Authors

Joseph Bathanti

Joseph Bathanti is Poet Laureate of North Carolina. A veteran Road Scholar and Let’s Talk about It Scholar.  He is the author of six books of poetry: Communion Partners, Anson County, The Feast of All Saints, This Metal (nominated for the National Book Award), Land of Amnesia, and Restoring Sacred Art (winner of the 2010 Roanoke Chowan Prize). His novel, East Liberty, won the 2001 Carolina Novel Award. His latest novel, Coventry, won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. His book of stories, The High Heart, won the 2006 Spokane Prize.  Bathanti is Professor of Creative Writing and Writer-in-Residence of Watauga Global Community at Appalachian State University.

Emily Colin

Emily Colin holds a BA in Psychology, with a second major in Literature/Media Studies, from Duke University. A 2001-2003 William C. Friday Human Relations Fellow, Emily’s background includes many years as a classical violinist, as well as writing and editing for regional publications. She served as Editor-in-Chief of Coastal Carolina Press. The Memory Thief is her first novel.

Kevin Duffus

Kevin P. Duffus is an award-winning filmmaker, researcher, author, and investigative journalist of historical events. He has published three books and produced four documentary films on various maritime history topics, including shipwrecks, lighthouses, and the devastating German U-boat  attacks off our coast in 1942.  In 2002, Duffus solved the long-standing mystery of the missing 1854 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Fresnel lens, once described by Lighthouse Digest magazine as one of the great-unsolved mysteries  of American lighthouse history. The amazing history and odyssey of the lens is told in Duffus’ book, The Lost Light – A Civil War Mystery.

Elliot Engel

Professor Elliot Engel is considered the most insightful, personable, and entertaining academic keynote speaker to come out of academia in the last fifty years. His witty, engaging speaking style imparts hard, factual information, leaving his audiences virtually spellbound, yet charmed by periods of laughter and flashes of insight. Using anecdotes, analysis, and large doses of humor, he gives new insights into the backgrounds, accomplishments, and lives of the great masters of English and American literature.  Published in both Great Britain and the US, Engel is the author of seven books including, A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain: Literary Lives from Shakespeare’s Old England to Frost’s New England. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines, including Newsweek. As one of the most sought after and beloved speakers on literature, his mini-lecture series on his favorite literary hero, Charles Dickens, appeared on PBS stations nationwide.

Georgann Eubanks

Georgann Eubanks, a festival favorite, will be returning to give us an update on her Literary Trails series and to also conduct her popular writer’s workshop along with Donna Campbell, this year on the subject of The Art of the Interview.  Georgann has published stories, poems, reviews and profiles in magazines and journals including The Washington Monthly, Oxford American and Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.  She is Director of the Table Rock Writers Workshop.

Amy Greene

Amy Greene was born and raised in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, where she lives with  her husband and two children. Her debut novel Bloodroot was published by Alfred A. Knopf January 12, 2010. Her second novel, Long Man, is forthcoming also from Knopf.

DG Martin

DG Martin has hosted North Carolina Bookwatch since 1989.  He is a Yale Law School graduate and has been involved with public service including the Carolinas Director of the Trust for Public Land.  DG will moderate our panel discussion at the On the Same Plate Luncheon in addition to other festival appearances.  Check out this trailer on the new Bookwatch season which starts soon!https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=839704224155

Karen Musgrave

Karen Musgrave, author of Quilts in the Attic, states that “more than 20 years ago, a friend suggested that I write a mission statement. Of course, my first draft was more like a novel. I took an entire year editing it to get to the essence, the smallest number of words. Eventually I got it down to three- dwell in possibility.”

Janet Pittard

Janet C. Pittard is a North Carolina native from Raleigh. She was born and raised in Southern Pines and grew up spending many of her summers in the western part of the state while her father worked in the area. She now enjoys a second home in West Jefferson. After her retirement from state government, Janet began a second career as a freelance writer and from 2003 to 2009, published over 100 stories in Our State and Signature magazines, including many articles inspired by people and places in Ashe County. She also wrote for several episodes of UNC-TV’s Our State program.

Stephen Shoemaker

Stephen Sharpe Shoemaker was born and raised in Northwest North Carolina, received a BS Degree in Art from Appalachian State University after serving two years in the military. He has been a full time watercolor artist since 1983, concentrating on dry brush landscapes and trains. He sells original work and limited addition prints and has had many one and two-man shows. He has work in Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia as well as the U.S, in many banking and corporate settings. He has painted an outdoor mural of the historic train that serviced the mountain area in the last century. Stephen is married and has one daughter.