2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting

Jane Hamilton
Laura Rider's Masterpiece
Grand Central Publishing

Jane Hamilton is the author of The Book of Ruth, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction, and A Map of the World, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and named one of the top ten books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, the Miami Herald, and People. Both The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World have been selections of Oprah's Book Club. Her following work, The Short History of a Prince, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, her novel Disobedience was published in 2000, and her last novel When Madeline Was Young was a Washington Post Best Book of 2006. She lives in and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin. Photo Credit: Kevin Horan

Sandra Dallas
Prayers for Sale
St. Martin's Press / Macmillan

Award-winning author Sandra Dallas was dubbed "a quintessential American voice" by Jane Smiley, in Vogue Magazine. Her novels with their themes of loyalty, friendship, and human dignity have been translated into nearly a dozen foreign languages and optioned for films. A journalism graduate from the University of Denver, Sandra began her writing career as a reporter with Business Week. A staff member for twenty-five years (and the magazine’s first female bureau chief,) she covered the Rocky Mountain region, writing about everything from penny stock scandals to hard-rock mining to contemporary polygamy. Many of her experiences have been incorporated into her novels. At the same time, she wrote nine nonfiction books, including Sacred Paint, which won the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Wrangler Award. Turning to fiction in 1990, Sandra has published seven novels, with the eighth, Prayers for Sale, scheduled for April 2009. Sandra was the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for The Chili Queen and the Women Writing the West Willa Award for New Mercies. In addition, she has been a finalist for the Colorado Book Award as well as the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Assn. Award, and a three-time finalist for the Women Writing the West Willa Award. Her tenth nonfiction book, The Quilt That Walked To Golden, won the Independent Publishers Assn. Benjamin Franklin Award. The mother of two daughters—Dana is an attorney in New Orleans, and Povy is a photographer in Golden, Colorado—Sandra lives in Denver with her husband, Bob.

John Shors
Beside a Burning Sea
Penguin

John Shors traveled extensively throughout Asia after graduating from Colorado College in 1991, living for several years in Japan, where he taught English, and then trekking across the continent, visiting ten countries and climbing the Himalayas. More recently, Mr. Shors worked as a newspaper reporter in his hometown, Des Moines, Iowa, before entering public relations and moving to Boulder, Colorado. Beside a Burning Sea is his second novel.

Shana Abé
The Treasure Keeper Bantam

Shana Abé is the award-winning author of nine novels, including The Smoke Thief. She lives in the Denver area with four surly pet house rabbits, all rescued, and a big goofy dog. Please, please support your local animal shelter, and spay or neuter your pets. Photo Credit: © Dimitry Loiseau

Simon Van Booy
Love Begins in Winter
HarperCollins

Simon Van Booy was born in London and grew up in rural Wales and Oxford. After playing football in Kentucky for two years, he lived in Paris and Athens. In 2002 he was awarded an M.F.A. and won the H.R. Hays Poetry Award. His journalism has appeared in magazines and newspapers including the New York Times and the New York Post. He is the author of The Secret Lives of People in Love and the forthcoming Love Begins in Winter. He now lives in New York City where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts and Long Island University. He is also involved in the Bard College Access Program for at-risk young adults. Photo Credit: © K. Browar