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AUTHORS ELLEN ASHDOWN
Ellen is a former college professor (English and interdisciplinary Humanities) and a modern dancer (performing with the company Avodah, now based in New York, and in Florida State University productions).
Sandra began channeling the entity known to her as Raine through automatic writing several years ago. Her first book, Conversations with Raine, has been distilled from her many journals documenting those sessions.
ANTHONY BURDGE
JESSICA BURKE
MATHILDE FREEMAN
She has been a certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner since 1989. She divides her time between Taos, NM and New Orleans, LA.
KRISTINE LARSEN
P. V. LEFORGE
LeForge’s previous books of poetry and
JESSE MILLNER Jesse Millner has published four poetry chapbooks: The Drowned Boys (March Street Press), On the Saturday After the Rapture (Main Street Rag Press), I Give You This Ghost and Holy Numbers (Pudding HousePublications). The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow is his first full-length collection. Jesse teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University and lives with his wife, Lyn, and dog, Sam, in Fort Myers, Florida.
LEONARD NASH
Leonard Nash has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, with eighteen years of teaching, writing, and consulting experience, including five years as an English instructor at Florida International University in Miami, and experience as a commercial magazine copy editor. He has published short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and magazine articles. You Can't Get There from Here and Other Stories is his first book-length collecton. When not writing and consulting, Nash enjoys tennis, hiking, bicycle riding, and attending sporting events such as baseball, tennis, and football. A unique pleasure is shopping at estate sales, garage sales, auctions, and thrift stores, which he finds are great sources of inspiration for fiction. Says Nash, “There is a story behind every garage sale. What prompts a person to spread his or her worldly belongings on the front lawn for the world to see?”
Recent essays in hardback anthologies include chapters in Tolkien Studies, Tolkien and Shakespeare, Tolkien and Religion, and Dragons East and West. She has also published many essays in popular magazines and literary journals, and regularly gives workshops in mythology, folklore, J.R.R. Tolkien, and writing. Anne has a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University.
In his spare time, James is a gourd artist whose sculptures have been featured in several galleries. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and daughter, and is currently working on another novel, Plaid.
NINA ROMANO
Mary Jane Ryals' poetry is delicious, sensory, rapturous, riviting ... a feast for the senses. An award-winning author of nonfiction, poetry, and short stories; editor at the Apalachee Review literary magazine; and research associate at Florida State University's College of Business, Mary Jane Ryals has added a new title to her portfolio: 2008-2010 Big Bend Poet Laureate. She is also the 2006 winner of the Second Annual Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest for Florida Poets. Her short story collection, A Messy Job I Never Did See a Girl Do, is available from Livingston Press, and her nonfiction book, Getting into the Intercultural Groove: Intercultural Communication for Everyone, was released in 2006 from Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
RANDALL SILVIS
He is the father of two sons and lives in western Pennsylvania.
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Ellen Ashdown is a writer now living at St. George Island, Florida. A Florida Fiction Fellow, she has published feature articles on art, dance, and education in regional and national magazines. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida, is Phi Beta Kappa, a former dancer, and a writer for major textbook publishers, advertising agencies, and universities. She has made her living solely by writing for almost 20 years. Her recent articles include an interview with Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine’s muse and New York City Ballet prima ballerina, and a feature article on Jawole Zollar, founder and artistic director of Urban Bush Women dance troupe.
Sandra has lived a vibrant, varied life - from early childhood growing up in Hawaii, to joining the San Francisco Ballet as an apprentice right out of high school, to travels in Europe and England. Her studies in sociology, anthropology, and paleontology have led her onto many paths that she continues to explore. She is the grand-niece of acclaimed anthropologist and humanist, Dr. Loren Eiseley, author of The Immense Journey and many other books. 
Anthony S. Burdge, an independent scholar, was first introduced to fantastical, mythological worlds by his parents who claim to have read The Hobbit to him while in utero. Since childhood Anthony has traversed the roads of Middle-earth, studying the history and literature that inspired its creator J.R.R. Tolkien. As a voracious reading appetite was created via Tolkien and related tales, Anthony vividly recalls the days of Doctor Who on PBS and WLIW. In particular he remembers the glowing ring of Eldrad upon the hand of a possessed Sarah Jane Smith ("The Hand of Fear") and the Sherlock Holmes-ian 4th Doctor in "The Talons of Wang Chiang." Anthony is co-chair, with his wife Jessica Burke, of The Northeast Tolkien Society and a proud member of Doctor Who New York.
Jessica Burke was born in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York. Planning on attending a doctoral program next year, Ms. Burke is a self-professed geek with studies ranging from anthropology, myth, and folklore, to Anglo-Saxon, Arthurian, and Medieval literature, to Abrahamic and Pagan theology, to vampyres, faeries, monsters, and much in-between. Influenced by the works of J.R.R Tolkien, Ms. Burke first experienced the realm of Middle-earth after a quest to the N.Y. Public Library at the age of five, where she discovered a recording of Professor Tolkien reading “Riddles in the Dark” from The Hobbit. As her childhood opened into a world of dragons, Ms. Burke fondly recalls being terrified of the Daleks and fascinated with Tom Baker’s scarf, yet confesses that her first in-depth journey with the Doctor didn’t come until the airing of Russell Davies’ re-envisioned series in 2005.
Mathilde Freeman was born and raised in Germany and 
Kristine Larsen has inhabited the space-time of Connecticut since her birth in 1963. An aficionado from an early age of equal parts world mythology and religions, science fiction and fantasy, and scientific literature, Dr. Larsen was first drawn to Doctor Who in graduate school. Her long career in astronomy education and outreach draws heavily upon her diverse intellectual interests, including numerous publications and presentations on the intersection between science and science fiction/fantasy. She is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University.
P. V. LeForge lives on a 50-acre horse
April is a popular Yoga and Pilates instructor working in the Seattle area. She teaches Hatha Yoga classes that often incorporate postures and techniques from Astanga, Sivananda, Kundalini, and Prahna styles of Yoga. April says that her classes are "a physical as well as a spiritual journey toward balance." Her Pilates classes are based on the original fitness regimen created by Joseph Pilates. She also teaches Aquatic Fitness, Beginner Ballet and Jazz Dance, Ballet Fitness, and offers one-on-one personal training. She studied Theatre Arts and Dance at East Carolina University, Florida State University, and the University of West Florida. April is certified by American Fitness Professionals and Associates and the American Heart Association (CPR). She is also a Third-Degree Reiki practitioner.
Tolkien scholar Anne C. Petty is best known for her two books on J.R.R. Tolkien, One Ring to Bind Them All and Tolkien in the Land of Heroes (2005 Mythopoeic Society Awards Finalist); her dark fantasy novel, Thin Line Between; and her volume of literary criticism on famous fantasy authors, Dragons of Fantasy. The sequel to Thin Line Between is due out in 2010 from DarkHart Press. 
James Alexander Protzman had been looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places – until he found it writing his first novel, Jesus Swept. Today he carries that happy knowledge into his work as a political activist, a blogger, and a freelance writer. James graduated from the United States Naval Academy and later earned a masters degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina. 
Nina Romano earned an M.A. from Adelphi University and an M. F. A. in Creative Writing from Florida International University. 
Novelist, essayist and screenwriter Randall Silvis is the author of ten books of fiction and one book of narrative nonfiction. A Senior Fulbright Fellow and former Thurber House writer-in-residence, his many awards include the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, three National Playwrights Showcase Awards, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. 
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