Author Tour: Author Bios

Sarah Conover began her career as a producer for public television and subsequently spent many years teaching both English and radio production at the secondary level. A recent addition to the WiR program, she is especially looking forward to bringing multicultural perspectives into classrooms through writing. She is the founder and editor of the This Little Light of Mine series, which seeks to introduce children and their parents to the world's great traditions of wisdom and spirituality. The newest volume in the series, Harmony, released in fall 2008 by Eastern Washington University Press, is a collection of Chinese folk stories. The inaugural volume, Kindness, a collection of Buddhist tales, was recommended by Booklist as one of the five best spiritual books published in 2001, while Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs, which draws on Muslim tradition, was cited by Newsweek as one of the top multicultural books of 2004. Conover holds a degree in education from Gonzaga University, a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Colorado, and an MFA in creative writing from Eastern. Her poetry has appeared in Rock and Sling, The Santa Clara Review, and Pontoon 10. For more information, visit  http://www.sarahconover.com/.

---

Spokane author Mary Cronk Farrell has presented school workshops for the past five years. Her topics include helping reluctant writers get started, the development of character and plot, strategies for revision, and writing nonfiction or news stories. But no matter what she is teaching, her passion for writing is contagious. Mary enjoys working with teachers to complement the existing curriculum. She takes a practical, hands-on approach with a strongly interactive component, combining accounts of her own journey as a writer with short exercises designed to give students confidence in their abilities while at the same time teaching solid writing skills. She is the author of the award-winning historical novel Fire in the Hole! which is based on events in the Inland Northwest. She brings the experience of early-day mining communities in the West to life by weaving historical photos, artifacts, and stories into her presentation about the book. Her activities as a writer also extend to radio, TV, and print journalism. See www.marycronkfarrell.com for more information.

---

Claire Rudolf Murphy is the author of fifteen works of fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults, including Children of Alcatraz and I Am Sacajawea, I Am York. She is on the faculty of Hamline University's low-residency MFA program in creative writing for children and young adults. Before returning to her hometown of Spokane, Murphy lived for over two decades in Alaska. She is an expert on the Iditarod and other facets of Alaskan life, and her love of the north is visible in many of her books. Her historical interests include the 1910 suffrage battle in Washington State, a subject she enjoys presenting to students. Her presentation features a short play about the period, That Woman and Big Noise: May Arkwright Hutton and Emma Davoe Smith, as well as activities that concern the history of voting and show how this history is reflected in what we do today. Information about her books is available at www.clairerudolfmurphy.com. Her availability is limited.

---

Rebecca Nappi, features writer for The Spokesman-Review, has been a journalist for nearly 30 years. A native of Spokane, she worked for newspapers in the East, including the USA Today, before returning to her home, and The Spokesman-Review, in 1985. She is passionate about teaching children, especially at the elementary level, and her fun-filled presentations emphasize student participation. When she was thirteen, she began keeping diaries, and she has been known to share a page or two from these sometimes embarrassing personal accounts of her teen years. She is also the author of two books on Catholic marriage for Paulist Press, and she is storyteller-in-residence for a week each summer at Camp Fire's Camp Sweyolakan. Her work can be found at spokesman.com. Her availability is limited.

 

---

 Kenn Nesbitt is the author of several collections of funny poetry for kids, including My Hippo Has the Hiccups, Revenge of the Lunch Ladies, and The Aliens Have Landed at Our School! His poetry has appeared in many bestselling anthologies, including every book in the popular Kids Pick the Funniest Poems series, and anthologies from Scholastic with nearly 2 million copies in print. His works have been in dozens of school textbooks around the world, as well as national television programs, and numerous children's magazines. Kenn travels the country, visiting over 60 schools each year, sharing his wacky brand of poetry with kids nationwide, and helping to create a new generation of poetry lovers. His website, poetry4kids.com, is the most visited children's poetry website on the Internet. Kenn is available until mid-December 2009.

 

---

Denise H. Adams enjoys working with aspiring writers all ages. She is the author and illustrator of Annabelle's Angels, a story about the surprises in store for a little girl when she moves to a different climate, as well as Itchy the Witch, both published in 2007 by Lifevest Publishers. Itchy the Witch is an interactive Halloween story about a small witch who must save her town from the destructive influence of the "warm pink breeze." The book includes directions for making stick puppets, and younger children love to act out the story by holding up the puppets and making the sounds that go with them. Denise conducts a workshop on descriptive writing that can be adapted to any grade level and has proved very successful in inspiring reluctant writers. As part of the workshop, she often explains how she came to illustrate her own books and encourages her audience to try their hand at illustrating as well. She is also happy to discuss the publishing process, with a view to presenting publication as a realistic goal for young writers, rather than only a dream. Denise, who writes for adults as well as children, can be contacted at denisethewriter@gmail.com.

---

Verla Kay is an acclaimed children's author, as well as a consummate presenter, who often casts fictional characters in historical settings, spinning her tales in a unique style of writing she describes as "cryptic rhyme." Her latest publication, Rough, Tough Charley, is a picture-book biography of an unusual historic figure, a stagecoach driver known as Charley Parkhurst. Well organized and full of energy, Kay connects with students and staff alike. For school visits, she often brings along a thick folder of her rejection letters ("I'm stubborn!" she tells students), as well as early drafts of manuscripts. She combines these materials with lively, entertaining PowerPoint presentations to emphasize the importance of rewriting. As a child, Verla hated history, and she thought she was "the world's worst writer." Only as an adult did she discover the joys of history and the satisfaction of writing something well, and she is thrilled to share her love of both with students. For presentations to elementary grades (including kindergarten), she dons historical costumes, and she always leaves behind a fever of inspiration about reading, writing, and books. For information about her award-winning publications, visit her Web site at http://www.verlakay.com

---

Kelly Milner Halls has a fascination with science and nature, particularly the offbeat. Are elementary school students curious? Do they gravitate to the bizarre like moths to a beam of light? Of course they do. And children's author Kelly Milner Halls shamelessly panders to that curiosity in her engaging nonfiction books for young readers and in the school presentations based on them-presentations she calls "Wonders of the Weird." From Dinosaur Mummies and Albino Animals to Tales of the Cryptids and Mysteries of the Kid Mummies, Halls's books draw kids in by engaging their sense of wonder. Her presentations for grades 2 through 6 are always inventive, and her expertise, the hands-on materials she brings with her and her sense of whimsy make learning about science, history, geography and writing more than simply educational. Two of her other books, I Bought a Baby Chicken and Dinosaur Parade, walk kindergarteners and first graders through the writing process-from that first moment of inspiration to the birth of a brand-new book, with lots of giggles along the way. Find out more about Kelly Milner Halls and her newest book, Saving the Baghdad Zoo, by visiting her Web site at www.kellymilnerhalls.com

     

 

 

 

---

---

Sandra Hosking, a playwright of national reputation, as well as a former teacher, will make your students insiders in the world of playwriting. For school visits, she provides in advance a scene from one of her plays--for example, the scene from Romeo and Juliet, Part II, in which the two star-cross'd lovers argue about Romeo's failure to get a job--so that selected students can prepare a reading. During her visit, she uses the students' reading of the scene to lead classes into an exploration of the playwrights' classic tools: conflict and character. Sandy, whose plays have been performed in both New York and Los Angeles, regularly holds workshops on playwriting and on writing more generally. In addition to her activities as a resident playwright at Spokane Civic Theater, she is also a working journalist. To learn more, visit her Web site at www.geocities.com/sandrahosking/Sandrahosking.htm

---

Meghan Nuttall Sayres, a tapestry weaver, is author of Anahita's Woven Riddle, a novel set in nineteenth-century Iran that was among the American Library Association's Top Ten Best Books of 2007, as well as a Book Sense Pick that same year. She is also the author of Weaving Tapestry in Rural Ireland and the co-author (with Sarah Conover) of Daughters of the Desert: Tales of Remarkable Women from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Traditions. Meghan has visited schools and taught creative writing workshops in schools in the United States, Ireland, Turkey, Qatar, Iran and Uzbekistan. She is currently at work on novels set in these countries, as well as an anthology about Iran. In the course of her travels, she has met with scholars, carpet weavers, dye masters and merchants to study the age-old symbolism and the Sufi poetic traditions that infuse many of the rugs woven throughout the Middle East. Meghan brings a wealth of materials to her presentations, including a slide show of her trip to Iran. She lives in Eastern Washington in the company of her husband, her children, her sheep and a cat. For information about her other books, please visit her at www.MeghanNuttallSayres.com or see her StoryForce.net and MySpace pages.

---

Terry Trueman is widely known for his young adult novels, eight of them to date. His first, Stuck in Neutral, which won a Prinz Honor Award, centers on Shawn, an adolescent boy afflicted with severe cerebral palsy, who cannot communicate verbally but has a rich inner life. Cruise Control, a companion volume written from the point of view of Shawn's brother, Paul, tells the powerful story of a family torn apart by disability and divorce. Most recently, Hurricane, a novel based on Hurricane Mitch's devastation of Honduras in 1998, chronicles a young boy's fear and courage in the face of forces of nature so cataclysmic as to defy imagination. Terry is a charismatic, high-energy speaker who can hold any audience's interest. He does half-day presentations only, and his availability is limited. See www.terrytrueman.com for more information.

 

Beth Cooley's second novel for young adults, Shelter, published in 2006 by Delacorte Press, was inspired by the residents of St. Margaret's Shelter, here in Spokane. The novel tells the story of fifteen-year-old Lucy Durbin, who, in the aftermath of her father's death, must come to terms with living in a homeless shelter with her mother and brother. Ostrich Eye (2004), which won the Delacorte Prize for First Young Adult Novel, is a fast-paced mystery based on a case of mistaken identity and too much wishful thinking on the part of its teenage protagonist, Ginger Rosa. Cooley is chair of the English Department at Gonzaga University. During the academic year (through mid-May), her school visits must be scheduled for Tuesdays or Thursdays.

---

Poet and teaching writer Dennis Held boasts a remarkable breadth of experience, having published more than a hundred articles, essays, and book reviews in addition to his poems. Dennis's poetry collections--for a recent example, look for Betting on the Night--reflect his philosophy that the most accessible and exciting poems are written in a heightened, but familiar, language and talk about how people live and feel and think in America today. "When I was growing up," he says, "poetry was something written by dead British white guys, in a kind of language that seemed totally removed from my experience." Dennis aims to broaden students' understanding of poetry and empower them to tell their own stories, and he leaves them with this message: writing is a tool through which you can make sense of life's chaos. With his sense of humor and his straightforward manner, he finds it easy to connect with students, overachievers and reluctant writers alike. He is also able to adjust his focus, as requested, to cover WASL-oriented material such as personal essays. To learn more about his work, see www.dennisheld.com

Born in Los Angeles in 1969, Michael Harmon spent his pre-teen years skateboarding, racing his BMX bike, going to the beach, playing baseball, hiking, hunting, four wheeling and reading everything from The Hobbit to The Hardy Boys.  As a teen, he moved with his family to Spokane, which to him was a "small island in an ocean of outdoor opportunity" that got him through the dark years of high school before dropping out.  Given his experience in high school, Mike relates well to students that are "silently screaming for somebody to believe in them" and is a positive role model for reluctant students.  At 40, his success story is one that needs to be shared.  Mike is married to his high school sweetheart Kimberly and together they are raising two teenagers of their own.  He has effectively translated his own high school frustrations, anger, resentment and rebellion into fiction.  In Skate, Last Exit to Normal, and his latest, Brutal, Mike offers an insightful view into the realistic lives of teenage boys and girls.  You'll fine a theme of self-reliance in every book he writes and every school presentation he makes, as he believes that independence, resolve, and belief in oneself to be hallmarks of success.  Mike is eager to share his story and his passion for writing: "I write because I know what it feels like to be lost in a place where you should be found, and I know what it's like to make mistakes." (He is also available for teacher presentations where he addresses various approaches to reluctant readers/writers.)

 

---

One hundred years ago, women won the right to vote in Washington state, thanks to the efforts of two dynamic women: Tacoma's Emma Smith DeVoe and Spokane's May Arkwright Hutton. History comes to life on stage with this new stage play geared toward students and adults that explores the relationship between DeVoe and Hutton and how they ushered in equality for generations of women to come. Written and directed by Sandra Hosking, the play is performed by Claire Rudolf Murphy and veteran actress Penny Lucas. After each performance, actresses Rudolf Murphy and Lucas lead the audience in interactive and educational activities to illustrate the discrimination women and others experienced at the time. This half-day event featuring two performances, follow-up activities and discussion is available to districts with populations over 2,000 students for a fee of $500 or to small districts for $400.

NOTE: Jess Walter is not available for touring this year.