Dallas Public Library to hold 2nd annual Local Authors Book Fair July 29

DALLAS—On Sat., July 29, 2017, the Local Authors Book Fair will feature thirty-four Dallas-area authors from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Audelia Road Branch Library.

R. Gaines Baty’s Champion of the Barrio (Texas A&M University Press), was ranked #1 in “Amazon Top New Releases” in its category, was named a Top 10 non-fiction Texas book for 2015, was featured in the Texas Book Festival, and has maintained a top 10% ranking in sales for Amazon books. Endorsers include numerous hall of fame writers and coaches/athletes.

Caren Bright lives a missionary life in Dallas, and is the mother of three children. She is the founder of Pamper Lake Highlands ministry, a non-profit aimed at empowering women and children to overcome poverty and oppression.

Author of Winning the Marriage Gamble, native-born Texan Steven Bruneman became a Texas trial lawyer in 1981 at age twenty-five. He has devoted his law practice exclusively to family law since 1993 and six times he has been named a Texas Super Lawyer as published in Texas Monthly magazine. He concentrates on skilfully advisung and guiding clients through the emotionally charged, life-altering event of divorce.

Kitty Burroughs is the author of The PosterChildren series.

Educated in Europe, business owner, investments, entrepreneur and author, Judith Clarke, her husband, Tom, and “Little Miss Emma” split their time between Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and Dallas.

Timothe Davis is a lover of words (and music and diversity) who has managed to publish two novels. The Miseducation of the Zombie earned an honorable mention in the USA Book Awards competition.

Richard Easton has degrees from Brown University and the University of Chicago and works as an actuary for an insurance operation in Irving. He is the co-author of GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones, which was selected as recommended reading for the 2016 National Security Space Institute (NSSI) Space Professional Reading List. Last July, his talk with co-author Eric Frazier to Air Force Space Command was introduced by its commander Gen John Hyten. His most recent talk was aired by C-SPAN3.

Jeffrey Eaton graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas with a degree in journalism. He formed his own free-lance writing business at age twenty-seven and by the age of thirty, had been to forty-five countries on five continents. Now Eaton has returned to his first passion—writing novels. The Murder Becomes series unites his love for intrigue with his passion for travel with his excitement for crafting word puzzles, several of which have been published in some of the world's premier newspapers and magazines.

C. M. Healy currently lives in Dallas, where he taught seventh grade science but resigned to write full-time. He earned the distinguished award of Eagle Scout during high school and went on to obtain his masters in child development from Oklahoma State University. He has been working with and entertaining children of all ages ever since.

Carter Hopkins grew up in Rockwall and studied at the University of Texas at Austin before graduating from SMU School of Law in 2004. He is currently an in-house lawyer for a cyber-security company and lives in Dallas with his wife and their two children. Carter is currently working on his second novel, The Scorpion Code, which will be available later this year.

From his earliest years, J. Philip Horne’s parents read fantastical stories from wonderful worlds to him; Narnia and Middle Earth featured prominently. After dabbling in writing for many years, he finally wrote his first novel in 2011. He has continued writing ever since. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife, four children, two dogs, two rabbits, and several literary aspirations.

Rosemary Janney is a retired Richardson Independent School District teacher whose three grown children all used to attend the Audelia Road story times and then volunteered at the library when they were teenagers. Audelia’s Adventures is about a young girl growing up in the 1830s and 1840s based on Janney’s own family history with some exciting embellishments.

JoBeth Jones is the pen name for Julie Offord Owen and Mary Kay Jackman. Artists and writers both, they were born and raised in East Texas. Julie has taught art to pre-schoolers, senior adults, and every age between. Mary Kay has worked with all ages, abilities, and genres in teaching writing and coaching writers. Justice in Jeterville is their first book together, although each has published her own work. Owen has written children's books, poems, songs, and plays; Jackman has published poems, essays, blogs for her church, and articles in academic journals.

Arthiss Kliever has lived in Dallas for forty years. Born and raised in El Paso, she has enjoyed various creative arts all her life, including woodcut printing, handbell composing, paper crafting, lacemaking and board game inventing. The Princess and the Princes is her first picture book.

Tani Lamb was born in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky and currently resides in Dallas Her love of adventure and history stems from her childhood of church and travel. This love of different cultures, history, and people pushed Tani to explore the world to see firsthand what had previously only been explored in books with words and pictures. She believes that travel is a vehicle to experience firsthand kindness, diversity, generosity and culture shock that can bring understanding and enlightenment that can change and enrich a life forever.

A native Texan, Greg Lynch grew up in Dallas and has worked careers ranging from reporter to private detective to public relations, most of which involved shamelessly sticking his nose into other peoples’ business and writing about it. Passionate about writing, Mexican food and college football, Greg lives in Dallas with his wife, daughter and an assortment of animals.

Fabiana Elisa Martínez was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From a very young age she showed a special interest in books and “words in other languages.” Martinez, who has a degree in linguistics and world literature and is fluent in five languages, has created a method for language teaching which she has used to teach in preeminent international companies as well as to professionals from various countries. She lives and works in Dallas. 12 Random Words is her first work of fiction.

Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who writes in mystery, romance, and horror. Once an actress and a singer, she has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine publishing groups as well as many other things, including an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist. She and her husband live in Texas with an assortment of rescued furbabies.

From Dallas, R. Shawn McBride is the founder and managing member of the R. Shawn McBride Law Firm, PLLC, specializing in business law. He is the author of Business Blunders: 10 Dangerous Business Mistakes and How to Protect Your Business So It Can Thrive!

From Dallas, Ed Millis is the editor of My Dearest Sister: The Hunt Family of Lexington and the Civil War: Their Correspondence, 1856– 1880, a family genealogical account dating back to the Civil War with transcriptions of 702 letters written from 1856 to 1880.

Dan Peeler and Charlie Rose have combined their talents as writers, illustrators, animators, and puppeteers as Peeler-Rose Productions of Dallas, creating animated content or illustration for Sesame Street, the Disney Channel, Warner Bros; they also produced and directed Bobby Goldsboro’s Swamp Critters of Lost Lagoon. They are Executive Producers for the VrTuo Entertainment WEB streaming network, Amazing World of Puppets. They are co-author & illustrators of the Amazon best seller Dragons of Romania Book One for John M. Hardy Publishing for Middle Grade - Young Adult audience and are artists-in-residence at The Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas.

Virginia Prodan is an international human rights attorney, an Allied Attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, and a sought-after speaker. As an attorney under N. Ceausescu’s brutal communist regime, Virginia defended persecuted Christians. She was kidnapped, beaten, tortured, placed under house arrest, and came within seconds of being executed under the orders of Ceausescu himself.

A native of Dallas, Kendra Rainey is a gusty, courageous gifted new voice that will soon take the urban literary community by storm. She is also a best-selling author with sixteen books currently under her belt. She resides in Dallas, is a mother of two handsome boys, and works as a teacher, playwright, community advocate, and publisher of Curvy Girl Pub.

Vicki Rance lives with her husband and Great Dane in Dallas. Rance has worked in children’s education for forty years, including teaching children’s and ladies’ Bible classes. She is dedicated in her work to encourage parents of young children to have a Christian family.

Mark Louis Rybczyk might be better known as Hawkeye, host of “Hawkeye in the Morning” on NEW Country 96.3 KSCS radio, than as a first-time novelist. His critically acclaimed Texas-based novel The Travis Club has received 4 stars from the San Francisco Book Review and 4 1/2 Stars from the Portland Book Review. Mark has written two other books, but this is his first foray into fiction. He is married with a daughter and is a resident of East Dallas.

Gisela Scofield has written an autobiographical account called My Childhood in Hitler’s Germany defines what it was like for Germans under Hitler’s tyrannical rule as lived and experienced through the eyes of an innocent young girl.

When not writing, Dallas resident Jeanne Skartsiaris also works as a sonographer. Prior to that she was a medical/legal photographer for a law firm. She attended creative writing courses at Southern Methodist University and is a member of Romance Writer's of America and the local chapter, Dallas Area Romance Authors.

Fiera M. Smith is a writer, outdoor junkie, and avid pin and pen collector. As a native Dallasite, she has been influenced by the vibrancy of culture and eclectic nature of her city; and her witty, yet introspective writing has reflected this devotion. Whenever it Smells Like Rain is her debut poetry and prose offering.

Arlene G. Stein is the author of a children’s book series about wise choices for social and emotional development. During her education career with the Dallas ISO, she worked as a teacher of the deaf, writer of curriculum and student texts, and ended her administrative career as the Director of Special Projects in the Special Education Division.

David Eric Tomlinson was born and raised in Oklahoma, educated in California, and now lives in Texas. His crime novel The Midnight Man was released in January by Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. David lives in Dallas with his wife and two daughters.

Liza Treviño hails from Texas, spending many of her formative years on the I-35 corridor of San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. In pursuit of adventure and a PhD, Liza moved to Los Angeles, where she compiled a collection of short-term, low-level Hollywood jobs like script girl, producer assistant, and production assistant. Her time as a Hollywood Jane-of-all-trades gave her an insider's view to a world most only see from the outside, providing the inspiration for creating a new breed of Latina heroine.

M. D. Thomas of Dallas was born and raised in San Francisco, California and began writing poems at age nine. By her teens she recited poetry at community events throughout the Bay Area. She moved to Texas in 1998 and graduated from Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas, in 2007 with an associate’s degree with an emphasis in journalism, and Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California, in 1990. Mercedee is her first book.

Tamara S. Tribble is a highly qualified educator. She has over ten years of experience working with children from birth to grade 5. Her educational background consists of coursework in Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). She has an adventurous spirit and enjoys traveling.

Since its founding, Writer’s Block Inc. has always been focused on supporting African-American writers and authors of all genres. The organization was formed because of a need to create a unified neighborhood or “block” where writers of a common background, shared interests, related cultural nuances and experiences come together in a loving, supportive, safe environment to grow and develop. Through this environment, any writer’s “block” is unblocked, allowing the voices of African-American writers to ring free with the stories of our uniqueness and flavor.

Books will be available to purchase for signings.

(Information from organization’s press release)

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Johnston named director of Michener Center

AUSTIN—Author Bret Anthony Johnston assumes the directorship of the Michener Center for Writers, in Austin, in July 2017.  He succeeds longtime director James Magnuson, who is retiring. Johnston has directed the creative writing program at Harvard University for the past twelve years. A native Texan, his fiction titles include the story collection Corpus Christi and the novel Remember Me Like This.

(Information from organization’s press release and social media)

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