ADULT LITERATURE PROGRAMS AND AUTHOR EVENTS ALA ANNUAL CONFERENCE ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA JUNE 26–JULY 2, 2008 LIVE! @your library Reading Stage Aisle 2500 in the Exhibition Hall Take a break from a day of meetings and programs and stop by the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage in the exhibition hall to enjoy readings from new and favorite authors and poets, learn how to develop author programs for your library, and find new recommendations for your patrons. The 2008 LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage is presented by the ALA Public Programs Office. Saturday, June 28 Sunday, June 29 Monday, June 30 Noon Francesca Lia Block Anya Ulinich Firoozeh Dumas 12:30 Matthew Eck Kaya McLaren Brunonia Barry 1:00 Bich Minh Nguyen Graciela Limón Keir Graff 1:30 Yxta Maya Murray John Francis Ellis Avery 2:00 Leif Engler John Clinch Daniel White 2:30 Nina Revoyr Alan Bern Kimberly Pauley 3:00 Lisa Hernandez Dan Kennedy Mark Doty 3:30 Culture Clash Lila Karp Alex Lemon Each reading will be followed by an autograph session. See pages 1-3 for biographies and photos of these authors and poets. The ALA Public Programs Office is proud to present this year’s LIVE! Stage emcees: Saturday: Jane Gibson, Librarian, Seattle Public Library Sunday: Rochelle Hartman, Information Services Manager, LaCrosse Public Library, Wisconsin Monday: Brad Hooper, Editor, Adult Books, Booklist Magazine 2 LIVE! @your library Reading Stage Author Biographies Ellis Avery is the winner of a Lambda Jon Clinch’s first novel, Finn Literary Award and an Ohioana (Random House, 2007) l l Library Award for her first novel, i was named one of the best novels e o d N r ’ a O t The Teahouse Fire (Riverhead Books, of 2007 by the Washington Post, t l r e A a h e 2006). In 2001, Three Lines, One the Chicago Tribune, the Christian t c i a K M : : Road, a year's worth of daily haiku Science Monitor and Book Sense. It o o t t o o h h P P exchanged between Avery and was also shortlisted for the National Melissa Demian, was a finalist in the National Poetry Book Critics Circle's first-ever Best Recommended List Series. Avery is also the author of a nonfiction book, and the Sargent First Novel Prize. The Smoke Week, a personal account of life in Manhattan after 9/11. Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza) Brunonia Barry spent nearly a has performed in such venues as decade in Hollywood before return- the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln ing to her native Massachusetts, Center, New York Shakespeare where along with her husband, she Festival/Public Theater and co-founded an innovative company countless university and community that creates award-winning word, stages. Founded in San Francisco in 1984, and visual and logic puzzles. In recent anthologized by Theater Communications Group, this years she has written books for the Beacon Street troupe of writers/performers surveys contemporary Girls, a fictional series for ‘tweens. The Lace Reader Latino/Chicano culture in America from its own unique (William Morrow, 2008) is her first original novel. perspective. Alan Bern is a poet and author of Mark Doty’s eight books of poems children’s picture and chapter and four books of nonfiction prose books, as well as a storyteller and have been honored by the National y a performer for both children and c Book Critics Circle Award, the a L k adults. For the past fourteen years r PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First a M Alan has worked as a librarian in : Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times o t o public libraries in the San Francisco h Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, P Bay Area. His newest book of poems, Waterwalking in a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award and, Berkeley, was released by Daniel & Daniel Publishers in the United Kingdom, the T.S. Eliot Prize. He is a in spring 2007. professor at the University of Houston and lives in New York City. Francesca Lia Block is renowned for her groundbreaking novels and Firoozeh Dumas self-published stories, including her best-selling Funny in Farsi in 2003 with no prior r e s s first book, Weetzie Bat u writing experience, as a gift for her a R (HarperTrophy, 1989). She is also e children. The Persian version of i n h the recipient of the 2005 Margaret a Funny in Farsi is currently one of the p e t S A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement : bestselling books in Iran. Her work o t o Award from the American Library Association. Her h has been featured in The New York P latest book is Quakeland (Manic D Press, Inc., 2008). Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Lifetime Magazine, and on NPR. Her next book, Laughing Without an Accent, a series of autobiographical essays, was published by Random House in May, 2008. 1 LIVE! @your library Reading Stage Author Biographies Matthew Eck enlisted in the Army Lila Karp has taught literature, in 1992, and served in Somalia film and feminist theory in women’s and Haiti. He has a BA in English studies programs at universities Literature from Wichita State throughout the country. The former University, and received his MFA in director of the Princeton University Creative Writing from the University Women’s Center, Karp was also the of Montana. He currently teaches co-director of The Institute for the creative writing and literature at University of Central Study of Women and Men at the University of Southern Missouri. The Farther Shore (Milkweed, 2007) is his California. Her autobiographical novel, The Queen Is in first novel. the Garbage (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2007) was originally published in 1971 and has been reprinted by Leif Enger’s bestseller Peace Like a the Feminist Press in their Classic Feminist Writers series. River was the winner of the Book Sense Book of the Year and one of Dan Kennedy is author of the books r e g Time’s top-five novels of 2001. His Rock On (Algonquin Books, 2008) n E n i second novel, So Brave, Young, and h and Loser Goes First, and a long- t b i o m R S : Handsome (Grove/Atlantic, Inc.), was standing contributor at McSweeney’s. o n t e o h h p P released in April 2008. He lives on a He lives in New York City and performs e t S farm in Minnesota with his wife and two sons. : spoken word gigs and readings on o t o h stages across the country. P John Francis is the founder and c i h director of Planetwalk, a nonprofit Alex Lemon’s first poetry collection, p a r g environmental education organiza- Mosquito, which documents his slow o e G l tion and the author of the memoir recovery from brain surgery as a a n o i t Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking, young man, was hailed by Publishers a N : 17 Years of Silence. He travels Weekly as an “edgy, energetic, even o t o h P around the world speaking on pil- frenetic debut from a rising star grimage and change, and on Planetlines, an environ- of the Midwest.” He is the co-editor mental studies curriculum based on the walking pil- of LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation and grimage, which he is developing for K-12 schools and is a frequent contributor to The Bloomsbury Review. universities. His newest collection is entitled Hallelujah Blackout (Milkweed, 2008). Keir Graff is the author of the political thrillers One Nation, Under Graciela Limón is the critically- f God (Severn House, July 2008), My acclaimed and award-winning author f a r G Fellow Americans and, writing as of six novels: Left Alive, Erased n a e S Michael McCulloch, the crime novel Faces, The Day of the Moon, Song of y b o Cold Lessons. He is the senior the Hummingbird, The Memories of t o h P editor of Booklist Online, where he Ana Calderón and In Search of writes the popular blog, “Likely Stories.” A native of Bernabé, all from Arte Público Press. Missoula, Montana, he lives in Chicago. Limón is Professor Emeritus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she served as a Lisa Hernandez is a native of professor of U.S. Latina/o Literature and chair of the Pasadena, California, where she lives Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. with her husband and daughter. She teaches English at Los Angeles Community College and coordinates literacy programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Migrations and Other Stories (Arte Publico Press, 2007) is her first published book. 2 Kaya McLaren lives and teaches ele- Anya Ulinich began studying art mentary school art on the east slope as a child in Moscow. At seventeen, of Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. she immigrated to the United States, a i c s She is the author of Church of the a where she attended the School i c S Dog, which was rereleased by a of the Art Institute of Chicago and s i L Penguin in May, 2008. When she’s : received an MFA from the University o t o h not working, she likes to telemark P of California at Davis. In 2000, she ski, sit in hot springs, moonlight hike and play in lakes moved to Brooklyn, abandoned painting and began to with her dog, Big Cedar. write. Petropolis (Viking USA, 2007) is her first novel. Yxta Maya Murray is the author of Daniel White is a journalist and The Queen Jade and The Conquest.