We have 168 local authors in our directory!
Search for Authors
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
|---|---|---|
Stephanie Tharp | Stephanie Tharp is an industrial designer and educator— currently an Associate Professor and an Undergraduate Program Co-Director at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design. Her recent research surrounds the theory and practice of discursive design. One current project is a collaboration with chronic pain specialists exploring public engagement with medical research and challenging popular stigmas of pain sufferers. |  |
Bruce Tharp | Believed to be the first industrial designer to receive a PhD in anthropology (University of Chicago), in 1998 Bruce began researching the material culture of Indiana's Old Order Amish, focusing on the production & consumption of value. He first earned a BS in mechanical engineering from Bucknell University and a master’s degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute. In between his schooling, he served as a US Army nuclear weapons officer (Captain) in Germany. After researching the future of work and the workplace for Haworth Inc.'s design research think-tank, the Ideation Group, he began his teaching career. Over the last fifteen years he has been a tenured professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and currently at the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design. His and Stephanie's award-winning design studio has exhibited internationally, licensed designs for local and global companies, and self-produced commercial, experimental, and discursive products. |  |
Ruth Behar | Ruth Behar was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in New York. She is a cultural anthropologist, poet, and writer of fiction for young people. Behar is known for the compassion she brings to her quest to understand the depth of the human experience. She has lived in Spain and Mexico and returns often to Cuba to build bridges around culture and art. She writes about her journeys in her ethnographies, which include An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba and Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in Between Journeys. The 25th anniversary edition of her classic book, The Vulnerable Observer Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, was published in 2022. Her bilingual poetry appears in Everything I Kept/Todo lo que guardé. Behar won the Pura Belpré Author Medal for her debut middle grade novel, Lucky Broken Girl, and her second novel, Letters from Cuba, is a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and received an International Latino Book Award. Behar's debut picture book, Tia Fortuna's New Home, and in Spanish, El nuevo hogar de Tía Fortuna, a Cuban Sephardic story about intergenerational memory. A second picture book, Pepita Meets Bebita, is co-authored with her son, Gabriel Frye-Behar. Behar is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a "Great Immigrant" by the Carnegie Corporation. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and is the James W. Fernandez Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. | |
Doc Fletcher | Doc Fletcher was born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan near the main branch of the Rouge River. He is a 1976 graduate of Eastern Michigan University. He took his first canoe trip in 1978 on the Pere Marquette River and since has been getting in a canoe or kayak whenever possible. For Michigan-Out-Of-Doors segments, Doc joined co-host Jim Gretzinger in paddling the length of the Sturgeon River and the Pere Marquette headwaters. Doc has 6 books published about the joy of paddling rivers in Michigan and across the Midwest Michigan’s rivers. Doc has been invited to share stories from his books, primarily at Michigan libraries, on over 300 occasions since his first book was published in 2008. The Michigan Library Association honored Doc with their 2017 Author Award. A life-long Michigan resident, Doc promotes his home state on his website. | |
Sandee Rodriguez | Sandee Rodriguez lives in Ypsilanti Michigan. She started writing at 19 years old with a poem about a French Fry. While continuing to pursue poetry, she responded to an ad about learning to write children's books and began writing short stories. At the age of 24, she sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury, amnesia, and paralysis, among other challenges. One of those challenges was language. Exploring writing, through Speech Therapy, she returned to poetry, children's stories and eventually journalism. Sandee spends her days baking, caring for her 3 dogs, and continuing to write early reader books. She’s also working on a full-length musical about her journey living with Traumatic Brain Injury. | |
Jean Buescher Bartlett | Jean Buescher Bartlett is an artist, designer, and bookbinder working in mixed media, handmade books, cards & hand tools, who was born in Cincinnati, OH in 1956. She received a BS in Design from the University of Cincinnati and worked for Herman Miller in Zeeland, MI. A love of reading and writing led her to pursue an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama. She owned and operated Bloodroot Press from 1990 to 2020, focusing on limited edition, letterpress printed and illustrated, handbound artists’ books. Jean has also worked as an art & design librarian, interior designer, manager of Drew’s Bookshop in Cincinnati, fine art photography gallery director, author events coordinator at Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, curator, book designer, instructor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit for 15 years and lecturer at the University of Michigan while maintaining a steady studio practice. She has exhibited her work internationally and it is in over 50 public collections worldwide, including: the New York Public Library, the Detroit Public Library, the University of Michigan and Stanford University Special Collections, the Victoria and Albert Museum Library, Wellesley College Special Collections, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Clark Art Institute. | |
Carla Harryman | Carla Harryman is a poet, experimental prose writer, essayist, performance writer, and collaborator in multi-disciplinary performance. The author of twenty-five books, she is known for her boundary breaking investigations of genre, non/narrative poetics, and text-based performances. The influence of improvised music, electronic sampling, and collaborative practices animate her recent works. Recent publications include Cloud Cantata (Pamenar, 2022); the poet's theater play Good Morning (PAJ: Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press, 2022); and Sue in Berlin and Sue á Berlin (trans. Sabine Huynh), a collection of poetry and performance writings composed between 2001-2015 and released in 2018 by PURH "To Series" in separate English and French volumes. Other key publications in the last two decades include Adorno's Noise (2008), an experiment in prose poetry and "the essay as form," the collaborative ten-volume work, The Grand Piano: Experiments in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco 1975-1980 (completed in 2010); the poet's novel Gardener of Stars (2001); W-/M-(2013), and the essay Artifact of Hope (2017). Her awards include an artist award in poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, New York; a grant (with Erling Wald) from Opera America: Next Stage, an NEA Consortium Playwright Commission; several awards from The Foundation for Poetry; and the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award for Creative Activity at Eastern Michigan University. Her work has been translated into many languages and her poetry, prose and plays have been represented in over thirty national and international anthologies. | |
JP McAndrew | I studied media and writing at EMU, focusing on screenwriting. “Venus in Twilight” is my first. I live in corn country south of Ann Arbor with wife Kimberly, two rescue dogs, and an orange cat, also a rescue. |  |
Vicki Brett-Gach | Vicki Brett-Gach is the creator of the Ann Arbor Vegan Kitchen blog, and the author of "The Plant-Based for Life Cookbook: Deliciously Simple Recipes to Nourish, Comfort, Energize and Renew” – published by Brooklyn Writers Press. Vicki is a Whole-Food Plant-Based Culinary Instructor, Certified Personal Chef, and Master-Certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach, and has been trained in Nutrition for a Healthy Heart, and in Dietary Therapy for Reversing Common Diseases. Vicki is Forks Over Knives Plant-Based Certified, and a graduate of Dr. McDougall’s Starch Solution Certification program, with certificates in Culinary Coaching (through Harvard Medical School and The Institute of Lifestyle Medicine), in Plant-Based Nutrition (through the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies), and in Wellness Counseling (through Cornell University). |  |
Jennifer Waddell | Jennifer Waddell writes devotionals about Christian living. She released her first book in 2018 but she’s been writing since high school. Jennifer is a songwriter and has been involved in music ministry for many years. Her goal of writing is to bring hope and encouragement to the readers. Her books are available at her church, Shekinah Christian church, and also on Amazon. | |
| Author | Biography | Book Cover(s) |
