On its six stages and various venues, the Kansas City Literary Festival is proud to present some of the finest writers in America today. They cover a wide breadth of genres and fascinating topics for everyone in the family.
Click on one of the Author names on the left to view their Bio and photo.
Steve Paul
Steve Paul is a senior writer and editor at The Kansas City Star. He has published and presented papers extensively on the life and work of Ernest Hemingway and is site coordinator for an international Hemingway conference to be held in June 2008, in Kansas City, Mo.
Shawn Pavey
Shawn Pavey graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Undergraduate Creative Writing Program with a degree in English literature and a specialization in poetry. His poetry has been published in a variety of literary publications including Independence Boulevard, the Blotter and The Charlotte Poetry Review. As a freelance journalist, his music, book and movie reviews appeared in Charlotte Magazine, Charlotte’s Best Magazine and BestFilmFests.com. He taught poetry and philosophy at the prestigious Governor’s School of North Carolina. In 1997, Main Street Rag published his chapbook Talking to Shadows, which was re-released with new material in February of 2008. In 1996, with M. Scott Douglass, Shawn co-founded the Main Street Rag and served as an Associate Editor for three years before relocating to Raleigh, N.C. In spring 2006, Shawn relocated to Kansas City. He’s tired of moving and looks forward to calling Kansas City home. He hosts the Main Street Rag poetry series at the Writers Place every third Sunday and serves on the Writers Place board of directors.
Timothy Allen Pettet
Timothy Allen Pettet lost his poetic virginity to a Dylan Thomas poem when he was 18 but didn't realize that it was a serious affair until he was nearly 50 years old. In the last 10 years he has been published in many local publications including the Kansas City Star, The Review, Flint Hills Review and The Mid-America Poetry Review. PresentMagazine, is currently featuring a series of poems he has written in response to paintings by Kansas artist, Jane Booth. Pettet has performed work at ARTOPIA, sponsored annually by The Pitch, The Writer's Place, The Kansas City Fringe Festival, Kansas City Public Library, Just Off Broadway Theater, Prospero's Books and Spivey's. Pettet is an avid name-dropper and likes to cite the facts that he and Walt Whitman both moved 12 times before they were 12 years old and that the former poet laureate, Billy Collins, in person, called Pettet a bastard, about which Pettet has written a poem.
Nancy Pickard
Nancy Pickard, a lifelong resident of the Kansas City area, is the award-winning author of l7 novels and dozens of short stories. Her novel, The Virgin of Small Plains, is a "Kansas Notable Book," and will be the "Kansas Reads" book of the year in 2009. It won the Agatha and Macavity awards and was a finalist for the Edgar, Dilys, and Anthony awards. She is also the author of the Jenny Cain mystery series and the Marie Lightfoot series. A 4-time Edgar nominee, she is a former member of the board of Mystery Writers of America, past president of the international organization Sisters In Crime and current president of its new local chapter. She lives in Merriam, Ks.
Michael Pritchett
Michael Pritchett is an associate professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is the author of The Melancholy Fate of Capt. Lewis (Unbridled Books, 2007). He is also the author of The Venus Tree, winner of an Iowa Short Fiction Award (the John Simmons Short Fiction Award) in 1988 and published by the University of Iowa Press. He is the winner of the 2000 Dana Award for a novel-in-progress for his novel, The Final Effort of the Archer. The title story from his collection appeared in the anthology The Iowa Award: The Best Stories from 20 Years, University of Iowa Press, 1990. His stories have appeared in Passages North, Natural Bridge and New Letters, among other noteworthy magazines.
Kevin Prufer
Author of four books of poetry and the editor of three anthologies. He also serves as Editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, an international magazine of poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews; Associate Editor of American Book Review; and Vice President/Secretary of the National Book Critics Circle. Born in 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio, Prufer received his undergraduate degree from the College of Letters at Wesleyan University. He has graduate degrees from Hollins University and Washington University and currently lives in Warrensburg, Mo., with artist and literary critic Mary Hallab.
Kevin Rabas
Kevin Rabas teaches creative writing and literature at Emporia State University, co-directs the creative writing program, and is co-editor of Flint Hills Review and Bluestem Press. An avid jazz drummer and critic, Rabas writes regularly for Jazz Ambassador Magazine (JAM). His first book of poetry, Bird’s Horn and Other Poems, has been recently released by Coal City Review Press (Lawrence).
Joshua Rizer
Joshua Rizer is a poet and visual artist. He was selected to appear in Review Magazine's annual literary publication, and his work has appeared in PresentMagazine.com. He has performed at the Writer's Place, Prospero’s Pit and numerous regional readings. He's been writing, drawing and painting for 15 years.
Sharon Robinson
Sharon Robinson has captivated readers with her memoir Stealing Home (Harper Colllins Publishers, 1996), her recounting of growing up in the public eye, and Jackie's Nine (Scholastic, 2001), a book for young readers about the nine heartfelt, hard-won values that helped her father, Jackie Robinson, achieve his goals, romance novel, Still The Storm (Genesis Press, 2002). Her photographic biography for children, PROMISES TO KEEP: How Jackie Robinson Changed America (Scholastic February 2004) received rave reviews. Safe At Home, her first fiction novel for young readers, will be published in June 2006.
In addition to her writing career, Ms. Robinson is an educational consultant for Major League Baseball. In this capacity, she oversees school and community-based educational programs. Breaking Barriers, In Sports, In Lifeis the department’s core program; it is a national character education program designed to empower students with strategies to help them face obstacles in their lives. The message is delivered by examining the values demonstrated in the lives of Jackie Robinson and many of today’s baseball stars; since its inception in 1997, the program has reached over nine million children across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Deborah Rodriguez
Deborah Rodriguez has been as a hairdresser since 1979, except for one brief stint when she worked as a corrections officer in her hometown of Holland, Mich. She currently directs the Kabul Beauty School, the first modern beauty academy and training salon in Afghanistan. Rodriguez also owns the Oasis Salon and the Cabul Coffee House. She lives in Kabul with her Afghan husband. Kabul Beauty School since it publication in April 2007 has remained one of the bestselling memoirs in 2008.
Steven Saylor
Steven Saylor is the author of the Roma Sub Rosa series of historical mysteries featuring Gordianus the Finder and set in the ancient Rome of Cicero and Caesar: Roman Blood (1991), Arms of Nemesis (1992), Catilina’s Riddle (1994), The Venus Throw (1995), A Murder on the Appian Way (1996), The House of the Vestals (1997), Rubicon (1999), Last Seen in Massila (2000), A Mist of Prophecies (2002), The Judgment of Caesar (2004), and The Triumph of Caesar (2008). His short stories about Gordianus have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and in several original anthologies. The first, A Will Is a Way, won the 1993 Robert L. Fish Award from the Mystery Writers of America, given each year for the best debut short story in the mystery genre. All the Gordianus short stories have been collected in two volumes, The House of the Vestals (1997) and A Gladiator Dies Only Once (2005). His current novel is Roma. He lives in San Francisco.
Brad Sneed
Brad Sneed is an award-winning illustrator of many books for children, including Higgins Bend Song and Dance which was hailed by School Library Journal as a "whopper of a fish tale.". He grew up in rural Newton, Kansas, where he lived with his parents and sister. Brad earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kansas University in 1989. His work has been exhibited at the Society of Illustrators American Museum of Illustration in New York and The Chemers Gallery in California. In addition to his work on picture books, Brad’s illustrations have appeared in various ads as well as in magazines such as Country Life, American Bookseller, and Inside Sports. He lives with his wife and daughter in Prairie Village, Kansas, and is busy working on his next book.
Dana Stabenow
An American author who has produced science fiction, mystery and most recently a novel based on modern piracy and international terrorism. Many of Stabenow's books are set in her home state of Alaska, where she was raised by her single mother who lived and worked on a fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. Stabenow received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Alaska in 1973 and, after deciding to try her hand as an author, later enrolled in UAA's MFA program. Her first novel, Second Star was bought by Ace Science Fiction in 1990. It was followed by two other science fiction books. Her first Shugak book, A Cold Day for Murder, won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1993.
H. Stewart
At 25, Stewart has released two books of poetry, Porched Hopes and The Unnecessary Flame (and she promises to publish more). She performs regularly at open mics and poetry readings throughout the city and is involved in sound, and chemical art locally. She is currently biding her time as a college student.
Robert Stewart
Robert Stewart is editor-in-chief of New Letters, New Letters on the Air, and BkMk Press at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he also teaches creative writing and magazine editing.
