ELLEN ASHDOWN
ellenashdown@gtcom.net

Ellen Ashdown is a writer now living at St. George Island, Florida. A Florida Fiction Fellow, she has published feature articles on art, dance, and education in regional and national magazines. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida, is Phi Beta Kappa, a former dancer, and a writer for major textbook publishers, advertising agencies, and universities. She has made her living solely by writing for almost 20 years. Her recent articles include an interview with Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine’s muse and New York City Ballet prima ballerina, and a feature article on Jawole Zollar, founder and artistic director of Urban Bush Women dance troupe.

Ellen is a former college professor (English and interdisciplinary Humanities) and a modern dancer (performing with the company Avodah, now based in New York, and in Florida State University productions).

SANDRA BANDUCCI
Meg2shark@yahoo.com

Sandra has lived a vibrant, varied life - from early childhood growing up in Hawaii, to joining the San Francisco Ballet as an apprentice right out of high school, to travels in Europe and England. Her studies in sociology, anthropology, and paleontology have led her onto many paths that she continues to explore. She is the grand-niece of acclaimed anthropologist and humanist, Dr. Loren Eiseley, author of The Immense Journey and many other books.

Sandra began channeling the entity known to her as Raine through automatic writing several years ago. Her first book, Conversations with Raine, has been distilled from her many journals documenting those sessions.

ANTHONY BURDGE
http://www.herenistarionnets.blogspot.com
http://www.comfychairzine.blogspot.com

Anthony S. Burdge, an independent scholar, was first introduced to fantastical, mythological worlds by his parents who claim to have read The Hobbit to him while in utero. Since childhood Anthony has traversed the roads of Middle-earth, studying the history and literature that inspired its creator J.R.R. Tolkien. As a voracious reading appetite was created via Tolkien and related tales, Anthony vividly recalls the days of Doctor Who on PBS and WLIW. In particular he remembers the glowing ring of Eldrad upon the hand of a possessed Sarah Jane Smith ("The Hand of Fear") and the Sherlock Holmes-ian 4th Doctor in "The Talons of Wang Chiang." Anthony is co-chair, with his wife Jessica Burke, of The Northeast Tolkien Society and a proud member of Doctor Who New York.

JESSICA BURKE
http://www.herenistarionnets.blogspot.com
http://www.comfychairzine.blogspot.com

Jessica Burke was born in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York. Planning on attending a doctoral program next year, Ms. Burke is a self-professed geek with studies ranging from anthropology, myth, and folklore, to Anglo-Saxon, Arthurian, and Medieval literature, to Abrahamic and Pagan theology, to vampyres, faeries, monsters, and much in-between. Influenced by the works of J.R.R Tolkien, Ms. Burke first experienced the realm of Middle-earth after a quest to the N.Y. Public Library at the age of five, where she discovered a recording of Professor Tolkien reading “Riddles in the Dark” from The Hobbit. As her childhood opened into a world of dragons, Ms. Burke fondly recalls being terrified of the Daleks and fascinated with Tom Baker’s scarf, yet confesses that her first in-depth journey with the Doctor didn’t come until the airing of Russell Davies’ re-envisioned series in 2005.

VERLYN FLIEGER
http://mythus.com/

Verlyn Flieger is a full professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland where she teaches courses in medieval literature, comparative mythology, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Her published fiction includes a fantasy novel, Pig Tale; a novella, Avilion in the Arthurian anthology The Doom of Camelot; and the story "Green Hill Country," in the anthology Seekers of Dreams, edited by Douglas A. Anderson. Her three books on Tolkien include Splintered Light (2002, 2nd ed.); A Question of Time (1997); and Interrupted Music (2005). She has served as editor of the expanded edition of Tolkien’s Smith of Wootton Major; Tolkien’s Legendarium with Carl Hostetter, and Tolkien On Fairy-stories with Douglas A. Anderson. With Douglas Anderson and Michael D.C. Drout she is co-editor of the annual journal Tolkien Studies.

MATHILDE FREEMAN

Mathilde Freeman was born and raised in Germany and immigrated to the USA in 1960. She spent much of her life in search of meaning and connection, exploring various ways of healing.

She has been a certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner since 1989. She divides her time between Taos, NM and New Orleans, LA.

JEANNINE HALL GAILEY
www.webbish6.com

She Returns to the Floating World: Silver Medal for Poetry, Florida Publishers Association

Jeannine Hall Gailey is a Northwest writer. In addition to She Returns to the Floating World, she is the author of Becoming the Villainess, published by Steel Toe Books. Her poems were featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily; two were included in 2007’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. She has also published interviews and reviews in The Rumpus, Poets & Writers online, The Poetry Foundation Web site, and The American Book Review. She was awarded the top Dorothy Sargent
Rosenberg Prize in 2007 and won a 2007 Washington State Artist Trust GAP Grant to write She Returns.

Jeannine is an avid comic book and anime fan who studied biology before going on to her graduate studies in creative writing. She volunteers as an editorial consultant for Crab Creek Review and
currently teaches at the MFA program at National University.

VICKI HENDRICKS
http://www.vickihendricks.com/

Vicki Hendricks is the author of noir novels Miami Purity, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, Sky Blues, and Cruel Poetry (nominated for an Edgar Award in 2008), plus many short stories.
Hendricks lives in Hollywood, Florida, and teaches writing at Broward College. Her plots and settings reflect interests in adventure sports, such as skydiving and scuba, and knowledge of the Florida environment.

K.E.M. JOHNSTON
www.kemjohnston.com

Big Boys Don't Spy : Silver Medal for Children's Fiction, Florida Publishers Association

K.E.M. Johnston was born in Gibraltar, studied Business and International Marketing in the U.K., and worked in advertising and public relations in London's Covent Garden before moving to the U.S. She is widely published in children's, parent's, and business magazines. She lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with her British husband and three sons. Her first middle-grade novel was The Witness Tree and the Shadow of the Noose (2009, White Mane Publishing Co.)

KRISTINE LARSEN

Kristine Larsen has inhabited the space-time of Connecticut since her birth in 1963. An aficionado from an early age of equal parts world mythology and religions, science fiction and fantasy, and scientific literature, Dr. Larsen was first drawn to Doctor Who in graduate school. Her long career in astronomy education and outreach draws heavily upon her diverse intellectual interests, including numerous publications and presentations on the intersection between science and science fiction/fantasy. She is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University.

P. V. LEFORGE
www.blackbayfarm.com

P. V. LeForge lives on a 50-acre horse
farm in north Florida with his wife Sara
Warner, who is a dressage rider and trainer.
They enjoy riding and caring for their
warmbloods and draft horses and are standing
Fabayoso, their young Oldenburg stallion, at
stud.

LeForge’s previous books of poetry and
fiction can be obtained through bookfinder.com
or from his own website:www.BlackBayFarm.com.
When not doing farm chores and working a day
job, LeForge is busy working on his writing and
his archery skills.

CHRISTOPHER MCILROY
mcilroywritingservices.com

Here I Am a Writer : Silver Medal for Memoir, Florida Publishers Association

Christopher McIlroy teaches writing through schools and communities, and local colleges in the Tucson, Arizona area. In 1987 he helped found ArtsReach, a writing program targeted toward Native American communities in southern Arizona, and occasionally in other areas. He also developed an author-in-residence program through the Tucson Unified School District. McIlroy has taught fiction and composition through the University of Arizona and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and Pima Community College. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Arizona and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Arizona Writers Fellowships, and an Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist Project Grant. His story collection All My Relations won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, and the title story was included in Best American Short Stories.

JESSE MILLNER

The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow:
Bronze Medal for Poetry, 2009 Florida Book Awards
Gold Medal for Poetry, 2010 Florida Publishers Association Awards

Jesse Millner has published six poetry chapbooks, The Drowned Boys (March Street Press), On the Saturday after the Rapture (Main Street Rag), I Give You This Ghost and Holy Numbers (Pudding House Publications), My Grandfather Singing (YellowJacket Press), and Shapes the Clouds Assume (Kattywompus Press).

The Neighborhoods of my Past Sorrow, his first full-length collection (Kitsune), won the Florida Publisher’s Association Gold Medal and The Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal.

Jesse teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University and lives with his wife, Lyn, and dog, Henry, in Fort Myers, Florida.

LEONARD NASH
www.leonardnash.com

You Can't Get There from Here:
2007 Florida Book Award Winner, Silver Medal for General Fiction

Leonard Nash has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, with eighteen years of teaching, writing, and consulting experience, including five years as an English instructor at Florida International University in Miami, and experience as a commercial magazine copy editor. He has published short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and magazine articles. You Can't Get There from Here and Other Stories is his first book-length collecton.

When not writing and consulting, Nash enjoys tennis, hiking, bicycle riding, and attending sporting events such as baseball, tennis, and football. A unique pleasure is shopping at estate sales, garage sales, auctions, and thrift stores, which he finds are great sources of inspiration for fiction. Says Nash, “There is a story behind every garage sale. What prompts a person to spread his or her worldly belongings on the front lawn for the world to see?”

WILLIAM OREM
http://www.williamorem.com/

Born in Chevy Chase, MD, William Orem grew up around Capitol Hill and the Boston area. Orem’s first collection of stories, Zombi, You My Love, won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in 2000, previously given to Sherman Alexie, Alice Munro, Louise Erdrich, and Richard Ford. His second story collection, Across the River, won the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize for 2009.  Other stories and poems of his have appeared in over 100 literary journals, including The Princeton Arts Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Sou’Wester, and The New Formalist, and he has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in both genres. His plays have been performed in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Louisville, Buffalo, and Boston, with a staged reading in Manhattan. William has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University Bloomington.  Currently he is a Writer-In-Residence at Emerson College in Boston.

APRIL PETTY
www.aprilpetty.com

April is a popular Yoga and Pilates instructor working in the Seattle area. She teaches Hatha Yoga classes that often incorporate postures and techniques from Astanga, Sivananda, Kundalini, and Prahna styles of Yoga. April says that her classes are "a physical as well as a spiritual journey toward balance." Her Pilates classes are based on the original fitness regimen created by Joseph Pilates. She also teaches Aquatic Fitness, Beginner Ballet and Jazz Dance, Ballet Fitness, and offers one-on-one personal training. She studied Theatre Arts and Dance at East Carolina University, Florida State University, and the University of West Florida. April is certified by American Fitness Professionals and Associates and the American Heart Association (CPR).

ANNE PETTY
www.annepetty.com

Tolkien scholar Anne C. Petty is best known for her two books on J.R.R. Tolkien, One Ring to Bind Them All and Tolkien in the Land of Heroes (2005 Mythopoeic Society Awards Finalist); her dark fantasy novel, Thin Line Between; and her volume of literary criticism on famous fantasy authors, Dragons of Fantasy. Her short story "The Veritas Experience" appeared in the anthology Best Scifi, Horror, and Fantasy of 2009.

Recent essays in hardback anthologies include chapters in Tolkien Studies, Tolkien and Shakespeare, Tolkien and Religion, and Dragons East and West. She has also published many essays in popular magazines and literary journals, and regularly gives workshops in mythology, folklore, J.R.R. Tolkien, and writing. Anne has a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University.

JAMES PROTZMAN
www.jamesprotzman.com

Jesus Swept
2010 Florida Publishers Association Awards, Silver Medal for Fiction

James Alexander Protzman had been looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places – until he found it writing his first novel, Jesus Swept. Today he carries that happy knowledge into his work as a political activist, a blogger, and a freelance writer. James graduated from the United States Naval Academy and later earned a masters degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina.

In his spare time, James is a gourd artist whose sculptures have been featured in several galleries.  He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and daughter, and is currently working on another novel, Plaid.

NINA ROMANO
www.ninaromano.com

Nina Romano earned an M.A. from Adelphi University and an M. F. A. in Creative Writing from Florida International University.
 
Her short fiction, memoir, reviews and poetry appear in The Rome Daily American; The Chrysalis Reader;Gulf Stream Magazine; Grain; Voices in Italian Americana; Vox; Chiron Review; The Salt Lake City Weekly; and many more. Excerpts from her novel-in-progress, The Secret Language of Women, appear in Dimsum: Asia's Literary Journal, Southern Women's Review and Driftwood. Romano's debut poetry collection, Cooking Lessons, was published in June, 2007 by Rock Press, and submitted for a Pulitzer Prize. Learn more about Nina Romano and her books at www.ninaromano.com.

Helen Ruggieri received an MFA in Poetry Writing and has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, PA from where she retired in 2009. Ruggieri has published widely in magazines and anthologies and has several books and chapbooks: The Poetess from Allegany Mt. Press; Glimmer Girls, Mayapple Press; The Character for Woman, Foothills Publishing; Concrete Madonna, S & S Press; Rock
City Hill Exercises, Allegany Mt. Press.

In 2000 Ruggieri spent a semester at Yokohama College in Japan and became interested in the literature of early Japan. She has published haiku in the Manichi Daily News, Yomiuri Daily, and has won awards from the International Kusamakura Haiku Competition and the Suruga Baika literary festival, Oshiro Matsuri Festival, Kumamoto, Japan prize; Hoshino Takashi Award (sponsored by the World Haiku Club). Her poem, “A Japanese Fable” won 1st prize in Icon’s (Kent State) annual competition.

GIANNA RUSSO
http://facebook.com/gianna.russo

Moonflower: Silver Medal for Poetry, Florida Publishers Association

Gianna Russo —poet, writer, and teacher—has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, received (twice) a Hillsborough County Artist Fellowship, and received an honorable mention for the Florida Artist Fellowship.  She is an Arts Fellow of the Surdna Foundation and of the Hambidge Center for the Arts and Sciences.  She has had poems published in The Bloomsbury Review, The Sun, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Calyx and Tampa Review, among others.  Her non-fiction essays have appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.  A teacher of creative writing and English for over 20 years, Gianna is the founder of YellowJacket Press.  

MARY JANE RYALS
http://mjryals.weebly.com/books.html

Cookie & Me:
Gold Medal, Florida Publishers Association 2011
Bronze Medal, 2010 Florida Book Awards

2008-2012 Florida Big Bend Poet Laureate

Mary Jane Ryals' poetry is delicious, sensory, rapturous, riviting ... a feast for the senses. An award-winning author of nonfiction, poetry, and short stories; editor at the Apalachee Review literary magazine; and research associate at Florida State University's College of Business, Mary Jane Ryals has added a new title to her portfolio: 2008-2010 Big Bend Poet Laureate.

She is also the 2006 winner of the Second Annual Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest for Florida Poets. Her short story collection, A Messy Job I Never Did See a Girl Do, is available from Livingston Press, and her nonfiction book, Getting into the Intercultural Groove: Intercultural Communication for Everyone, was released in 2006 from Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

JON SHUTT has served 10 years in the Army National Guard as an Engineer. In 2004, he deployed with a Maine Engineer unit as an electrician where he spent most of his days doing construction projects around northern Iraq. In 2007 Jon earned his Bachelor’s degree in English Teaching from the University of New Hampshire and began teaching 5th grade in Lebanon, Maine in 2008. In late 2009 Jon put his teaching career on hold to deploy with a New Hampshire Infantry unit to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan he was primarily an assistant 240 gunner, but his Engineering skills kept him busy building tables, lofts, TV stands and other creature comforts in his off time. Upon returning from Afghanistan in late 2010, Jon found his love for building propelling him into teaching woodshop to young, eager minds and hands, which is what he does today in Berwick, Maine. He and his wife, Monique, live in Milton Mills, New Hampshire.

RANDALL SILVIS
www.randallsilvis.wordpress.com

Novelist, essayist and screenwriter Randall Silvis is the author of ten books of fiction and one book of narrative nonfiction. A Senior Fulbright Fellow and former Thurber House writer-in-residence, his many awards include the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, three National Playwrights Showcase Awards, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

He is the father of two sons and lives in western Pennsylvania.