SOKY Book Fest

Authors Attending

• KATSU, ALMA	• KEAM, ABIGAIL	• KELLEY, HOWARD	• KESSLER, BRUCE
• KING, KENNETH

ALMA KATSU

Book Title: The Taker

Book Description:

Alma Katsu’s debut novel The TAKER is sure to appeal to fans of dark romantic fiction, drawing on history and the supernatural to tell a tale of obsession, revenge, punishment and, ultimately, redemption. BOOKLIST said, “Readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away from Katsu’s mesmerizing tale,” while PUBLISHERS WEEKLY said, “Katsu’s vividly imagined first novel is…full of surprises and a powerful evocation of the dark side of romantic love.” The TAKER has been compared to Interview With the Vampire, The Historian and The Twilight series, but is not part of the vampire literary tradition and creates a new myth all its own.

Author Biography:

Alma Katsu is a writer living in the Washington, DC area with her husband, musician Bruce Katsu. She graduated from Brandeis University, where she studied writing with novelist John Irving and children's book author Margaret Rey, and received her MA in Fiction from the Johns Hopkins University. The Taker is her first novel and is published by Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster.

ABIGAIL KEAM

Book Title: Death By Drowning

Book Description:

Josiah survives a forty-foot fall off a cliff, only to discover that her nightmare is not over. O'nan's body is never found. He may be alive and stalking her. Determined to fully recover, Josiah puts the past behind, but it reaches out, threatening to pull her off the cliff again. Matt, her best friend, and a physician's assistant named Jake stand between Josiah and potential harm. Even they can't keep danger at bay when a friend asks Josiah to discover the real reason her nephew died on the river.

Once again, Josiah makes the rounds of quirky characters found in the lush Bluegrass horse country, a world of thoroughbreds, oak-cured bourbon, and antebellum mansions. Plus, Josiah may be falling in love...

Author Biography:

Abigail Keam is a full-time beekeeper and member of the Lexington Farmers' Market. She has won sixteen honey awards at the Kentucky State Fair. She lives in the Bluegrass on the Kentucky River in a metal house with her husband. Death by Drowning is her second book in the Josiah Reynolds' series. Death by Bridle, her third novel, will be released in 2012.

HOWARD KELLEY

Book Title: Legacies of Kentucky Mountain Basketball

Book Description:

The golden era of mountain basketball in Kentucky were the seasons of 1953-54, 1954-55, and 1955-56. Not forgetting the state championship teams of Inez in 1941, Hindman in 1943, or Harlan in 1944, but almost from top to bottom the mountain teams of the mid-1950's epitomized the pinnacle of high school basketball in Kentucky. This publication is not a historical game-by-game narrative of that time period. Instead, it is a look back with the help of photographs from today at what once was the heart and soul of sports in these beautiful, but rugged mountains. It was a time when many small communities and towns were put on the map by the play of their local high school team.

Author Biography:

Harold M. Kelley was raised in the rural south central Kentucky town of Scottsville attending Scottsville High School and then receiving a BS degree from Murray State University in Medical Technology and Biology in 1970. After serving 3 years in the Army, Harold attended Blood Bank Technology School in Orlando, Florida and then worked 17 years for the American Red Cross Blood Services in Asheville, NC as Technical Director and later Assistant Administrator/Compliance Officer. Harold has since worked in other areas of the medical field. Harold currently resides in Glasgow, KY with his wife Pat. He teaches Beginning Digital Photography through Barren County Community Education and is the volunteer preserve monitor of Brigadoon State Nature Preserve in Barren County.

BRUCE KESSLER

Book Title: Operation Comics #1-#6

Book Description:

Operation Comics is a unique format for presenting grade appropriate mathematics to students in grades 4 through 6. Students at Cumberland Trace Elementary in Bowling Green, Kentucky have been using the comics in their classes since January 2009, and are involved in study regarding the comic's impact. The stories involve the adventures of Wonderguy, a strongman superhero doing good deeds with the assistance of his two elementary school students, Claire and Dillon, who use mathematics to help him out of sticky situations. There are currently six comic books in the series, which are available online at operationcomics.com.

Author Biography:

Bruce Kessler is a mathematics professor at Western Kentucky University with 21 years experience in the classroom with students of all ages, and is an Associate Dean of the WKU Ogden College of Science and Engineering.

During the spring 2006 semester, he wrote and hosted a series of television shows, "Math Matters: Why Do I Need to Know This?", that appeared on internal WKU cable and are still available at www.wku.edu/mathmatters and iTunes U. He has also developed patent-pending software, Peaklet Analysis, that has homeland security applications in explosives and contraband detection. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, four children, their puppy and his guitar.

KENNETH KING

Book Title: Germs Gone Wild: How the Unchecked Development of Domestic Biodefense Threatens America

Book Description:

After the anthrax attacks of 2001--which the FBI says were perpetrated by a mentally unbalanced US biodefense researcher--the government began funding hundreds of new high-risk biodefense labs around the country. In 2007, a flurry of prominent lab accidents prompted a Congressional hearing and investigation by the independent Government Accountability Office. The GAO warned that no one in the country was even keeping track of all the labs, much less assuring their safety. GERMS GONE WILD explores this dangerous situation in detail: lab accidents and researcher infections concealed from the public; dangerous new pathogens created in the labs themselves--such as deadly forms of the bird flu genetically engineered to spread directly between human beings; and the rise of a biodefense complex involving politicians, universities, economic development entities, bioterror think tanks, government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies. All are eager to keep the bioterror monies coming, and therefore hype the dangers of bioterrorism even as over 100,000 Americans die each year from hospital infections amidst a real public health emergency--antibiotic resistance.

Author Biography:

A former attorney and English instructor at Western Kentucky University, Kenneth King holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt University and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. He spent over a year successfully opposing the efforts of a powerful Kentucky Congressman to bring the country's second largest biodefense facility to a pasture in south central Kentucky. In 2009, he resigned his teaching position at Western to complete GERMS GONE WILD. More details can be found at the book's website, www.germsgonewild.com.

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