Dr. Bessie W. Blake, a widely known and respected educator, is an adjunct professor of English at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York, and a recognized expert on adult learning. Her lecture tours have carried her to every corner of the United States and abroad to countries like England, Scotland and Senegal. Until two years ago, she served as the Academic Dean of the College of New Rochelle’s School of New Resources. During her tenure as Dean, she established the Rosa Parks Campus in Harlem and the Gordon Parks Gallery in the South Bronx. In addition, Dr. Blake has done extensive work with historically Black colleges. Her service on Boards of Directors include the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, the National League of Nursing Board of baccalaureate and Higher Degree Programs and The Rosa and Raymond Institute for Self-Development. Dr. Blake’s formal education began in a one-room schoolhouse in east Texas and continued with her graduation from Booker T. Washington High School in Shreveport, Louisiana. She received her foundation in literature from two historically Black colleges: the Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Southern University and the Master of Arts in American Literature from North Carolina Central University. A Doctorate of Education focused on writing and the composing process from Columbia University’s Teachers College was followed by a postdoctoral Certificate of Lifelong Learning from Harvard University. She says, “More powerful than the educational influences in my life was the impact of my mother, Tommie Waites. Her resilience in the face of adversity was a road map for my success.” Dr. Blake resides in Queens, NY with her husband, Prof. James Blake. They are the proud parents of four children and six grandchildren.

Mike O'Connor, born in Aberdeen, Washington, is a poet, writer, and translator of Chinese literature. For 12 years, he farmed and worked in the woods before pursuing Chinese studies and a journalism career in Asia for fifteen years. He is the author of nine books of poetry, translation, and memoir. His most recent publications include IMMORTALITY (2010) and UNNECESSARY TALKING: THE MONTESANO STORIES (2009), both from Pleasure Boat Studio. O'Connor is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2003-4); an International Writers' Workshop Fellowship, Hong Kong, (2006); and a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship (2009). He currently serves as publisher of Empty Bowl Press in Port Townsend, a writers' co-operative, and caretakes forest land on the Big Quilcene River.

In these poems, Miller drafts people, characters, images and events out of their familiar locations and contexts and weaves them into new situations, creating unexpected connections, original experiences. This new town is the locale of Miller's vital imagination.

Ken Harvey has recently completed a memoir ("A Passionate Engagement") about the same-sex battle in the United States that The Boston Sunday Globe hailed as "MOVING" and "POWERFUL." His collection of stories, "If You Were With Me Everything Would Be All Right," was the winner of the "Violet Quill Award" for best new gay fiction. It was also listed as "a book if note" by the Lambda Literary Review and was a #3 bestseller on the insideout.com book club. The book has been translated into Italian. Ken lives in Boston and Toronto.

Michael Burke has traveled through a number of careers since he graduated from college. The first was as an astronomer, working at observatories in the U.S., Hawaii and Iran. He then went back to school to obtain a Master’s Degree in City Planning. He worked in New York City’s Planning Department and later became an Assistant Professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture and City Planning. Michael changed direction again when he found a loft in Soho and began to paint. He has been an artist for more than 30 years - painting, drawing, and creating aluminum books and sculpture. He has exhibited the work extensively in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Although he has written and published poetry over the years, Michael has only recently arrived on the mystery scene. He has published three mystery novels starring detective Johnny “Blue” Heron; Swan Dive, Music Of The Spheres, and Out Of Mind.

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. LGBT Studies. THE END OF THE SHERRY recounts what happens to a young American who finds himself abandoned in southern Spain in 1965 with a dog and a dubious car, who stumbles into work as a nightclub pianist and stays for three improbable years. His own adventures blossom into a portrait of provincial Spain toward the end of the Franco dictatorship—bleakness that breaks into unexpected hilarity even as the author discovers his calling as a person and a writer. His return to Spain after the death of Franco puts it all into perspective.

An accomplished young woman traumatized by guilt at her role in the death of a British diplomat, who was her lecherous guardian. Sigmund Freud, whom she consults to ease her mental suffering and Sherlock Holmes, enlisted by his brother, Mycroft, to probe the man's death.