2012 Festival of Reading Authors & Guests
The Lake County Library System and all member and branch libraries will present the 9th annual Festival of Reading March 26-31, 2012 and welcome the following authors.
2012 Festival of Reading Special Guest Authors
Deborah Crombie
Necessary as Blood
Deborah Crombie was born in Dallas and grew up in Richardson, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas and graduated from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, with a degree in biology. She then worked in advertising and newspapers, and attended the Rice University Publishing Program. A post-university trip to England, however, cemented a life-long passion for Britain, and she later immigrated to the UK with her first husband, Peter Crombie, a Scot, living first in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then in Chester, England.
After returning to Dallas and working for several years in her family business (manufacturer’s reps for theatre concessions) while raising her daughter Kayti, she wrote her first Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid/Sergeant Gemma James novel. A Share in Death was subsequently given Agatha and Macavity nominations for Best First Novel of 1993. The fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, a New York Times Notable Book for 1997, was short-listed by Mystery Writers of America for the 1997 Edgar Award for Best Novel, won the Macavity award for Best Novel, and was voted by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of the hundred best mysteries of the century. Her subsequent novels have been received with critical acclaim and are widely read internationally, particularly in Germany. In 2009, Where Memories Lie won the Macavity Award for Best Novel. In 2010, Necessary as Blood received a Macavity nomination for Best Novel.
Crombie's novels are published in North America, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Romania, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and numerous other countries.. Although she travels to England several times a year, Crombie now lives in McKinney, Texas, an historic town north of Dallas, sharing a 1905 house with her husband, Rick Wilson, two German shepherds (Hallie and Neela), and three cats. She is currently working on her fifteenth Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel, as yet untitled.
For more information about Deborah Crombie and her work, visit www.deborahcrombie.com
Festival Appearances
Friday, March 30 at 1 p.m.
Featured Author Deborah Crombie Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Saturday, March 31 at 2:30 p.m.
What If? Writing Workshop with Deborah Crombie W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
Charles Todd
A Test of Wills
Charles Todd is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline and Charles Todd. This mother-and-son writing team lives in the eastern United States, and are best known for a series of thirteen novels, set in post World War I England. The books deal with the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the European campaigns who is attempting to pick up the pieces of his Scotland Yard career. However, he must keep his greatest burden a secret: suffering from shell shock, he lives with the constant, cynical, taunting voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier he was forced to execute on the battlefield for refusing an order. Charles Todd is working on a new series dealing with a nurse named Bess Crawford set in the early 1900s.
A Test of Wills was nominated for the John Creasey Award in the United Kingdom; other nominations are the Edgar Award, an Anthony, and the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Dilys Award. The work won the Barry Gardiner Award from the Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association named A Test of Wills one of the 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th Century, and it received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Search the Dark was the winner of the 1999 Reviewers Choice Award from the Romantic Times Magazine. Legacy of the Dead earned the Todd's a third The New York Times Notable book listing. A Cold Treachery received a Publishers Weekly: Starred Review.
For more information about Caroline and Charles Todd and their work, visit charlestodd.com.
Festival Appearances
Friday, March 30 at 2:15 p.m.
Featured Author Charles Todd Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Saturday, March 31 at 1 p.m.
Writing Historical Crime Fiction with Caroline and Charles Todd W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
2012 Festival of Reading Featured Authors
Bill Belleville
Salvaging the Real Florida: Lost and Found in the State of Dreams
Bill Belleville is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker specializing in environmental issues. In addition to winning the
National Outdoor Book Award (Literature-Natural History), he has also been recently honored with the annual Marjory Stoneman Douglas Media
Award from the Florida Lake Management Society. Bill serves on the advisory boards of the St. Johns RiverKeeper,
Reef Relief of Key West, and the Board of the Friends of the Wekiva River, Inc. A new collection of his nature and eco-adventure
essays has just been released in hardcover by University Press of Florida. It's entitled "Salvaging the Real Florida: Lost and Found in the State of Dreams".
Most of the stories take place somewhere in nature---swamps, marshes, springs, and reefs.
His critically acclaimed River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida’s St. Johns River won the Michael J. Shaara Award for Excellence
in Writing. He is also the author of Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition and Sunken Cities, Sacred Cenotes and
Golden Sharks: Travels of a Water-Bound Adventurer. His film making credits include an Emmy award for Wekiva: Legacy or Loss.
His book Losing it all to Sprawl was named one of "Best Books of 2006" by the Library Journal; was given the 1000 Friends of Florida's Al Burt Award for
Excellence in Journalism; and was a Bronze Medal winner in the 2007 Florida Book Awards.
Mr. Belleville is currently helping to script and co-produce a film about one woman's solo paddling journey on 500 miles of the
St. Johns, Alligator Princess of America's Nile via the non-profit Equinox Documentaries, Inc. The PBS documentary, "In Marjorie's Wake: Rediscovering Rawlings, a River & Time", has just completed a two-year national run with broadcast play in major markets, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Miami, and many more.
For more information about Bill Belleville, visit www.billbelleville.com.
Festival Appearances
Wednesday, March 28 at 6:30 p.m.
Salvaging the Real Florida W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
C.S. Challinor
Murder on the Moor
C.S. Challinor was born in Bloomington, Indiana, and was educated in Scotland, St. George's School for Girls, Edinburgh and England, Lewes Priory, Sussex; University of Kent, Canterbury: Joint Hons Latin & French. Her short stories have been published in women’s magazines in the United States and the United Kingdom. Challinor is the author of the Rex Graves cozy mystery series featuring Rex Graves, Scottish barrister-sleuth.
The fourth novel, Murder on the Moor, was released February 14, 2011. The fifth in the series, Murder of the Bride, will be out March 2012. In this latest Scottish Barrister Rex Graves and his fiancée Helen have traveled to Aston-on-Trent in Derbyshire to attend the wedding ceremony of one of Helen’s former students. The dreary gray skies and bickering families underscore Rex’s private reservations about the unlikely couple’s long-term prospects. But when guests start falling faster than the gloomy May rain, Rex must determine who among the sniping wedding guests is the killer in this traditional locked-room mystery.
“If you’ve missed good, old-fashioned whodunits where the identity of the murderer is revealed in a stately drawing room, this latest Rex Graves mystery (Murder on the Moor) is for you. Contemporary in setting but classic in style and voice, it’ll have you guessing to the very end.” 4 stars from RT Reviews
For more information about the Rex Graves novels and author, C.S. Challinor, visit www.rexgraves.com.
Festival Appearances
Thursday, March 29 at 7 p.m.
Murder of the Bride with Author C. S. Challinor Tavares Public Library, Tavares
Friday, March 30 at 10 a.m.
Murder of the Bride with Author C. S. Challinor Lady Lake Library, Lady Lake
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Saturday, March 31 at 11:15 a.m.
Writing the Whodunit! with C. S. Challinor W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
Vic DiGenti
Windrusher Series & Matanza Bay
Vic DiGenti aka Parker Francis spent more than thirty-five years working in public broadcasting as a director, public affairs producer, head of a two-station corporate communications department, and was responsible for special events, including producing the acclaimed Jacksonville Jazz Festival for eight years.
His three adventure/fantasy novels — Windrusher, Windrusher and the Cave of Tho-Hoth, and Windrusher and the Trail of Fire (Ocean Publishing) — have won multiple awards and attracted readers of all ages. Writing as Parker Francis, Vic published Matanzas Bay, a mystery/suspense novel set in St. Augustine, Florida. Matanzas Bay won the 2007 Josiah W. Bancroft, Sr. Award, and was named a Book of the Year in the 2009 Royal Palm Literary Awards Competition. The novel introduces Quint Mitchell, a private detective based in Jacksonville Beach in NE Florida. Quint’s also a bit of an archaeology buff, and while helping his friend Jeffrey Poe, St. Augustine's City Archaeologist, he unearths the body of the city’s vice mayor. The second in the Quint Mitchell Mystery series, Bring Down the Furies, will be released in 2012.
For a time after his retirement from public broadcasting, Vic was executive director of a volunteer non-profit organization that worked for the welfare and protection of abandoned, feral and homeless cats and kittens. This intense exposure to the world of feral cats, along with his own household of cats, moved him to complete and publish his first Windrusher adventure.
Vic is a regional director of the Florida Writers Association and past president of the Friends of the Library–Ponte Vedra Beach.
For more information about Vic DiGenti, visit www.windrusher.com.
Festival Appearances
Monday, March 26 at 2 p.m.
e-Publishing 101 Lesburg Public Library, Leesburg
Tuesday, March 27 at 10 a.m.
Spicing Up The Plot Cooper Memorial Library, Clermont
J. Gabriel Gates
The Sleepwalkers
Author J. Gabriel Gates is a native of Marshall, Michigan. The son of an educator, his passion for the written word began at a young age. During college, another passion – for performing – led him to get his B.A. degree in theater from Florida State University. During his years in Los Angeles, he appeared in a dozen national TV commercials and penned several screenplays while laying the groundwork for his career as a novelist.
Welcome to the future of literary horror. His first novel, Dark Territory: The Tracks, book 1, is now in stores and his second novel, The Sleepwalkers, is coming out this October. “The Sleepwalkers is one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read… period. - Litstack.com His upcoming novel entitled "Blood Zero Sky." promises to be the most exciting, scary, thought-provoking, dystopian teen novel you've ever read, that's what the title means. Look for it in the fall of 2012. Both are being published by HCI Books.
For more information about J. Gabriel Gates and his work, visit www.jgabrielgates.com
Festival Appearances
Wednesday, March 28 at 4:30 p.m.
The Future of Literary Horror, J. Gabriel Gates Tavares Public Library, Tavares
Thursday, March 29 at 4 p.m.
Meet the Author: J. Gabriel Gates Cooper Memorial Library, Clermont
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Bob Grenier
Images of America: Tavares
Author Bob Grenier moved to Florida from Chicago in 1985. He is an author, preservationist, public speaker, living historian, and
board member of the Lake County Historical Society and Tavares Historical Society. His latest Images of America: Tavares from Arcadia Publishing chronicles the
history of the Seaplane City with photographs collected from the historical society. Mr. Grenier is the author of The Gallant Captain Melton Haynes and
Woodlea: Life on the Lake of the Dancing Sunbeams. His latest, an inspiring novel of courage and faith, is due for release in March.
Bob currently serves as Vice Mayor for the City of Tavares. He is actively involved in the historical community, and belongs to several organizations
including the North Lake County Civil War Roundtable, the 17th Connecticut Vol. Inf. Re-enactors, and the
Sons of Confederate Veterans, where he was the first recipient of the "Distinguished Legionnaires Award". Bob is the
immediate Past President of the Lake County Historical Society and is the current President of the Historical Society of Tavares.
He is involved in many historical preservation and restoration projects including the saving of the Capt. Haynes Woodlea house.
Festival Appearances
Thursday, March 29 at 10:30 a.m.
Author Bob Grenier, History and Research Leesburg Public Library, Leesburg
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Jeffery Lamb
Strange Wind
Jeffery Lamb is a Florida native and has a true passion for the Sunshine State. He lives with his wife Sherri in Central
Florida with their dog Bits. His son Justin is a Political Science major at the University of Kentucky. He loves to sail
Southwind, their sailboat in their free time. Writing has become an outlet for his sense of humor and all proceeds from
these efforts go directly to higher education for the son he loves at University of Kentucky, who was born with cerebral
palsy in 1964. Fortunately, he has a mild case of the disease. Some children are not as lucky, and he has chosen to do a small
part in helping make life better for them. Fifty cents of each book purchased goes to the UCP of Central Florida. In the
past all money he raised went to the UCP school in Kissimmee. Most of his books are sold face to face at local schools
and festivals. He hopes that through this website he can keep in touch with his readers, and also meet new ones.
For more information about Jerfery Lamb and his work, visit www.jefferylamb.com
Festival Appearances
Wednesday, March 28 at 5 p.m.
Save the Gator Queen Fruitland Park Public Library, Fruitland Park
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Robert Macomber
Honorable Lies
Robert N. Macomber is an internationally recognized award-winning maritime writer, lecturer, television commentator, and defense consultant. He is a continuing lecturer in the Distinguished Military Author Series at the Center for Army Analysis at Fort Belvoir, near Washington DC, and has presented at the U.S. Southern Command’s Notable Military Author Series, the West Point Society, NATO Headquarters (SHAPE) in Belgium, the U.S. European Command in Germany, and at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Mr. Macomber has been an annual guest author and speaker aboard the Queen Mary 2 since her maiden voyage, as well as aboard Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, and other ultra-luxury liners. He is also a maritime commentator for Florida PBS documentaries. His lectures span 39 various maritime and literary topics.
Mr. Macomber is the author of the acclaimed Honor Series of naval novels, with fans (who call themselves "Wakians"---after his main character, Peter Wake) across North America and Europe. His literary awards include an Outstanding Achievement Award for his non-fiction work on Florida’s maritime history, the Patrick Smith Literary Award for Best Historical Novel of Florida (At the Edge of Honor), the John Esten Cooke Literary Award for Best Work in Southern Fiction (Point of Honor), and the highest national prize in his genre, the American Library Association’s 2008 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction (A Different Kind of Honor).
Wakians are eagerly awaiting tenth novel in the Honor Series — Honorable Lies — which will come out in October of 2012.
For more information about the Robert Macomber and his work, visit www.robertmacomber.com.
Festival Appearances
Thursday, March 29 at 2 p.m.
The Southernmost War Leesburg Public Library, Leesburg
Friday, March 30 at 10 a.m.
At the Edge of Honor Cooper Memorial Library, Clermont
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Vivian Shipley
All of Your Messages Have Been Erased
Vivian Shipley has published five chapbooks and nine books of poetry, most recently, All of Your Messages Have Been Erased. She is a two-time recipient of the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, and two of her books – Gleanings: Old Poems, New Poems and When There Is No Shore – were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Additional honors include the Library of Congress’s Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Literary Community, the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Prize, the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize from the University of Southern California, the Marble Faun Poetry Prize from the William Faulkner Society, the Daniel Varoujan Prize from the New England Poetry Club, the Hart Crane Prize from Kent State, the Connecticut Press Club Prize for Best Creative Writing, and the Binghamton University Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award.
Editor of the award-winning Connecticut Review, she is Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor at Southern Connecticut State University, where she was named Faculty Scholar in 2000, 2005 and 2008. She has a PhD from Vanderbilt University and is a member of the University of Kentucky Hall of Fame for Distinguished Alumni. Vivian lives in North Haven, Connecticut with her husband, Ed Harris.
For more information about Vivian Shipley and her work, visit www.vivianshipley.com.
Festival Appearances
Thursday, March 29 at 2 p.m.
The Works of Poet Vivian Shipley W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
Friday, March 30 at 11:15 a.m.
Meet Poet Vivian Shipley Lady Lake Library, Lady Lake
Saturday, March 31 at 10 a.m.
Writing in Your Own Voice with Vivian Shipley W. T. Bland Public Library, Mount Dora
Rick Tonyan
Guns of the Palmetto Plains
Rick Tonyan learned to ride and use a whip about the same time he learned to walk. A graduate of the University of Florida and a veteran of the U.S. Navy, he spent 17
years as a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel before turning to fiction. Guns of the Palmetto Plains is his first novel. The author spent 15
years researching material for the book. He wrote it from his home in DeLeon Springs, a small farming community about 40 miles northwest of Daytona Beach.
Critics have praised the novel for its exciting plot historically accurate details and rich characterizations.
"...as historically accurate as anything Zane Grey
or a Louis L'Amour wrote," – Tampa Tribune.
"... plenty of romance and action. Characters in Tonyan's novel are rough, skilled, violent; some are evil, some well-intentioned; all of them are believable and interesting." – New Smyrna Beach News and Observer.
Festival Appearances
Thursday, March 29 at 6:30 p.m.
Guns of the Palmetto Plains Astor County Library, Astor
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
Author Reception Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Garden Programs
Monica Moran Brandies
Tropical Plants: Design Ideas
Monica Brandies has written 11 gardening books, including one for Ortho, one for Sunset, and one for Better Homes and Gardens, states. She has been gardening all her life, publishing since 1961, and raising their nine children since 1959.
Ms. Brandies has had a weekly garden column in the Brandon News (Florida) for more than 25 years, and is often seen in magazines such as Florida Gardening. Monica has been gardening since she was a child. In college she studied horticulture and landscape design since she figured she wouldn't always have a farm. She went to the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, which became part of Temple University from which came her degree. She and husband David did very well growing 90% of the food for a family of ten on two small acreages in Ohio and Iowa. Her main garden rule is to enjoy the process and make your yard, the little bit of the world you can control, what you most need to make your life good.
Like most gardeners, she is learning something new all the time. She manages to get her garden decent enough to invite her readers once a year. The rest of the time she uses it for experimentation and therapy. Bestselling books include Landscaping with Tropical Plants: Design Ideas, Creative Garden Plans, Cold-Climate Solutions, Herbs and Spices for Florida Gardens, How to Grow and Enjoy Florida Plants with Special Uses, Ortho's Guide to Herbs, Citrus: How to Grow and Use Citrus Fruits, Flowers, and Foliage.
Festival Appearances
Wednesday, March 28 at 10:30 a.m.
Herbs and Spices for Florida Gardens Leesburg Public Library, Leesburg
Wednesday, March 28 at 1:30 p.m.
Florida Gardening with Monica Moran Brandies Lady Lake Public Library, Lady Lake
Visit the Garden Programs page for gardening workshops and programs and facilitator bios held during the 2012 Festival of Reading