Published Authors Living Near Traverse City
Author Next Door: Marney Rich Keenan
Marney Keenan Tells the True Story of the Oakland County Child Killer by Erin Evans “Money and power can make a whole lot of things disappear,” said Marney Keenan (66). This was unfortunately the truth of the Oakland County Child Killings case, a 44-year-old murder...
Author Next Door: Joan Schmeichel
Joan Schmeichel Writes Mysteries from Fairy Tale Characters to Football by Erin Evans Joan Schmeichel, 88, is always working on a story, and when she isn’t, she is thinking of her next one. When the idea of a character named Roman Boles — a 23-year-old football player...
Author Next Door: Jenn Gregory
Jenn Gregory Writes to Inspire Graduates During the Pandemic by Erin Evans On the night of March 31, one month after Michigan schools shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jenn Gregory could not sleep. Worry for those who were graduating this year—including her...
Author Next Door: Robert Emmet
The Transplant that Changed Robert Emmet’s Life and His New Book that Could Change Yours By Erin Evans After enduring a double-lung transplant and the resulting PTSD, retired English teacher Robert Emmet, 70, took his therapist’s suggestion to write a book about his...
Author Next Door: Emita Brady Hill
by Erin Evans The subjects in Emita Brady Hill’s two books of interviews are as different as can be: people living in the Bronx in the 1970s and 80s, and women in the food industry in northern Michigan. The common thread here? She finds all of their stories immensely...
Author Next Door: Sally Jo Messersmith
Sally Jo Messersmith’s Hope For Korea We all have dreams for this world. Sally Jo Messersmith’s dream is for the two Koreas to become one again. She has helped bring this hope closer to reality in part by writing a children’s book and a young adult book which she...
Author Next Door: Patricia Steele
By Erin Evans Twelve years ago, Patricia Steele — convicted of killing a Lake Ann man while driving drunk — was led off to prison, where she served seven harrowing years, including time in maximum security, side-by-side with the most notorious female criminals in...
Author Next Door: Peter Damm
by Erin Evans One morning, Peter Damm was taken by his mother to get his tooth pulled— already a dreadful enough ordeal, especially considering the dentist’s tendency to treat pain like a mildly annoying fly on the wall. Worse, his mother surprised him with a visit to...
Author Next Door: Molly Greeley
Molly Greeley first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice when she was 10. She’s re-read it multiple times since — and has now written her own Jane Austen-inspired novel, The Clergyman’s Wife. The Clergyman's Wife, by Molly Greeley In The...
Author Next Door: Kath Usitalo
Kath Usitalo Kath Usitalo’s love for the U.P. is apparent in her new book, Secret Upper Peninsula: The Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. The Naubinway writer (“it’s at the northernmost part of Lake Michigan”) loves the weird and wonderful parts of the U.P. and is...
Author Next Door: Laura Knight Cobb
Laura Knight Cobb, an elementary school teacher, poet, writer and lyricist, has just released The Lesson of the Lark, historical fiction aimed at 10- to 16-year-olds. It commemorates the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to...
Author Next Door: Charlie Cutter
By Jodee Taylor Charlie Cutter grew up an only child with an English teacher for a mother. So he read. And he read really good books. “My mother had me read all these classics like Dickens, Homer and Shakespeare and that provided a great foundation for Western...

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