Anne Caston
Poetry, Grades 7-9 Poetry, Grades 10-12
Anne Castons first collection of poems, Flying Out With The Wounded, won the 1996 New York University Press Prize for Poetry. Her poems have been published in literary journals and periodicals here and abroad. She previously served as the 1996-97 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as the 1999-2000 Jenny McKean Moore Fellow in Poetry at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. She received a 1999 Individual Artist Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, Caston teaches in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage where she serves as the graduate studies program director. She is at work on a memoir, Deep Dixie, and a third collection of poems, The Empress of Longing.
Richard R. Cole
Nonfiction, Grades 10-12
Richard R. Cole is the John Thomas Kerr Jr. Distinguished Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Dean Emeritus, having served as dean for 26 years: 1979-2005. In 2005, Cole was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame. In 1991, he received the Freedom Forum Medal for Distinguished Accomplishments in Journalism-Mass Communication Administration. The award, given for lifetime achievements, had been given only three times previously. Cole, at 50, was the youngest person to have received it.
David Crouse
Fiction, Open/Adult
David Crouse is an award-winning short story writer and teacher. Former chair of the Writing and Literature Program at Chester College of New England, he became a faculty member in University of Alaska Fairbanks Masters of Fine Arts Program in January 2007. Professor Crouses stories have appeared in some of the countrys most well regarded journals, including The Greensboro Review, Chelsea, Quarterly West and The Beloit Fiction Journal. His comic book writing has been anthologized in The Darkhorse Book of the Dead, published by Darkhorse Comics. His short story collection Copy Cats was awarded the Flannery OConnor Award for Short Fiction in 2005.
Mary Eldred
Nonfiction, K-3 Fiction, K-3 Poetry, K-3
Mary Eldred currently works for the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project. Shes been an elementary classroom teacher in Anchorage for 19 years, mostly at third grade. She enjoys reading, hiking, knitting and exploring new places.
Charlotte Evans
Nonfiction, Open/Adult
Charlotte Evans has been a reporter, editor and manager at the New York Times for more than 30 years. Her most exotic dateline was the South Pole. Upon her retirement this summer, she plans to loaf around and to teach writing workshops for seniors. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Karin Halpin
Fiction, Grades 7-9
Karin Halpin moved to the road system and joined Southeast Regional Resource Center (SERRC) as an education specialist in August 2007. She comes to SERRC with nine years teaching experience in rural Alaska, a reading endorsement and a masters degree in reading. Three years were spent in Goodnews Bay with multi-aged classrooms and six years in Akiak; one as a second/third grade teacher and five as a literacy specialist for grades K-12. She also coordinated a birth to three homevisiting program for the Yupiit School District and is past president of the Alaska State Literacy Association. When she isnt working, she spends time at her cabin in Halibut Cove working in her garden.
David Marusek
Super Short Fiction
David Marusek is a long-time Fairbanks resident. His fiction has appeared in Playboy, Nature, MIT Technology Review and Asimovs, and has been translated into a half dozen languages. According to Publishers Weekly, Maruseks writing is ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny, as he forces readers to stretch their imaginations and sympathies. In 2005, Tor Books released Maruseks first novel, Counting Heads. His first short story collection, Getting to Know You, appeared in April, 2007, and was named a finalist for the 2007 Quill Awards. His second novel, Mind Over Oship, will appear in 2009.
Sharon Peters
Fiction, Grades 10-12
Sharon Peters has worked as a reporter for the Fort Lauderdale News and Savannah Morning News, a reporter and section editor for the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger, a section editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer and USA Today, a freelance writer in Bogota, Colombia, the managing editor of the Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky and as executive editor and vice president of The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo. She also has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Today she works as a marketing and management consultant, as well as writer and content adviser for several publications.
Sue Silverman
Poetry, Grades 4-6 Poetry, Open/Adult
Sue William Silvermans memoir Love Sick: One Womans Journey Through Sexual Addiction (W. W. Norton) is a Lifetime television original movie. Her first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (University of Georgia Press), won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs award in creative nonfiction. Her poetry collection is Hieroglyphics in Neon (Orchises Press). She teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is associate editor of the literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, as well as a professional speak on the issues of child abuse, family dyanmics and addictions.
Patricia Truman
Nonfiction, Grades 4-6 Fiction, Grades 4-6
Patricia Truman, a retired teacher, currently serves as the executive director of the Professional Teaching Practices Commission. She taught in Yukon Flats, Fairbanks North Star and the Mat-Su Borough, working in the elementary and middle school as a reading specialist and language arts teacher. Truman holds a masters degree in English from Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, has earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescent Language Arts, and was named Alaska Teacher of the Year 2001.
