During two decades in Alaska, Tricia Brown wandered the state and wrote for the News-Miner and the Anchorage Daily News, and later edited Alaska magazine before entering book publishing in 1998. For five years, she was acquisitions editor for Alaska Northwest Books and WestWinds Press, a job that took her to Portland, Oregon. Tricia has written four children’s books, including the award-winning Children of the Midnight Sun, Groucho’s Eyebrows, The Itchy Little Musk Ox, and her newest release, Alaskan Night Before Christmas. For the grown-ups, she has an Alaska Highway driving guide, books on the Iditarod, and Alaska reference books, among others. A grandmother of six, Tricia currently lives in Oregon, but travels to Alaska often to speak, research, and write.

Johnny B. brings to the 2009 Alaska Book Fest a performance of piano music filled with blues, swing, Alaskan dreamscapes, toe-tappers, and, of course, His signature boogie-woogie.

Sharon Bushell is the author of the two-volume oral history, We Alaskans—Stories of People Who Helped Build the Great Land, the Bernie Jones children’s book series, and  The Spill; Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster . She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Award, the Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities, and the James Patterson Page-Turner Award. She lives in Homer, Alaska, with her husband, John Bushell. 

Website: http://www.roadtunesmedia.com/sharon/sharonbio.htm

Dermot Cole is a longtime columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and author of books about Alaska history. He writes a daily general interest column in the local section of the newspaper, writing about everything from politics to community events. Cole has written extensively about Alaska and Alaska history for nearly 30 years. He has worked for the Daily News-Miner since the 1970s, but he also spent one year at the Associated Press in Seattle.  

His books include: “Frank Barr: Bush Pilot in Alaska and the Yukon,” “Amazing Pipeline Stories: How Building the trans-Alaska Pipeline Transformed Life on America's Last Frontier,” “Fairbanks: A Gold Rush Town that Beat the Odds,” “Fairbanks: A Pictorial History” and “North to The Future.”   

Cole grew up in Pennsylvania and lived in Taiwan, Montana and Hong Kong before moving to Alaska in 1974. A graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cole is married to journalist Debbie Carter and has three children.

Dr. Terrence M. Cole directs the UAF Office of Public History and is a Professor of History at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Neil Davis is an emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is the author of several fiction books and non-fiction books intended to serve a broad audience. In 1976 he began in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner a column now known as the Alaska Science Forum and was its primary writer for more than five years. Several years ago, his uninsured daughter was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, leading him to an intensive study of our health care system. The result of that effort is the book Mired in the Health Care Morass, An Alaskan Takes on America’s Dysfunctional Medical System for his Uninsured Daughter, published in February 2008. He also writes the Dose of Reality column on medical finances that has appeared in The Ester Republic and elsewhere.

Anne L.  Foster is the head of Archives & Manuscripts, Alaska & Polar Regions Collections, University of Alaska Fairbanks and acting president of the Tanana-Yukon Historical Society, which operates Wickersham House Museum.  She has worked for archives in Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, and Montana. Anne became involved in living history demonstrations and sewing historical reproduction clothing about ten years ago, while working at a living history museum, and has continued to update her interpretive eras (and costumes) as she moved north.  A certified archivist, she holds a MLS with an archives concentration from the University of Maryland at College Park and a BA in history from Montana State University.  She blogs about living history and historic costuming at eventail.wordpress.com.

Brian Garfield and his wife Bina divide their time between homes in Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Brian has published about seventy books with eighteen films based on his writings. Brian is best known for his novels of suspense and the movies derived from them, including Hopscotch, Death Wish, Relentless, Necessity and Death Sentence. He is the author of the classic nonfiction history book The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is Meinertzhagen Mystery. 

Jane G. Haigh is completing her PhD in U.S. History at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Haigh began her career as a local historian in Fairbanks, Alaska. She has a Masters Degree in Northern Studies from the University of Alaska, and is the author of a number of books of popular Alaska history, including Gold Rush Women and Gold Rush Dogs.  She was honored in 2007 as the Alaska Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society for her most recent books, Searching for Fannie Quigley: A Wilderness Life in the Shadow of Mt. McKinley (Ohio University Press, 2007) and King Con: the Story of Soapy Smith (2006). While researching Soapy Smith’s activities in Denver,  Haigh came across the material that forms the basis for her dissertation, and the intriguing convergence of confidence men and political corruption in the late 19th century  which led is the subject of her dissertation. She is also working on a book based on the autobiographies of 19th century con men. 

Prof. Stephen Haycox is an American cultural historian at the University of Alaska Anchorage; he specializes in the relationship of Alaska to the history of the American west.  His graduate degrees are from the University of Oregon.  He has published widely on Alaska Native history.  His most recent books include Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics and Environment in Alaska, Alaska: An American Colony, and Alaska Scrapbok, with A.J. McClanahan.  He wrote a bi-weekly op/ed column for the Anchorage Daily News for five years.  He is the recipient of an Alaska Governor’s Humanities Award (2003), and the University of Alaska Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence (2002), and was named Alaskan Historian of the Year (Alaska Historical Society) in 2003.  He teaches Alaska history, history of the American West and American environmental history.   He is co-founder and director of the UAA Honors Forty-Ninth State Fellows Program, an Alaska leadership training option in the UAA Honors Program.

Willie Hensley is a Qikiktagrukmi, an Inupiaq from the shores of Kotzebue Sound. He has served Alaska in a variety of capacities, he is a father and husband and not only one of the "Real People," he is now a "real writer."

His renowned 1966 essay "What Rights to Land have the Alaska Natives?" was the ignition point for his next forty years. Now, in his new book, "Fifty Miles from Tomorrow," Willie has written about his life, including the years when he and others work to secure Alaska Native peoples' land rights, future, and our place as active participants in Alaska's contemporary sociopolitical landscape.

Sarah Crawford Isto was born and raised in Fairbanks.  She held jobs from dredge watchman to UAF English instructor  before attending medical school and moving to Juneau to establish a family practice clinic.   Now retired, she continues to live in Juneau and write, but each spring and fall she and her husband return to their remote cabin in the non-marine-climate of the Interior.

Kaylene Johnson is a professional writer and long-time Alaskan. Her books include Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down, Portrait of the Alaska Railroad and Trails Across Time: History of an Alaska Mountain Corridor. Her essays have appeared in recent anthologies Crosscurrents North: Alaskans on the Environment (eds. Marybeth Holleman and Anne Coray) and Wild Moments: Adventures with Animals of the North (ed. Michael Engelhard). Her award winning articles have appeared in Alaska magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Spirit magazine, Parish Teacher and other publications.  She holds a BA from Vermont College and an MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.   

Bio - Kyle is a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.  He primarily studies caribou and moose.  Escaping the doldrums of suburbia, Kyle started exploring Alaska in 1994.  He enjoys canoeing, rafting, biking, camping, climbing, and most of all hiking.

Stan Jones is director of external affairs for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council. Earlier in his career, he was a radio and newspaper journalist, winning the Alaska Press Club Public Service Award, the George Polk Award and, twice, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting on the Exxon Valdez spill for the Anchorage Daily News helped the paper win several national awards for its coverage of the disaster.

He is co-author (with Sharon Bushell) of The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster.

He is also the author of the Nathan Active mystery series, including White Sky, Black Ice; Shaman Pass; and Frozen Sun. The next book in the series, Village of the Ghost Bears, will be released in December 2009. He is a contributor to a new Alaska state history book, Alaska Politics and Public Policy, from the University of Alaska Press. He lives in Anchorage with his wife, Susan Jones

Jorgy was born in the mining camp of Haycock, Alaska, and spent one-half of his growing up time at that camp and the other half in the village of Koyuk.   His flying career includes flying some of the early aircraft to remote areas of Alaska, to jets all over Alaska and the world.    He lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Carol Kaynor is coauthor of Skijor With Your Dog, a book she published with OK Publishing. Carol was involved in nearly all aspects of the publishing process for this book--interviewing her coauthor and writing the text, critiquing the book design, helping to procure photographs and line art, doing some of the formatting and production, assisting with obtaining printer quotes, getting an ISBN and Library of Congress data, marketing, filling orders, even calculating her own royalties. Carol was a publications formatter for seven years at Alaska Sea Grant. She now works as their web and database coordinator.

Jean Lester has lived in Alaska over 40 years.   She is primarily a painter and also has a passion for the history and people of Alaska.   She has written three other oral history books in the Faces of Alaska series.   She has her studio and lives in Ester, Alaska. Her work may be viewed at www.jeanlester.com.

Tanya Barnebey-Mendelowitz was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska where she is currently a third grade teacher at Weller Elementary during the academic year, and a printmaker/bookbinder/artist in summer.  She has studied Foldables at the Dyna Zike Academy in Texas and has won recognition for her photographs and drawings.  To learn more, and see examples of her work, please visit www.WindDogStudios.com.

Sue Mitchell was born and raised in Fairbanks, the daughter of a university biology professor and a music teacher. She has a bachelors degree in English and a masters in professional writing. Sue has been involved in various aspects of the printed word throughout her working career. She is the production editor for the University of Alaska Press and owns a business doing editing and layout for various clients, including self-publishing authors.

Lael Morgan, who teaches media writing online for University of Texas at Arlington, is a working journalist with 14 non-fiction books to her credit.  Raised in rural Maine, she graduated from Boston University (twice) with degrees in communications, and went on to work for the Juneau Empire, Fairbanks News Miner and Los Angeles Times.  She also served for more than a decade on the staff of Alaska Magazine, and as a professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks.  In addition, she is co-founder and acquisitions editor for Epicenter Press.

Claus-M. Naske is a retired UAF Professor of History. He taught history at UAF  from 1969-2001. He served as the director of the University of Alaska Press from 1988-2004. He has published prolifically both books and professional articles. He is the author of 49 at Last: The Battle for Alaska Statehood, Ernest Gruening: Alaska’s Greatest Governor, and E.L. Bob Bartlett of Alaska: A Life in Politics. 

Nicole Stellon O'Donnell's poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Women's Review of Books, Ice Flow and other literary journals. With the support of a Project Award from the Rasmuson Foundation, she is revising and finishing a collection of persona poems based on the life of Sarah Ellen Gibson, the sixth woman to arrive in Fairbanks in 1903.

Mary Shields has celebrated living north of Fairbanks for 45 years. With her dog team she has traveled through the wilderness of Alaska on springtime journeys and on all the long distance races; the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest and the Hope ‘91, Alaska / Siberia.

Mary shares her life, her dogs and her writing with summer guests to Fairbanks at her nightly tour: Alaskan Tails of theTrail with Mary Shields.