WLA Annual Conference 2004

Featured Speakers

Here are just a few of the featured speakers at this year's conference.

Amy Alessio

Amy Alessio was driven to youth and then teen services after working briefly in the criminal justice field and at a law firm after college.  She has enjoyed the constant advice of the 35 member Teen Advisory Board that she started at the Schaumburg Township District Library 6 years ago.  They have helped her grow a collection for their age group, design a library space for teens, and enjoy her job.  She also runs a Community Network for teens consisting of adults who work with this age group.  Amy is a Young Adult Library Services Association Board Member and has spoken at BEA, ALA , PLA and many libraries about serving teens.

 

Avi

Avi comes from a long line of storytellers and creative people. "That my twin sister is also a writer says much about the world I grew up in," says Avi. "I come from a family and a house full of books. Strange if we hadn't become writers."

But writing wasn't Avi's first career ambition. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he wanted to be an airplane designer, but he didn't thrive in the traditional academic high school he attended and flunked out. Later, in a private school more suited to his learning style, he decided to become a playwright.

After majoring in history in college, Avi earned a master's degree in drama. He returned to New York City to be near the theater world, and worked in the New York Public Library's theater collection. He then went back to school for a master's in library science and worked many years as a librarian at Trenton State College in New Jersey. He devoted himself to writing in 1966 after his first child was born, and published his first book, Things That Sometimes Happen, in 1970.

Since then, Avi has won numerous awards for his works, including the 2003 Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead, his 50th book. He has also received two Newbery Honor Awards, one for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and another for Nothing But the Truth.  More information about Avi (PDF)

 

Brenda Haines

Brenda Haines is currently the Director of Communications and Development for the Oshkosh Area Foundation. She has been the Marketing Coordinator for the Winnefox Library System and a television reporter in both Green Bay and Lacrosse. 

 

Richard Harwood

“If we are to improve politics and public life,” says Richard C. Harwood, founder and president of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, “then we need to release ourselves from our resignation that public life and politics has to be the way that it is today, and declare that it can be better, that we can be better. There is unfinished work to do.”

Harwood, who has been called "one of the great thinkers in American public life," has dedicated his life to finishing that work. He founded The Harwood Institute in 1998, following 10 years of success as president of the for-profit Harwood Group. His past experience includes service on the policy staffs of U.S. presidential and congressional election campaigns and as director of issues research for Public Agenda. Harwood has also traveled in the former Soviet Union to consult with mayors and non-governmental organizations on more effective governance.

He is a commentator and contributor on national and syndicated television, newspapers, radio and web sites, including MSNBC, the Christian Science Monitor , CNN's Inside Politics, The Jim Bohannon Show, Special Report with Brit Hume, and C-SPAN, as well as on Dallas, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire and National Public Radio, where he has been the featured guest on Talk of the Nation.

He is a faculty member of the Public Affairs Institute and also has lectured at the prestigious Poynter Institute, a national school of journalism.

More information about Richard Harwood (PDF)

 

 

Robin A. Jones

  

Robin Jones is the Director of the Great Lakes ADA and Accessible Information Technology Center and an Instructor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Great Lakes Center was founded in 1991 and is one of 10 Centers established nationally by the US Department of Education, National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research (NIDRR) to provide technical assistance regarding the ADA. The Great Lakes Center serves the States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Services include operation of an 800 number for technical assistance and dissemination of information regarding the ADA through training and direct mail. In addition, the Center has expanded its mission to include issues related to the use and acquisition of accessible information technology and it's impact on individuals within a variety of settings, including education, business and government. The Center consistently ranks the highest for volume of contacts and number of individuals trained among the 10 centers nationally.

Robin has served as director since the Center's inception over 13 years ago. Formerly, she served as founding director of an independent living center in the Chicago area. Prior professional experiences included working as an occupational therapy practitioner at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and as Assistant to the Head within the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Sandi Knudson

Sandi Knudson is a Certified Local Trainer for US Junior Chamber of Commerce, a Trained Mediator for The Mediation Center of Greater Green Bay and one of 20 trainers across the nation certified to teach the trademarked Tongue Fu! ® principles designed by author/speakers, Sam Horn. Sandi has been helping people for the past 7 years with her communications, attitudes, and leadership programs. Her workshops are known for being fun, fast-paced and full of ideas that can be put to use immediately at work and at home. Knudson resides in Crivitz with her husband Kip, and children, Matt and Alyx, and enjoys being actively involved with her children's school & extracurricular activities.

 

 

Judith Siess

Judith A. Siess is a recognized expert in one-person librarianship and interpersonal networking. She founded Information Bridges International, Inc. in 1996 and is publisher and editor of The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management. Judy was the first chair of the Solo Librarians Division of the Special Libraries Association. She is the author of four books and numerous articles and has presented workshops around the world on library management. Her most recent book is The Visible Librarian: Asserting Your Worth Through Marketing and Advocacy (ALA Editions, 2003). She received her M.S. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1982.   

 

 

Mark Turcotte

Writer Mark Turcotte spent his earliest years on North Dakota 's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. After leaving school he traveled the country, working and living on the road for nearly fifteen years.

Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993, Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city's thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award. Soon thereafter he was selected by Ms. Brooks as a Significant Illinois Poet and was named to the Illinois Authors Poster. Since that time he has been the recipient of a Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice and was awarded the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Turcotte is author of The Feathered Heart (Michigan State University Press, revised, 1998), Songs of Our Ancestors (Children's Press, 1995), a chapbook, Road Noise (Mesilla Press, 1998) and Le Chant de la Route (bilingual, La Vague Verte, 2001). His newest collection, Exploding Chippewas (Northwestern University Press, 2002), is in its third printing. His work, four times nominated for Pushcart Prizes, has appeared in many literary journals, including LUNA , TriQuarterly , POETRY, Prairie Schooner , Ploughshares , The Missouri Review , The Seattle Review , North Dakota Quarterly , and The Laurel Review . His poem, The Flower On , was chosen by the Poetry Society of America for inclusion in their Poetry In Motion project, which places poetry placards on public transportation in cities across the United States . From Yale University to Lincoln Center to the Nebraska State Penitentiary, he regularly speaks and reads from his work at schools, universities, conferences and literary festivals around the nation.

Now living in Sister Bay, Wisconsin, Mark has been awarded 1999 and 2003 Literary Fellowships by the Wisconsin Arts Board. The Tractor Man, a work of fiction, was awarded a prize in the Wisconsin Academy Review Magazine's 2002 Short Story Contest. Most recently he has been writing on a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant.

Larry Watson

Larry Watson is the 2004 Banta Award winner for Orchard. He is also the author of the novels In a Dark Time, Montana 1948, White Crosses, and Laura; the fiction collection Justice; and the chapbook of poetry Leaving Dakota. Watson's fiction has been published in more than ten foreign editions, and has received prizes and awards from Milkweed Press, Friends of American Writers, Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association, New York Public Library, and Critics' Choice, in addition to WLA. Montana 1948 was nominated for the first IMPAC Dublin international literary prize. The movie rights to Montana 1948 have been sold to Echo Lake Productions and White Crosses has been optioned for film.

Watson was born in 1947 in Rugby, North Dakota. He grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and was educated in its public schools. He received his BA and MA from the University of North Dakota, his Ph.D. from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Ripon College. Watson has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987, 2004) and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Watson taught writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin/Stevens Point for 25 years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003 as a Visiting Professor.
He and his wife Susan live in Wisconsin. They have two daughters; Elly and Amy, and two grandchildren; Theodore and Abigail.

For more on Larry Watson: http://www.larry-watson.com

Alphonse Vinh

As a reference librarian at NPR, Alphonse researches stories for NPR news reporters and correspondents around the globe, helps fact-check stories, reviews reporters' scripts, and alerts NPR's programming staff to story ideas.

Each month, Alphonse's Musings column highlights the most interesting topics he's come across in his wide reading of new books and articles. A unique overview of diverse fields, his column has sparked quite a few story ideas in NPR's programming division.

Alphonse was educated at Yale, the University of Michigan, Boston University, and Simmons College. His undergraduate studies were in Greco-Roman civilization and literature. He has done graduate work in education, social work, and theology and has a master's degree in library science.

Alphonse has published reviews, essays, poetry translations, and poems in various magazines. His first book, Cleanth Brooks and Allen Tate: The Collected Letters, 1933-1976 , was published to good reviews in 1998 by the University of Missouri Press. In addition to his writing life and work at NPR, Alphonse is also an adjunct faculty member of the Catholic University of America. He is currently at work on a memoir of the critic Cleanth Brooks that will be published in 2003, as well as a book on solitude and spirituality. In addition, he notes that he's one of Washington's most eligible bachelors. For more on Alphonse Vinh, go to http://www.npr.org/programs/musings/bio.html

Suzanne M. Ward

Suzanne (Sue) Ward has worked at the Purdue University Libraries since 1987, first in the Technical Information Service, and since 1993 as the Access Services Librarian. She was previously head of the Engineering Library at Memphis State University . She holds degrees from UCLA, the University of Michigan , and Memphis State University .

Her book Starting and Managing Fee-Based Information Services in Academic Libraries was published in 1997 by JAI Press. Her articles about issues in interlibrary loan and fee-based information services have appeared in publications such as Advances in Library Resource Sharing , The Reference Librarian , Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery and Information Supply , and Collection Management .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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