Authors:Page 1 of 6

Authors List

George "Speedy" Arnold

About

George "Speedy" Arnold is a lifelong resident of Keeseville, New York. He has been drawing and painting most of his life. However, in the last twenty-five years, it is rare to see him without a sketchbook in hand. Almost all of his sketches are done in his spare time between his three "real" jobs: owner and operator of Arnold's Grocery, AuSable Valley school bus driver, and Town of AuSable assessor.

He has illustrated several children's books, including The Little Brook in the Field, authored by North Country musician Jim Goff, and The Adventures of Molly the Monarch Butterfly and Friends, written by Maureen Akey. In , he wrote and illustrated his own children's book, What's an Elephant Doing in the AuSable River?!!.

Speedy is also a musician, performing solo at local farmers' markets, libraries, and schools, and plays the role of Julnissar at Santa's Workshop's annual Yuletide Family Weekends in Wilmington, New York. He has been a member of the bluegrass bands Mardi Gras, The Wolverine Brothers, and Three Doug Knight, and has a number of CDs and YouTube videos as well. Speedy's books, music, and artwork are on display at his business, Arnold's Grocery, on Route 9N in Keeseville, New York.

Awards

Adirondack Literary People's Choice Award ()

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings, Fundraisers, Other (Musical Performances)

Book

Mark L. Barie

About

Mark Barie is an award-winning author, originally from upstate New York.

His debut novel, the first installment in a trilogy on love and war, garnered national attention when War calls, Love Cries, a Civil War love story, was designated as a finalist in the prestigious Eric Hoffer Book Awards. It also won a gold medal for Historical Fiction from the Florida Authors and Publishers Association (FAPA).

His second novel, Sister Marguerite and the Captain, about a nun who leaves the convent and ends up spying for George Washington, received rave reviews and a silver medal from FAPA for its beautiful cover.

Barie's third novel, The Commodore and the Powder Monkey, is about a girl, disguised as a boy, on the Commodore's flag ship during the War of 1812. This mesmerizing love story triggered an international reaction. The Independent Publisher group awarded the novel its bronze medal for Military/Wartime Fiction. More than 5000 authors from all over the United States, Canada, and a dozen countries in English-speaking Europe vied for these prestigious medals in what is now the largest book awards competition in the world.

And the author is already hard at work on his next novel. Everyone remembers the USS Maine and how its mysterious destruction in Havana Harbor triggered the Spanish-American War. Barie's historically accurate and extremely well-researched novel will surprise and astound the reader when they discover who and what could have destroyed the American battleship and started a the Spanish-American War.

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings, Fundraisers, Readings, Speaking Engagements

Website

MarkBarie.com

Books

Kathy L. Baumgarten

About

A native of Niagara Falls, New York, Kathy is a retired Tech Sergeant with the USAF/VT Air National Guard, and a member of the Military Writers Society of America. She is a staff writer for the American Military Retirees Association (AMRA), and serves as president of AMRA's New York Department. Kathy is also a member of the Adirondack Center for Writing (Paul Smiths), and writes a column, Jabberwocky, for the Lake Champlain Weekly.

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings, Fundraisers

Books

Larry Beahan

About

Five generations of the Beahan family have been in the Adirondacks, one way or another. In 1902, three Beahan brothers, Tom, John and Barty, Tom's wife, Minnie, and John's wife, Liva, began the epic with a logging job near Star Lake on the Little River. Children from the camp worked some in the woods and returned to hunt and fish.

Larry Beahan, a grandson, grew up a city kid in Buffalo. On trips to visit his Gramma and Grampa in Carthage at the edge of the Adirondacks, he tasted the flavor of the woods but didn't catch the significance of it until his forties. Kerosene lamps, double-bitted axes, two-man-crosscut saws, grindstone, wooden vice for carving axe handles, the wood cookstove and water from a pump were just the way things were at Gramma's.

Then he began exploring the Adirondacks, climbing mountains, skiing, canoeing, camping and digging into family lore. He, his sons and grandchildren have explored the site of the family lumber camp, where Larry's dad was born, nearby Five Ponds Wilderness, Cranberry Lake Wild Forest, Stillwater and a good bit more of the Adirondacks. His stories will take you to there and span the century, 1900 to 2000.

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings

Books

Calvin J. Boal

About

Calvin Boal was raised in upstate New York and currently lives in the Cobleskill, New York, area. He worked for over twenty-seven years in law enforcement.

He has shown a great interest in history, particularly in American history and the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. He has written two books as a result of his interest in the Colonial period. Last Run of the Whisperer was written after extensive genealogical work on his family history, and is an historical/fiction story about a soldier in the American Revolution. St. George's Cross and the Siege of Fort Pitt is an historical/fiction story about a young man who becomes involved in the French and Indian War/Pontiac's Rebellion and was written after living in western Pennsylvania for a number of years, near the Forbes Road.

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings, Fundraisers, Readings, Speaking Engagements

Books

Jean Arleen Breed

About

A lifelong resident of the Champlain Valley in New York, Jean Breed worked in Vermont for thirty years. During those three decades, she drove over the Lake Champlain Bridge (Crown Point, New York) more than fourteen thousand times!

New York Congresswoman Teresa Sayward and Vermont Representative Diane Lanpher told Jean that her poems and Letters to the Editor were part of the history of the valley from the time they lost their bridge and they should be saved for posterity. This is part of the reason Jean wrote her first book, The Loss of the Lake Champlain Bridge: A Traveler's Story ().

Lake Champlain Bridge Coalition Co-Chair Lorraine Franklin asked Jean to write a special poem to be read at the dedication of the new bridge. Jean read "The Journey"—the last poem in her first book—at the opening ceremony for the new bridge.

Available for

Book Fairs, Book Signings, Fundraisers, Speaking Engagements, Other (Craft Fairs)

Books