2021 Sunshine State Book Festival

Suzzette Dawes has written poetry since she was a teen and has hosted poetry open mic at various venues in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She has published five books including a co-edited poetry book that featured other poets. She enjoys the versatility of poetry and its various moods. Click to view Author’s website

Lola Haskins’ most recent of thirteen poetry collections is Asylum: Improvisations on John Clare (U Pittsburgh) Her prose works include a poetry advice book, Not Feathers Yet (U Nebraska) and Fifteen Florida Cemeteries: Strange Tales Unearthed (U Florida). Among her honors are the Iowa Poetry Prize, two NEAs, four Florida DOS fellowships, two Florida Book Awards, and recognition from Florida’s Eden for her environmental writing. She serves as Honorary Chancellor for the FSPA. Click to view Author’s website

K.E. Mullins, a Florida native, began her writing career while in the Navy. Her poem, “My One Last Cent,” was published in Amistad, a literary journal at Howard University. Currently, Mullins has published a book of poetry, Thinking Aloud: Dimensions of Free-Verse. Her fiction novels, The Friends and Family Connection: Get Unplugged,In the Company of Strangers, Murder: Another Name for Revenge, and 7475 Samona Drive, are on Amazon. She is also a regular contributor to Harness magazine. Click to view Author’s website

E. Stanley Richardson is an American poet, actor, playwright, social/political commentator, and lecturer. The inaugural Poet Laureate of Alachua County, Florida (2020–2022), he wrote the award-winning book of poetry, Hip Hop Is Dead — Long Live Hip Hop: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of Hip Hop Activism . He is Founder/Director of ARTSPEAKSgnv: "Bringing Poetry & People Together" and Director of the Alachua County/North Central Florida, Youth Poet Laureate Program. Richardson resides in Alachua County. Click to view Author’s website

Susie H. Baxter is the author of C. G. & Ethel, A Family History; Pumping Sunshine, A Memoir of My Rural Childhood; and Write Your Memoir, One Story at a Time. She has served as president of the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, as creative nonfiction editor for the print journal, Bacopa, A Literary Review, and she teaches a memoir-writing course at Santa Fe College. She is working on a coming-of-age memoir for publication in 2021. Click to view Author’s website

Debi Tolbert Duggar is an avid motorcycle enthusiast, an educator, and a writer who lives and works in Central Florida. Riding Soul-O is a compilation of her travel blog and her gut-wrenching honesty about love, loss, challenges, and triumph over adversity. She and her motorcycle Bessie have traveled forty-nine states and seven Canadian provinces together. Click to view Author’s website

Arielle Haughee (Hoy), previously an elementary teacher, is a five-time RPLA-winning author and the owner of Orange Blossom Publishing. She is an editor, speaker, writing coach, and the marketing chair for the Florida Writers Association. She is the author of The Complete Revision Workbook for Writers, the children’s books Grumbler, Joyride, and Pling’s Party, as well as the editor of the How I Met My Other anthology series. Click to view Author’s website

Simone Knego leads an ordinary life filled with extraordinary moments. As a wife, mother to six children (and three dogs), and an entrepreneur, she splits her time between family, businesses, and personal growth. She’s realized the small choices she makes every day to do good actually have the power to inspire others. With her book, she hopes to inspire you to embrace life’s ups and downs and realize the impact you’re making on the world. Click to view Author’s website

Dion Leonard is an Australian/British ultra runner, motivational speaker, and author. Leonard’s amazing true story and incredible journey ofFinding Gobi has since become a New York Times bestseller, Sunday Times (UK) bestseller, and international bestseller printed in more than twenty-one languages. It has resulted in an upcoming movie. Leonard has also written a Finding Gobi young readers edition, a children's picture book, and a book about his cat, Lara the Runaway Cat. Click to view Author’s website

Jo Ann Lordahl, PhD, lives in Gainesville, Florida. Author, poet, and workshop leader, her published works include prize-winning poetry, a lyric play Four Women Speak, a three-part memoir My Unveiled Face, and twenty-six other books (nine nonfiction, five novels, six romances, and six poetry). She has a finished collection of poetry and an in-progress nonfiction work on aging. Additional titles are available on her website. For fun she walks, writes poetry, and creates fabric collages. Click to view Author’s website

Pattie Martin Macurdy published her memoir, Sunsets and Buzzards, at age ninety. Her stories describe growing up in rural Tennessee without electricity or indoor plumbing in a community called Standing Rock Creek, losing a brother in world War II, living in Japan and Spain as a military wife, losing a son to HIV contracted through a blood transfusion, and pursuing interests in birding, art, music, literature, and photography. She lives and writes in Gainesville, Florida. Click to view Author’s website

Ann~Marie Magné, past vice-president of the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, is a current critique-pod leader. In another life she worked in sales and customer service. She also became a hypnotist, and she still practices. She is the mother of one daughter, step-mom to two sons, and Grammy to seven. She loves living in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband. Almost Ticked Off, a memoir, is her first book.  

Nicole Morton-Howard holds a bachelor degree in business. She’s a wife and mother, and works fulltime for a global-wide firm. She is a former first lady of a church, where she assisted in church initiatives and outreach activities, and she planned women’s ministry events. In addition to becoming a first-time author, she recently launched a business, Respect My Royalty, LLC., where she empowers and equips ladies to reach their full divine potential. Click to view Author’s website

Lorilyn Roberts is the author of twelve books, including the award-winning Young Adult Seventh Dimension Series and her memoir Children of Dreams. After scuba diving around the world and earning her college degree abroad, she settled into single motherhood, adopting two daughters from Nepal and Vietnam. She later earned a Master’s in Creative Writing and is currently president of the Gainesville, Florida, Chapter of Word Weavers International. Roberts has rescued many orphaned dogs and cats. Click to view Author’s website

Gail Rose Thompson grew up on a horse farm in Ontario, Canada. After graduating from Hamilton Teachers’ College, she taught school for several years. She lived in Iran during the 1970s where she was the trainer of the Shah’s Imperial Stables and the Iranian show-jumping team. Upon arriving in Richmond, Virginia, she opened a school of equitation, now a renowned training facility. In retirement, she follows her passion for writing. She lives in Ocala, Florida. Click to view Author’s website

Cynthia D. Bertelsen’s books include Mushroom: A Global History, A Hastiness of Cooks: A Handbook for Deciphering Historic Recipes and Cookbooks, In the Shadow of Ravens: A Novel, Wisdom Soaked in Palm Oil: Journeying Through the Food and Flavors of Africa, and Meatballs & Lefse: Memories and Recipes from a Scandinavian-American Farming Life. A Hastiness of Cooks won Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards 2020 for Best in Culinary History category for the U.S. and the world. Click to view Author’s website

John M. Bros was born and raised in Stuart, Florida, where he grew up with a love for exploration and fishing. He graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in social science education, followed by a year in Thailand teaching English. Since August 2015, he has taught world history at Jensen Beach High School. John is passionate about music, education, history, farming, traveling, and homesteading. Click to view Author’s website

Shivaji Das is the author of four travel memoirs and photography books. His latest book is The ‘Other’ Shangri-La. Shivaji’s work has been featured in Time, The Economist, BBC, Asian Geographic, etc. He is the conceptualizer of Global Migrant Festival and Migrant and Refugee Poetry Contests and is the Managing Director-APAC for Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting company. Click to view Author’s website

Jack E. Davis, a professor of history and Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities, specializing in environmental history and sustainability studies, won the Pulitzer Prize for The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. His Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930 won the Charles S. Sydnor Prize for best book in southern history. His An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century received Florida Book Awards’ gold medal. Click to view Author’s website

George R. (Bob) Dekle, Sr. directed the Prosecution Clinic at the University of Florida Law School for ten years. He retired in 2006. Before that, Dekle served for thirty years as an Assistant State Attorney and for two years as an Assistant Public Defender in Lake City, Florida, where he prosecuted and defended hundreds of jury trials. Dekle keeps busy in retirement writing books on trial advocacy and historic criminal cases. Click to view Author’s website

Teresia Dulaney is a wife and mother of two sons on the autism spectrum. She was a stay-at-home mom, but after raising her sons, she went back to school and finished her teaching degree in Elementary/Special Ed. She and her family are active in their church. Dulaney wrote How to Train a Superhero: A Story of Autism, in hopes that sharing their story would encourage and uplift others. Click to view Author’s website

John M. Dunn has written over 400 articles for numerous periodicals, 16 nonfiction YA books, audio visual scripts, and a children’s play. He edited a Civil War series for young readers. One title received a starred review, and two were included on recommended YA book lists. In 2019, Dunn’s Drying Up: The Fresh Water Crisis in Florida won the Florida Historical Society’s Stetson Kennedy Award and the Florida Book Awards’ Bronze Medal for Florida Nonfiction. Click to view Author’s website

Michael T. Gengler graduated from Gainesville High School in 1962. He received his A.B., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia College in New York in 1966, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969. He was a USAF JAG lawyer from 1970 to 1974. For most of his career, he was a corporate lawyer in Boston and Chicago. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, and advocates for public education. Click to view Author’s website

Harriet Hunter, award-winning author of Miracles of Recovery, works with women behind bars and with women in recovery. She is the training developer who wrote “Journaling with a Purpose” and delivered it to friends in various institutions and organizations. Harriet has worked in the field of recovery now for over twenty-one years, helping others find their authentic selves and enough self-esteem to change their addiction behaviors and move forward in their lives, clean and sober. Click to view Author’s website

Bob H. Lee retired as a lieutenant after 30 years with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As a freelance writer, Lee has been published in Florida Sportsman, Flamingo, International Game Warden, and other publications. He is the author of two nonfiction books, Backcountry Lawman and Bad Guys, Bullets, and Boat Chases (University Press of Florida). In 2014, Lee won the Florida Outdoor Writers Association Award for Excellence-in-Craft for Backcountry Lawman. Click to view Author’s website

Jolene MacFadden, when not writing more books, makes her living by creating websites and helping other writers self-publish and market their books. She also writes blog articles on a variety of subjects for all of her websites. She enjoys reading mystery books of all types as well as science fiction/fantasy stories and has been an avid reader all of her life. Click to view Author’s website

Shamrock McShane is a graduate of the University of Florida Creative Writing Program where he studied with Donald Justice, Harry Crews, and Padgett Powell. He is the author of the novel Rock Beauty and the non-fiction novel Hall of Fools. As a screenwriter, collaborating with his son, the director Mike McShane, his films includeThe Votive Pit, You Are Not Frank Sinatra, and It's All Good. He lives in Gainesville, Florida. Click to view Author’s website

Martha Joseph Watts, Ed.D., aka "Aunty Marcella," is an educator and author of fiction and nonfiction. In addition to her Adventures of Iyani series, she has published educational resources to support writing in schools. These include books, workbooks, charts, and wheels. Most recently, she co-authored Homeschooling in Times of Covid-19 with Karen White Porter. Watts has taught on all levels: at home, in Dominica, in the US Virgin Islands, and in Florida where she lives. Click to view Author’s website