2009 Featured Authors
Leah Bailly — A playwright, fiction writer and journalist, Canadian Leah Bailly has just returned from several years abroad, including extensive sojourns in Africa and India. Her work has appeared in publications including Prism, subTerrain, Room, Forget and Parlour Magazine, and her nonfiction was recently nominated for an Alberta Literary Award for travel writing. Her play titled Some Reckless Abandon (based on early travels to Latin America) is currently on a seven-city tour across the United States and Canada. Leah is pursuing an M.F.A in fiction at UNLV, where she is deputy editor of the literary journal Witness. In 2010, Leah will begin a four-month writing project with Journalists for Human Rights in Sierra Leone.
H. Lee Barnes — A Vietnam veteran, former casino dealer and law enforcement officer, Barnes is now a professor at the College of Southern Nevada. He is the author of the short story collections Gunning for Ho (2000) and Talk to Me, James Dean (2004), as well as the novel The Lucky (2003).
Keith (the Modern Griot) Brantley — For more than 10 years, Keith Brantley has hosted the Poets Corner, an open-mic event at the West Las Vegas Cultural Arts Center. He is a charter member of the Westside Poets, a founder and charter member of the Izulu (Thunder) Poets and Griot Nation and he was the composer and presenter of the inaugural poem for the Ancestral Gateway located at the Doolittle Senior Center. He is a contributing poet to the Lewis Avenue Poets Bridge, and contributing poet and writer for the West Las Vegas Performing and Visual Arts Camp. He is the founder and director of the West Las Vegas Writers and Young Writers’ Workshop and a former writer for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice. Keith’s goals for the future are to continue his personal growth as a poet and Griot to his community.
Kay Carl — Dr. P.K. Carl earned a B.S. degree from Wittenberg University in Ohio, a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University and an Ed.D. from UNLV. She worked as a counselor and principal for CCSD, and retired as Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education and Curriculum Services. After retirement, Dr. Carl served as program manager for Clark County READS, is an adjunct instructor at UNLV, and is a member of the United Way committee on education. She is currently a grants chairperson for the Nevada Public Education Foundation.
Jami Carpenter earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has spoken at educational conferences across the country, and has been a frequent guest on local television news programs regarding social and educational issues. In addition, Jami was executive producer and host of the Vegas PBS television show, Book Club, which featured interviews with local, national, and international authors. Jami currently works as a freelance editor and ghostwriter. Further information can be found at www.redpengirl.com.
Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. She is a five-time winner of the Colorado Book Award and winner of the Willa (Cather) Award for Best Novel of the West. Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, and her articles have appeared in such national publications as The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and American Heritage. A native Coloradan, Coel lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Elliott Engel resides in Raleigh, North Carolina where he has taught courses at North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina and Duke University. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at UCLA. He has written eight books and many of his articles have appeared in national magazines. PBS Television aired his lecture series on his favorite author, Charles Dickens. As a scholar and storyteller, he gives new insight into the lives and accomplishments of the great masters of English and American literature.
Tina D. Eliopulos received her M.F.A. from Eastern Washington University. She has served as both poetry and fiction editor of Red Rock Review, and is a professor of English for CSN. She has edited novels, and book-length collections of poetry and short fiction for associates. In partnership with Todd Moffett and Richard Logsdon, she has edited a composition textbook and a short story collection. She is the co-author of The Everything Writing Poetry Book, and is currently at work on a collection of her own poetry. First and foremost, she is the mother of the intelligent and beautiful Madelynne Crisi.
Dayvid Figler is an attorney who has served as a municipal court judge in Clark County. He has performed his off-kilter brand of humorous prose/poetry around the country since 1994. His one-man show, Dayvid Figler Is Jim Morrison in Hello, I Love You (Where you Folks From?) was selected as a feature on the literary stage at the 1999 Bumbershoot in Seattle. He has published several volumes of poetry and he has been a featured commentator on KNPR.
Constance Ford is the original Schaeffer Fellow at UNLV, where she earned her Ph.D. in English. Previously, she earned an M.A. in fiction from Hollins University, and in 2001 received the Melanie Hook Rice Award. Ford’s short stories have been published in several literary magazines. Her story Little Bird was a finalist for the 2005 Nelson Algren Award. She is a full-time instructor at the College of Southern Nevada, and is putting the finishing touches on her debut novel, for which she was awarded the Nevada Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award in 2009.
John Gallifent was raised in Southern California and worked for local newspapers as a freelance photographer and for a commercial photo studio. He came to Las Vegas in 1964 and worked in public relations for the Clark County School District. In 1974 he left CCSD and built a printing company of which he was COO for 20 years. John sold the property in 1994 and retired, but stayed active with CCSD’s 50th Anniversary project, working with the Archive committee to develop Education in the Neon Shadow.
Cheryll Glotfelty is the editor of the first comprehensive anthology of Nevada literature, the 831-page Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State (2008). Twelve years in the making, Literary Nevada contains over 200 selections ranging from traditional Native American tales, explorers’ and emigrants’ accounts, and writing from the Comstock Lode and other mining boomtowns, to compelling fiction, poetry, and essays from throughout the state’s history. Glotfelty is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno and CASE-Carnegie Professor of the Year for Nevada.
Ariel Goldberger is a theatre and performance artist interested in experimental puppet and object theatre, and in the interdisciplinary cross-pollination between performance, puppetry, and poetry. A native of Argentina, he is now a professor at Evergreen State College, where he uses alternative pedagogies to create innovative academic programs. He has collaborated extensively with other artists and has a particular interest in how mystical practices intertwine with performance of shadow puppetry and ritual.
He is the founder and artistic director of Naked Puppets, a company dedicated to experimental performance.
