight. Almost all of Wright's books (save American Chillers) take place in his home state of Michigan. His works include American Chillers series, Michigan Chillers series, Freddie Fernortner, Fearless First Grader series, Adventure Club series, St. Helena, Ferocity, Bestseller, The Laurentian Channel, Season of the Witch, The World is Black and White.
Kristen Remenar is an Orion children’s librarian, author, teacher, and a national speaker on literacy. Her first picture book, GROUNDHOG’S DILEMMA, is published by Charlesbridge and is illustrated by the awardwinning author/illustrator (and super-cute husband), Matt Faulkner. Kristen and Matt have three lovely children and two mostly-lovely cats. They live in Michigan. For those who appreciate dark & snarky humor, take a peek at DRAW WITH A VENGEANCE: GET EVEN IN INK AND LET KARMA HANDLE THE REST, written by Kristen's alter ego, Helen Wrath.
Michael P. Spradlin is the author of more than a dozen books for children, some of which have actually been published. He grew up in a small town in Michigan not far from the Indiana border, which may explain his irrational fear of Hoosiers. (Both the inhabitants of the state of Indiana and the movie starring Gene Hackman). As a New York Times bestselling author, his books include the international bestselling Youngest Templar trilogy, The Killer Species series and his latest novel, INTO THE KILLING SEAS, was a Junior Library Guild selection. He has also written several picture books for children including OFF LIKE THE WIND!: The First Ride of the Pony Express, winner of the Wrangler Award by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
J. Thomas-Like is a writer born and raised in Michigan. She lives with her darling husband, brilliant son, a passel of cats, and a dog. She began writing at an early age and is finally happy to be making her dreams come true, one story at a time. She is the author of The Widow and the Rock Star, The Widow and the Will, and The Widow and the Orphan.
Teacher, author, singer Caterina Zucker has studied opera, yoga, metaphysical healing, and world religions. She loves to inspire others to find their voice through singing, writing, and inner work. She lives surrounded by friends in Lake Orion, Michigan. She is the author of Gray Beaujolais and Friends in Paradise.
