Waupaca BookFest 2010
Authors
JOHN GREEN is the Printz Award-winning author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and the recently released Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-authored with David Levithan. John is currently writing his next as yet unnamed novel. He is also half of the Vlogbrothers with his brother Hank. John and Hank’s videos at youtube.com/vlogbrothers have been watched by tens of thousands of loyal viewers who call themselves Nerdfighters. Together they have built a community devoted to books, social activism, and the love of all things nerdy.
PATRICK JONES is the author of six novels for teens, most recently the supernatural tome The Tear Collector. His 2007 novel Chasing Tail Lights was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and his first novel, Things Change, was a runner-up for the Ohio Teen Buckeye Book Award. A former librarian for teenagers, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association in 2006. He currently lives in Minneapolis, although he still considers Flint, Michigan his hometown.
HOLLY KENNEDY was born in Alberta, Canada. She always wanted to be a writer, but it wasn’t until after she’d married and had kids that she finally decided to chase her dream. In 2002 she attended Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Writers Workshop with her short story “The Tin Box,” which became her first novel. Her second novel, The Penny Tree, was published not long after that, and the third, The Silver Compass, followed a year later. Today she lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her family, where she’s busy writing her next novel, Keeper of the Pond.
TIM LENCKI has spent 19 years in the fitness industry as an author, speaker and personal trainer. His book, Fitness One Day at a Time, teaches readers how to begin and maintain a personalized exercise program. Tim has also written a series of 12 short books titled Bookette Series for Active Lifestyles that teach people how to use exercise to manage chronic health conditions. He conducts workshops and speaks about fitness and motivation at seminars. Lencki will be conducting a hands-on workshop called “Energize Your Life Now” for the Festival. He resides in Waupaca with his family.
JACQUELYN MITCHARD’s first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was Oprah Winfrey’s first Book Club selection, and was made into a major motion picture. Mitchard has since published several other award-winning novels for adults and teens, including her Midnight Twins series for young adults; also children’s books and nonfiction for adults, and columns for national magazines. She also helped to found One Writer’s Place for writers recovering from difficult experiences. Mitchard lives in Wisconsin with her husband Christopher Brent, and their nine children.
JANET MOHR’s first publication is a children’s novel, Flight of Change, about Butterfly’s experiences as she grows up. She has also published professional articles and poetry. Her latest publication is called Backyard Bird Book for Kids. She holds a BS in secondary ed/English and an MA in literature from UW-Oshkosh. Mohr is active in a number of environmental organizations such as Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, Operation Migration, and Wild Ones, and has participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Mohr will be running a birdfeeder-building workshop at the Festival. She lives in Appleton with her husband and dog.
ARTHUR RATHBURN began writing full-time after years as a professor and a career in the army (among many other professions). Rathburn’s books bring alive the experiences of those who lived through World War II, often from the perspective of German-Americans. He and his German-born wife URSULA co-wrote No More Tears Left Behind, the story of a Jewish couple escaping the Nazis in war-torn Berlin. The couple will discuss writing oral histories, and how they select and interview people with outstanding lifetime stories. The Rathburns reside in Dane, Wisconsin.
AMY KROUSE ROSENTHAL is a writer, filmmaker, and radio host. She has published 12 children’s books (and 8 forthcoming). Duck! Rabbit! was selected as Time magazine’s best children’s book of 2009. As for her adult work, Amazon named her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life one of the top 10 memoirs of 2005. Amy is also the creator of YouTube sensations such as “17 Things I Made” and the international film project, “The Beckoning of Lovely.” Amy is a graduate of Tufts University and The Sorbonne in Paris. She lives with her family in Chicago.
PATRICIA WOOD’s first literary effort, at age 8 (Thickamore The Backnus) was well received and, though self-published with tape and cardboard, has stood the test of time as does all good literature. Wood is a Ph.D. student at the University of Hawaii, studying education, disability and diversity as well as writing. She lives with her husband, Gordon, on a 48-foot sailboat in Hawaii. Her son, Andrew, lives in Washington, where her novel, Lottery, takes place. Lottery is a funny, thoughtful novel starring a wealthy young man whose IQ of 76 does not begin to define his true intelligence.
JIM ZITZELSBERGER is a farmer in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, where he writes in the morning and farms in the afternoon five days a week. Weekends are usually devoted to farming and frolics: planting, harvesting, sailing in summer and iceboating in winter. He has two grown sons, Joseph and Aaron, who, like their mom, are personable, professional, and positive. Zitzelsberger’s novel of post-war peasant life in Vietnam, Cry for the Water Buffalo, sprang from his memories of two tours of duty in the Vietnam War. Zitzelsberger was also an English teacher, library specialist, and coach before retiring to farm and write.
TOM MICHAEL, Rare Books Expert, has lived with books most of his life, having purchased his first, a leather-bound volume of O’Henry, before he could read. His favorite pursuit has always been “bringing good books to good people.” Tom’s association with the Book Cellar goes back more than 20 years. Tom’s program is meant to assist you with identification and valuation of your books. We want everyone to have a chance to seek advice, so please limit your selections to just a few of the books about which you are most curious.
CANDY WIZA has been in the publishing industry for over 20 years. She worked as a merchandise manager for a mail-order catalog before becoming editor and eventually acquisitions editor for Krause Publications. Her forte is how-to books. Currently, she is a freelance editor. Candy has been lecturing for five years to new and existing authors hoping to help them understand the ever-changing publishing industry. Candy resides in Rosholt, Wisconsin.
Waupaca BookFest 2012
Authors
ERICA BAUERMEISTER always wanted to write, but when she read Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” in college, she finally knew what she wanted to write – books that took what many considered to be unimportant bits of life and gave them beauty. Frustrated by the lack of women authors in the curriculum, she co-authored 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide with Holly Smith and Jesse Larsen and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14 with Holly Smith. Her first novel was The School of Essential Ingredients, followed a few years later by Joy for Beginners Erica lives in Washington state with her family.
JUDY BRIDGES is the author of Shut Up & Write! and the founder of Redbird Studio writing center in Milwaukee, WI. Prior to founding the studio, she earned her living writing and won awards for her fiction, nonficton, business communications, and plays. Her passion for helping others find their writing voices came to life at the studio, where over 6,000 students of all ages and levels attended workshops and followed their dreams. She is currently working on a collection of family stories titled, You Drive. You’re Too Drunk To Sing.
DARIEN GEE is the author of Friendship Bread: A Novel (Ballantine Books). She’s also the national bestselling author of three novels (Good Things, Sweet Life and Table Manners) under the name Mia King. Darien is an alumna of Squaw Valley Community of Writers and has been teaching creative writing workshops for over 20 years.
PETER GENIESSE has spent his life advocating justice for the little guy, the poor, the downtrodden, including serving three years among the poor with the social activists in Antofagasta, Chile. For 30 years he sought ways to put his social justice interests in his work as a reporter and editor for an Appleton, Wisconsin newspaper. His experience with refugee families led to his first book: Cuc: Flower of the Delta. about Vietnamese boat people who resettled in Wisconsin.
His second book, Illegal: NAFTA Refugees Forced to Flee, was spurred by years chronicling Mexico in newspapers and magazines.
Peter is a long-time resident of Neenah, WI.
BRETT LAIDLAW is a writer, cook, bread baker, trout bum, mushroom hound, and gardener. After spending most of his life in the Twin Cities area, he recently relocated (along with his wife, Mary Eckmeier, and two wire-haired pointing griffons) to hilly northern Wisconsin. He’s the author of two novels, Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth and Blue Bel Air, and many short stories, essays, and reviews. He has also recorded essays on northern foods for the “Wisconsin Life” series on Wisconsin Public Radio. His most recent book, Trout Caviar: Recipes from a Northern Forager, celebrates local, seasonal eating and the distinctive foods of the upper Midwest, and came out of his eponymous blog.
MARISSA MEYER lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her fiancé and our two cats. In addition to her slight obsession with books and writing, she’s big on road-tripping, wine-tasting, and hunting for antiques. Cinder, her debut novel, is a futuristic re-envisioning of Cinderella in which Cinder is a cyborg mechanic. Cinder was the result of Marissa’s participation in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel-Writing Month, in which writers attempt to write an entire novel in the month of November.
WENDELL NELSON taught English at Winona (Minnesota) State University and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and for the past 21 years has been a Reference Librarian at the Portage County (Wisconsin) Public Library. He has also been a local and architectural historian for 31 years, researching and lecturing on and writing about old buildings of Portage County and Central Wisconsin, including The Past in Our Present and Of Stones, Steam, and the Earth: The Pleasures and Meanings of a Sauna .
MICHAEL PERRY is a humorist and author of the bestselling memoirs Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, Truck: A Love Story and Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting, as well as the essay collection Off Main Street. Perry has written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Backpacker, Orion and Salon.com, and is a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He has performed and produced two live audience humor recordings (I Got It From the Cows and Never Stand Behind a Sneezing Cow) and he performs regularly with his band the Long Beds. Perry lives in rural Wisconsin, where he remains active with the local volunteer rescue service.
PAT SCHMATZ is the author of four novels for teens. Her early books were recognized by the Wisconsin Library Association, the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and Bank Street College of Education. Her most recent book, Bluefish, won the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship while still a work in progress. It was published by Candlewick Press in 2011, and awarded Bank Street College of Education’s 2012 Josette Frank Award for fiction. It is a Junior Library Guild Selection, a nominee for the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, and an ALA Notable Children’s Book.
Pat grew up near Amherst, Wisconsin. After living in Michigan, California and Minnesota, she is back in the Amherst area, where Wisconsin woods and lakes provide the perfect environment for idea collisions.
JASIA STEINMETZ is a professor of food and nutrition at the University of WI-Stevens Point and a registered dietitian whose career focuses on promoting healthy eating from a sustainable, local food system. She is a founding member of the Central Rivers Farmshed, a community group which promotes local food, supports local farmers and encourages preserving family food traditions, and author of Eat Local.
MATT TAVARES wrote and illustrated his first picture book, Zachary’s Ball, as his senior college thesis; it became his first published book. Since then, Matt has published eleven more books, both as an illustrator and as an author, including There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived, Henry Aaron’s Dream, Mudball and Oliver’s Game. Matt’s books have won several awards and his artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators. Matt lives in Maine with his wife and their two daughters.
JACQUELINE WEST loves dogs, is sadly allergic to cats (though she manages to write about them without developing a rash), and is at least a little bit afraid of all fish larger than a hot dog bun. The Books of Elsewhere, Jacqueline’s fantasy series for young readers, has been published in over 10 countries. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of print and online publications and has garnered several awards. Cherma, her series of poems about Wisconsin’s Bohemian immigrants, was published in March 2010. Jacqueline lives amid the bluffs of Red Wing, Minnesota, with her husband and her dog, a Springer Spaniel mix named Brom Bones.