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.
Karen Tack
is a cooking teacher and a food stylist for Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Woman's Day, Martha Stewart, Parents, Real Simple, Family Fun, Nick Jr., and many other publications. Hello Cupcake! is her first book.
Ed Tato
Originally from Buffalo, New York, Ed Tato is back there for a short stint, killing time in one of his numerous dead-end jobs. Prior to this, he spent a year in New Zealand, writing a 90-page manuscript and learning more about the art under poets Wystan Curnow and Michele Leggott, poet Laureate of New Zealand. He has one book of poetry, True Stories from la Cosa Nostra, published by Unholy Day Press, and his poems have appeared in Coal City Review, Present Magazine, Nthposition.com, and IdentityTheory.com. Ed will attend the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University this fall as the program’s University Fellow. In the meantime, he’ll be playing Lotto, bowling and betting at the OTB as often as funds allow.
Alarie Tennille
Alarie Tennille is a writing stylist at Hallmark Cards and serves on the board of directors of The Writers Place. Her poems have appeared Poetry East, ByLine Magazine, English Journal, Coal City Review, Kansas City Voices, I-70 Review, The Mid-America Poetry Review and The Kansas City Star.
Whitney Terrell
Whitney Terrell is the New Letters Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was educated at Princeton University (B.A.) and the University of Iowa (M.F.A.). He is the author of The Huntsman (Viking 2001), a New York Times notable book, and The King of Kings County (Viking 2005) which won the William Rockhill Nelson award from The Kansas City Star and was selected as a best book of 2005 by the Christian Science Monitor. In 2006, he was named one of 20 “writers to watch” under 40 by members of the National Book Critics Circle. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Details, The New York Observer, The Kansas City Star and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Recently, he embedded with the 22nd infantry in Baghdad, an experience he covered for The Washington Post. Visit his website at www.whitneyterrell.com.
The Recipe
Founding member of the Black Poets Collective, Theodore “Priest,” and American Jazz Museum Slam Champion, Desmond “337” Jones, formed “The Recipe” in 2005. Together they founded the Recipe Poetry Guild which organized poets and artist into a performance networking group. The Recipe also collaborated with Latrenda show-Me (may) Patterson to to be known as Poetic Vice 2006 and have been performing for KKFI radio 90.1 FM fundraisers every since.
Roderick Townley
Roderick Townley is the author, most recently, of The Red Thread, a finalist for the 2008 Society of Midland Authors Award, and a New York Public Library pick for Books for the Teen Age 2008.
Roderick is also the author of Sky, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, described by VOYA as "one hell of a book." His three-novel Sylvie Cycle received equally enthusiastic praise. The first volume in the trilogy, The Great Good Thing, was a Top Ten Book Sense pick. Its sequel, Into the Labyrinth, was dubbed a "hopping fine read" by The New York Times. And Kirkus Reviews called the final volume, The Constellation of Sylvie, "as clever and captivating as its predecessors."
Townley has two children and lives with his wife, poet Wyatt Townley, in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Visit him on the Web at www.rodericktownley.com.
Katie Van Luchene
Katie Van Luchene brings an unmatched passion and depth of experience in writing about her hometown. She was a columnist for Kansas City Magazine and KC Home Design before launching KC Magazine where she now serves as executive editor. She’s also written about Kansas City for Midwest Living and Budget Travel. For more information, please visit her Web site, www.katievanluchene.com.
Maryfrances Wagner
Maryfrances Wagner is a writing and literature teacher, workshop leader, in-service planner and trainer and the English Coordinator for University of Missouri at Kansas City’s Dual Credit High School College Partnership. She was inducted into the Raytown Hall of Fame in 2005. She has served as board member of the American Poets Series, co-editor of New Letters Review of Books and now serves as co-president of the Writers Place board of directors. She has published four books: Bandaged Watermelons and Other Rusty Ducks, Tonight Cicadas Sing, (MidAm) Salvatore’s Daughter (BkMk) and Red Silk. (MidAm). Salvatore’s Daughter was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Red Silk won the Thorpe Menn Book Award in 2000. Her poems have appeared in many literary magazines including New Letters, Midwest Quarterly, Laurel Review, Beacon Review, Nebraska Review, Birmingham Review, et. Al., and she’s appeared in anthologies including Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (Penguin Books), Kansas City Outloud II, Poets At Large, Voices from the Interior, Bearing Witness: Poetry by Teachers About Teaching, Memories and Memoirs, Anthology of Missouri Women Writers, Chance of a Ghost, and The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women, (winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation). Her work for that book was chosen for an audiocassette for American Audio Prose and was translated into Italian for Trapani Nuovo in Italy. Her poems have won various prizes including the Stanley Hanks Poetry and Potpourri contests. For many years, she and her husband sponsored the Simpson House Readings, and they sponsor the annual Crystal Field Scholarship Reading that contributes to a scholarship established by she and her husband, Greg Field, for a creative writing student.
Dennis Weiser
Poet, novelist and philosopher, Dennis Weiser is a former editorial page columnist at The Kansas City Business Journal and book reviewer for NPR affiliate KCUR-FM in Kansas City. Dennis has published articles, poetry and fiction in Chouteau Review, Thorny Locust, Abramelin, New Letters and p.r.n., as well as several anthologies from Outrider Press. Excellence, a parable of genocidal race hatred, was the featured “Original Fiction” in the April 2004 issue of The Illuminata, a webzine of science fiction and fantasy from Tyrannosaurus Press. Dennis has read at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Prospero’s Books, The Way Out Club and Venice Café. An excerpt from his novel, Crash Dummies, won first prize for prose fiction at the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago and was published in ThingsThat Go Bump in the Night (Outrider Press 2004). His poem, “Hidden Song”, was included in The Sixth Surface: Steven Holl Lights the Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City: Topo/Graphis Press 2007). Dennis holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Westminster College and an M.A. in Philosophy from The University of Kansas. His most recent works are New Eyes and Body Time, Soul Space (2007).Currently finishing a screenplay adaptation of Crash Dummies, Dennis lives and writes in Kansas City, where he is a member of The Writers Place.
Jason Wesco
Jason Wesco – was born in Marion, Ind., in 1973. He has since spent significant pieces of his life in Wabash, Vincennes and Muncie, Ind.,, Bowling Green, Ohio and Lawrence, Kan. He began writing poetry in 1992. His first collection, Between the Letters, was published in 2002. His newest book Rough Traces was released in 2007. Wesco is the founder of 219 Press, a small press dedicated to publishing quality works of poetry and non-fiction by local and regional authors.
Brandon Whitehead
Brandon "Duke" Whitehead is poet, writer and entertainment critic (he knows, because he wrote this). His poems have been published as part of the Prospero's Pit Pocket Poetry Series and have appeared in PresentMagazine.com. You can catch him "streaming" (whatever that is...) on Write The Future (WTF) blogtalk radio. He is working on an as yet unnamed book which – in his imagination – comes off rather well. He is a regular performer at The Pit, and Main Street Rag’s 3rd Sunday poetry series at the Writers Place. He also likes cookies.
Jenny Whitehead
Jenny Whitehead is the author/illustrator of two children’s poetry books, Lunch Box Mail (2001) and Holiday Stew (Spring 2007). She is currently illustrating a poetry collection written by Elsa Knight Bruno called Punctuation Celebration due in stores Fall 2008. Jenny majored in art at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She designed wallpaper before becoming an art director at Hallmark Cards in 1987. After seven years, she left Hallmark to pursue children's book writing and illustrating full-time. She currently lives in Kansas City, MO with her husband Pete and two children, Bailey (11) and Chelsea (6).
Greta Wilckens
Greta Wilckens a poet and stand-up comedian was born in Kansas City. She publishes the feisty zine Behind the Stove and has performed and help host numerous poetry readings throughout Kansas City over the last four years.
Bill Yenne
Bill Yenne is the San Francisco-based author of more than two dozen books on historical topics, including many on Western history. His new release, Sitting Bull, is an Amazon.com "Significant Seven" selection for April, which tracks the seven best new books for the month. The Wall Street Journal has called his work "cinematic," and said of his Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West, that it "has the rare quality of being both an excellent reference work and a pleasure to read." Yenne grew up in Western Montana where his father was a backcountry trail guide and trails supervisor at Glacier National Park. He graduated from the University of Montana and has traveled extensively in all the Western states.
