2019

Mickey Schoonover

Brian Cohn

I am an ER doctor practicing in St. Louis, Missouri, where I live with my beautiful wife and our two rambunctious children. I was born in Birmingham, Alabama where I grew up loving to read. My passion for books continued through my college career at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and traveled with me back to Alabama where I attended the University of Alabama School of Medicine. I moved to St. Louis for residency training, met my wife, and fell in love with both her and the city itself. I have been practicing emergency medicine for over a decade and love helping people every day, but turned to writing as a creative outlet.

A self-professed nerd, I've long enjoyed everything science fiction, from books to TV and movies. I'm also a huge fan of great mysteries and thrillers, and I'm a sucker for a surprising plot twist. I write the kinds of books that I would want to read, reflecting a deep-seated curiosity about what motivates people to do the things they do.

When I'm not busy writing and taking care of patients, I love to run, play with my children, and spend quiet time watching TV with my wife. If I can only figure out how to do all three things at once, I'll finally have it made.

Gareth Hinds

Gareth Hinds is the creator of critically-acclaimed graphic novels based on literary classics, including Beowulf (which Publisher’s Weekly called a “mixed-media gem”), King Lear (which Booklist named one of the top 10 graphic novels for teens), The Merchant of Venice (which Kirkus called “the standard that all others will strive to meet” for Shakespeare adaptation), The Odyssey (which garnered four starred reviews and a spot on ten “best of 2010” lists), Romeo and Juliet (which Kirkus called “spellbinding”), and Macbeth (which the New York Times called “stellar” and “a remarkably faithful rendering”). Gareth is a recipient of the Boston Public Library’s “Literary Lights for Children” award. His books can be found in bookstores and English classrooms across the country, and his illustrations have appeared in such diverse venues as the Society of Illustrators, the New York Historical Society, and over a dozen published video games.

Todd Sarvies

In 2007, Todd Sarvies' band John Boy's Courage released its debut album, "The Fall Precaution", a collection of chapters more than songs, a story about falling down ... then pulling yourself back up. The music style-emotionally honest alternative pop-rock-often belied the depth of its tales, the songs' intricate instrumentation.

After the album's release, Todd took the show on the road, hitting towns near and far, and racking up an impressive list of festival appearances, including CMJ Music Marathon and Red Gorilla.

In 2009, stardom came knocking in the form of a MTV reality singing competition P.Diddy's Starmaker, and a chance to be signed to Bad Boy Records. It was an opportunity he took beating out 12 other contestants to finish as the runner up.

Today, Todd is promoting his newest album, "The Dead, The Dying, The Damned". In the past, he would write a song and record it. Cut and dry: it was what it was, like it or don't. These days, he's not alone, bringing in talented producers and backing musicians to enhance the process. Additional minds collaborating during the recording process has helped him become a stronger songwriter.

Chris Crutcher

Chris Crutcher was raised in Cascade, Idaho, a lumber and cattle ranch town located in the central Idaho Rockies, a two hour drive over treacherous two-lane from the nearest movie theater and a good forty minutes from the nearest bowling alley. In high school he played football, basketball and ran track, not because he was a stellar athlete, but because in a place so isolated, every able bodied male was heavily recruited. “If you didn’t show up on the first day of football practice your freshman year,” he says, “they just came to your house and got you. And your parents let them in.”

Crutcher’s years as teacher, then director, of a K-12 alternative school in Oakland, California through the nineteen-seventies, and his subsequent twenty-odd years as a therapist specializing in child abuse and neglect, inform his thirteen novels and two collections of short stories. “I have forever been intrigued by the extremes of the human condition,” he says, “the remarkable juxtaposition of the ghastly and the glorious. As Eric ‘Moby’ Calhoun tells us at the conclusion of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, ‘Ain’t it a trip where heroes come from’.”

He has also written what he calls an ill-advised autobiography titled King of the Mild Frontier, which was designated by “Publisher’s Weekly” as “the YA book most adults would have read if they knew it existed.”

Chris has received a number of coveted awards, from his high school designation as “Most Likely to Plagiarize” to the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. His favorites are his two Intellectual Freedom awards, one from the National Council for Teachers of English and the other from the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Five of Crutcher’s books appeared on an American Library Association list of the 100 Best Books for Teens of the Twentieth Century (1999 to 2000). A recent NPR list of the Best 100 YA and Children’s books included none of those titles. Time flies.

Crutcher no longer listens to, nor contributes to, NPR.

Daniel Neman

Daniel Neman has been the food writer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for five years. He also wrote about food for the Toledo Blade, but the bulk of his career has been spent as a movie critic and entertainment writer, primarily for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and The Richmond News Leader.

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Tongo Eisen-Martin was born in San Francisco and earned his MA at Columbia University. He is the author of someone’s dead already (Bootstrap Press, 2015), nominated for a California Book Award; and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights, 2017), which received a 2018 American Book Award, a 2018 California Book Award, was named a 2018 National California Booksellers Association Poetry Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Griffin International Poetry Prize. In their citation, the judges for the Griffin Prize wrote that Eisen-Martin’s work “moves between trenchant political critique and dreamlike association, demonstrating how, in the right hands, one mode might energize the other—keeping alternative orders of meaning alive in the face of radical injustice ... His poems are places where discourses and vernaculars collide and recombine into new configurations capable of expressing outrage and sorrow and love.”

Eisen-Martin is also an educator and organizer whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and human rights. He has taught at detention centers around the country and at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He lives in San Francisco.

Sarah Angleton

Sarah Angleton is a wife, mom, blogger, book nerd, history buff, and author. Her books include Launching Sheep & Other Stories from the Intersection of History and Nonsense and Gentleman of Misfortune.

Ashlee Haze

Ashlee Haze is a poet and spoken word artist from Atlanta by way of Chicago. Earning the nickname “Big 30" because of her consistency in getting a perfect score, she is one of the most accomplished poets in the sport of poetry slam. She has been a part of the Atlanta Poetry circuit for over a decade and has been writing over 15 years. Ashlee Haze is a 3- time Queen of the South poetry Slam Champion, 2-time Women of the World Poetry Slam Finalist and 2- time National Poetry Slam semi-finalist. She recently appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk series alongside Blood Orange. Her sophmore book "Smoke" is scheduled for release Summer 2019.

Ashlee began writing at the age of ten, performing her first piece at a church Mother/Daughter Banquet. After that, writing became something she did almost daily. By age 15 she was regularly performing at public competitions and events.

In 2006, she was the Grand Prize Winner of V-103's "Got Word" Youth Poetry Slam and has participated in the art/sport ever since. Her senior year of high school she was co-president of South Gwinnett High’s Writers’ Society Club and had been published in three national publications. In August 2009, she made her first trip to the National Poetry Slam in which Java Monkey placed 5th in the nation.

Ashlee Haze holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Georgia State University, Atlanta. As of September 2016 she is a full time poet and artist.

Brendan Constantine

Brendan Constantine was born in Los Angeles, the second child of two working actors, and named after Irish playwright Brendan Behan. An ardent supporter of Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most recognized poets, he has served as a teacher of poetry in local schools and colleges since 1995.

His first collection, ‘Letters to Guns,’ was released in February 2009 from Red Hen Press to wide acclaim. This was followed in 2011 by ‘Birthday Girl With Possum,’ under the performance based publisher Write Bloody, and established Mr. Constantine as a poet equally at home on the page and the stage. His work can be found in many of the nation’s standards, including Best American Poetry, Poem-a-Day, Virginia Quarterly, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Field, and Chautauqua. New work appears or is forthcoming in Reservoir and Tin House. His most recent collection is ‘Dementia, My Darling’ (2016). A long awaited chapbook, ‘Bouncy Bounce,’ has just been released from Blue Horse Press (Fall, 2018).

Mr. Constantine has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, KPFK’s Poetry Cafe, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. He currently teaches creative writing at the Windward School.

In addition, he brings poetry workshops to veterans, hospitals, foster care centers, & shelters for the homeless. He is also very proud of his work with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. Since 2017, he has been working with speech pathologist Michael Biel to develop the first poetry workshop for people dealing with Aphasia.

Joel Francois

Joel Francois is a Haitian-born, Brooklyn-raised storyteller, who wishes to share his vista as a black writer and tell stories of love, family, and race through that lens. He believes that the artist is the architect of humanity and writes in search of God, love, and community. Joel's writing is an act of personal healing as his ultimate goal is to do good work with little harm. He is the 2015 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion, the 2016 and 2017 Bowery Grand Slam Champion, was listed as one of New York City’s top poets by Culture Trip, and earned a top 20 ranking in the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam. Joel has dedicated the past three years to traveling the country and sharing his work.

Peter Ames Carlin

Peter Ames Carlin is a writer and the author of several books, including HOMEWARD BOUND: THE LIFE OF PAUL SIMON, published in October, 2016 and BRUCE, a biography of Bruce Springsteen published in October, 2012. Carlin has also been a free-lance journalist, a senior writer at People in New York City, and a television columnist and feature writer at The Oregonian in Portland. A regular speaker on music, writing and popular culture, Carlin lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and three children.