Nature

Angela Burke Kunkel
Author First & Last Name

Angela Burke Kunkel is the author of DIGGING FOR WORDS: JOSÉ ALBERTO GUTIÉRREZ AND THE LIBRARY HE BUILT, illustrated by Paola Escobar and published by Random House/Schwartz and Wade (and simultaneously released in Spanish as RESCATANDO PALABRAS). After soaking up the sun in the Southwest for a number of years, she now lives in Vermont with her family, one dogs, one guinea pig, and one rapidly-growing bearded dragon (really, it’s rather alarming). Angela currently works as a school librarian and is a former English Language Arts teacher. Look for her next picture books, PENGUIN JOURNEY, in 2021, and MAKE WAY, in 2023.


Author Photo
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All major retailers and independent bookstores.

Author Book Cover 1
Age Range: 4-8 years Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: Random House/Schwartz & Wade, September 8, 2020 ISBN: 9781984892638 A gorgeous and inspiring picture book based on the life of José Alberto Gutiérrez, a garbage collector in Bogotá, Colombia who started a library with a single discarded book found on his route. In the city of Bogotá, in the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, there live two Josés. One is a boy who dreams of Saturdays-- that's the day he gets to visit Paradise, the library. The second José is a garbage collector. From dusk until dawn, he scans the sidewalks as he drives, squinting in the dim light, searching household trash for hidden treasure . . . books! Some are stacked in neat piles, as if waiting for José. Others take a bit more digging. Ever since he found his first book, Anna Karenina, years earlier, he's been collecting books--thick ones and thin ones, worn ones and almost new ones-- to add to the collection in his home. And on Saturdays, kids like little José run to the steps of Paradise to discover a world filled with books and wonder. With an evocative text by a debut author, and rich, stunning illustrations from an up-and-coming Colombian illustrator, here is a celebration of perseverance, community, and the power of books.

Author Book Cover 2
Age Range: 3-6 years Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: Abrams Appleseed, October 26, 2021 ISBN: 978-1-4197-4589-8 A lyrical picture book exploration of emperor penguins’ incredible journey to parenthood, with stunning watercolor art. ​ Packed Snow / Moon glow Wind-blown / All alone ​ This young picture book is about the incredible lengths to which emperor penguins go for their young ones. Angela Burke Kunkel’s lyrical text and Catherine Odell’s gorgeous illustrations detail the penguins' amazing journey, and an author's note and bibliography provide added context.
Barbara Williams Sheperd
Author First & Last Name

Barbara Williams Sheperd holds an undergraduate degree from Keene State College and a Master’s in Counseling from Antioch University. She studied writing at the University of Vermont, taking additional coursework at St. Michael’s College, and Johnson and Lyndon State Colleges. She worked thirty years in public education, five as a classroom teacher, and twenty-five as a middle, or high school counselor. She retired from the Essex High School Counseling Department in 2003.

Barbara honed her skills writing thousands of college reference letters, guidance newsletters and directives. Her short stories and articles have been published in Mainstream Magazine, Keene State Today, The Barton Chronicle and the St. Albans Messenger. During the two years she worked for the University of Vermont Extension Service, she wrote a weekly column for The News and Citizen and a monthly newsletter for 4-H families. She even tried her hand at writing blogs for the Flynn Theatre.

During the summers, Barbara lives a quiet life on a small Northern Vermont lake. She recently took up fishing to pass the time during this Covid-isolation-summer, and as an excuse to get out on the water. When winter approaches she flies away to her Florida property with the rest of the snowbirds. There, she starts her day walking the undeveloped trails in her neighborhood, then moves on to creative pursuits.

In addition to writing, Barbara is passionate about genealogy and restoring vintage photographs. She played guitar in a Ceilidh group and clarinet in the Newport Community Band. She sang with Northsong, a Classical Chorus, for sixteen years until the Covid pandemic shuttered the doors on group activities. She started a knitting group at the Goodrich Library that lasted over ten years, again, furloughed by Covid-19.

Barbara has three grown children, and six delightful grandchildren who are not furloughed by the pandemic. People say of her, she makes a friend everywhere she goes.

Vermont authors are invited to join the Vermont Authors Fest Facebook group.

Author Phone Number
(802) 766-8850
Author USPS Address - PO / Street - City / Town - State
43 Ryan Drive
05829
Author Physical Address - Street - City / Town - State
Derby, VT
Where my books are sold.
Amazon.com Barnes&Noble.com

Under an Eagle's Wing - Story of an Orphaned Vermont Boy
Under an Eagle's Wing - Story of an Orphaned Vermont Boy
ISBN 9781530006625 | UNDER AN EAGLE'S WING is a historical novel for young readers. It is based on the life of Edward Williams, a boy who was left at the orphanage in Montpelier and later taken by a farmer and his wife to Camp Brook in Bethel. Set in Bethel, Vermont during the 1920s, Under An Eagle’s Wing is a humorous and poignant story of a young boy who is left at a Montpelier orphanage, and later taken by a farmer and his wife to their home on Camp Brook and raised with other orphaned boys. Killing Mrs. Rogers’ prize rooster with a sling-shot is the first of many adventures and pranks. But, it is a barn fire that breaks out after Arthur is smoking in the hayloft that shows him the true meaning of family. In Under An Eagle’s Wing we see what happens when Arthur is teased his first day at a one-room schoolhouse, meet his little sister Mabel, and have an adventure riding a traverse. We are with him as Christmas brings both heartbreak and unexpected kindness. We are in the sugar woods when Arthur drives the horses to collect sap and learns how to make maple syrup. We see him through his first crush, experience a small town Fourth of July celebration and an attempt at riding a bull. And, we weep with him as without a word he endures Mrs. Rogers’ cruelty. How close did Mazie come to being baked in the oven with the potatoes? What advice did Dr. Allen give Arthur when he ran away from home? What did Arthur learn from his summer living in the woods with his father when he was sent away? How did Arthur save Mrs. Rogers from the barn fire that broke out after he was smoking in the hayloft? And, who is the Eagle? Under An Eagle’s Wing tugs at the heartstrings as it casts a spotlight on a child who is trying to find his way in a world where he is special to no one. Based the life of Edward Williams, stories he told and his audio-taped memoirs, it gives readers an enjoyable and informative look at what life was like when their great-grandparents were young. It is fully researched and historically accurate, right down to the name of the train and the time it stopped in Bethel.

Gone Too Soon, a Biography of Anne Crahan Williams
Gone Too Soon, a Biography of Anne Crahan Williams
ISBN 9781984060587 | Born on a Pittsford, Vermont farm in 1909, this daughter of a widowed first-generation Irishwoman with no money, managed to get herself through college at a time when only wealthy women were college educated. As the only college educated person in her community, she used her talents for the betterment of all. She was a champion of endless good causes, particularly if it meant lifting the sails of a child in need. She never traveled farther from home than New York City, but her knowledge was as broad as the world. She loved to read, loved research, and looked up every fact she didn’t know. She was a woman of faith who carried her heavy cross with courage and without complaint. This first book chronicles her life from her birth to the birth of her last child in 1943. Inside are eighty-three pages of scrapbook and hand-written journals which she kept during her years at Keene Normal School.

Gone Too Soon - Book II - The Life of Anne Crahan Williams
Gone Too Soon - Book II - The Life of Anne Crahan Williams
ISBN 9781719588607 | A continuation that chronicles her life in Amsden, includes a journal from the year she taught at Amsden School and many pages about her 4-H Club, THE HAPPY COOKERS. Also, the last letters she wrote to her daughter, Barbara, as she lay dying of Diabetes at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and finally at Rutland Vermont Hospital. The author remarked, “The Crahan family were very closed-mouthed about personal matters and offered little information about themselves. When I asked, I often heard, “Now, why would you be wantin’ to know that? That would be the end of the discussion. They strongly believed that children were to be seen and not heard. Indeed, until all the Crahans were dead, and I started doing genealogy, I didn’t even know that my Grandmother had a sister in Ireland. Mother was a little more generous with her information, but her need for privacy and my busy teenage years left us with little time to get acquainted at an adult level. I was a sophomore in college, nineteen, when Mother died. She took her stories with her. This book is the culmination of three years of intense research and writing. Fortunately, she left two journals, and I had the good sense to keep the last letters she wrote. Upon the advice of a friend, I have included everything I have. Here before you, is the life of Anne Crahan Williams. Anne… a brilliant scholar, a visionary, a teacher, an historian, a community leader, a good friend and neighbor, a 4-H leader, a mother, a faithful wife, a poet, a woman of courage and deep faith who was devoted to her family and lived to serve.” BWS
Kristina Stykos
Author First & Last Name
Listing Owner
Kristina Stykos

Kristina Stykos is a writer, music producer, photographer and landscape gardener based in Vermont. Her first poetry book "Ridgerunner: A Hundred Poems from Rural Vermont", supported in part by the Vermont Community Foundation, was released on Shires Press this year in two editions.

Kristina’s most recent solo album "River of Light" made the #2 slot on County Tracks “Best Vermont Albums of 2019” list, following previous kudos of “Best Songwriter” (2013) and “Best Vermont Album of the Year” (2005) by other media outlets. Kristina’s music and songwriting have been supported by artist residencies at the Ucross Foundation and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, both of Wyoming.

Kristina holds producer credits for upwards of 30 albums featuring diverse artists, and recorded at her rural Pepperbox Studio, using solar, wind & generator power generation exclusively. She dedicates herself to supporting fellow musicians seeking honest self expression and has carved out a distinctive niche in acoustic and roots rock music production on her independent record label, Thunder Ridge Records.

Author USPS Address - PO / Street - City / Town - State
PO Box 367 - Chelsea, Vermont
05038
Where my books are sold.
Shires Press Indie Bound, Bear Pond Books

Ridgerunner - paperback [text only]
Ridgerunner - paperback [text only]
Far from the madding crowd, but keenly aware of the dangerous & uncertain world we live in, Kristina Stykos’ poems from rural Vermont uncover “a joy shining through cracked prisms of love, loss and letting go”, exploring from the ground up, what it is to be human. Working as a landscape gardener, while trying to eke out a living as a musician, Stykos’ persistent voice is as singular as it is unsentimental, musing on a hardscrabble existence made transcendent by the nearly indescribable beauty of her wild and remote surroundings. Using language that is conversational and easy to grasp, her poems are at once elegant and dynamic, taking us directly into the heart her daily routines. Whether it’s pruning a gangly rose bush, eating lunch on a truck tailgate, or taking a chance on a muddy & forgotten dirt road, she makes it clear that there is always more to understand and contemplate about this gnarly paradox we call life. “Through Kristina Stykos’ unflinching lens, we harbor fleeting essences of what it means to live indivisibly from the land—its woods, fields, farms, gardens, streams, mountains, backroads, and everything that grows and fades only to grow again—among neighbors, strangers, friends…all who are inescapably at home in it … Savor the art of a true Vermont original whose deeply inhabited renderings encourage us to linger here, as long and often as we like. “ Partridge Boswell

Ridgerunner - hardcover [text & photographs]
Ridgerunner - hardcover [text & photographs]
Far from the madding crowd, but keenly aware of the dangerous & uncertain world we live in, Kristina Stykos’ poems from rural Vermont uncover “a joy shining through cracked prisms of love, loss and letting go”, exploring from the ground up, what it is to be human. Working as a landscape gardener, while trying to eke out a living as a musician, Stykos’ persistent voice is as singular as it is unsentimental, musing on a hardscrabble existence made transcendent by the nearly indescribable beauty of her wild and remote surroundings. Using language that is conversational and easy to grasp, her poems are at once elegant and dynamic, taking us directly into the heart her daily routines. Whether it’s pruning a gangly rose bush, eating lunch on a truck tailgate, or taking a chance on a muddy & forgotten dirt road, she makes it clear that there is always more to understand and contemplate about this gnarly paradox we call life. In this sumptuous, illustrated edition, the author’s own full-color landscape photos have been matched with poems. Working and traveling through lesser known parts of Vermont with a Lumix G2 digital camera always at the ready, her images are intimate and stunning. They carry the mark of a native woods rambler, as well as that of a keen observer of flowers, painting honest portraits of nature’s inner sanctum, caught in precious, fleeting moments of changing light, throughout the seasons. “Through Kristina Stykos’ unflinching lens, we harbor fleeting essences of what it means to live indivisibly from the land—its woods, fields, farms, gardens, streams, mountains, backroads, and everything that grows and fades only to grow again—among neighbors, strangers, friends…all who are inescapably at home in it … Savor the art of a true Vermont original whose deeply inhabited renderings encourage us to linger here, as long and often as we like. “ Partridge Boswell
Peter Forbes
Author First & Last Name
Listing Owner
Chelsea Green Publishing

Peter has become a leader for the American conservation movement by creating a life in conservation as photographer, writer, and storyteller about the relationship between people and place. For the last fifteen years, Peter has focused his energies on bringing together and strengthening the worlds of environmentalism and social justice and offering those professions his experience with story, facilitation, contemplative practice, and relationship to nature. Peter is always learning and innovating across the boundaries of profession, culture, and home, and this has made his work influential to the different fields of leadership development, sustainability, philanthropy, and conservation. You might find him teaching spoon-carving on a city street, or giving a keynote address on courage at a national conference, or helping to heal a fracture within a community, or photographing a lost art. What he cares most about is strengthening people’s connections to one another and the land that sustains them, the most visible and important example being his family’s farm and tapestry in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. He is the co-editor of Our Land, Ourselves, author of The Great Remembering and What Is a Whole Community, and co-author of Coming to Land in a Troubled World, and collaborated with William Coperthwaite as the photographer for A Handmade Life. You can learn more about him at Peterforbes.org.

Author Physical Address - Street - City / Town - State
Fayston, VT
Where my books are sold.
ChelseaGreen.com, Amazon.com..., book stores

Author Book Cover 1
A Man Apart - ISBN 9781603585477
Sean Prentiss
Author First & Last Name

Sean Prentiss is the award winning author of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave which won the 2015 winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography, the Utah Book Award for Nonfiction, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for biography. Finding Abbey was also a finalist for both the Vermont and Colorado Book Awards.

His next book is Crosscut: Poems (2020), which is a memoir-in-poems about his time as a trail builder inthe Pacific Northwest.

He is the co-editor of an anthology on the craft of creative nonfiction, entitled The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre, and the co-editor of a forthcoming anthology, entitled the Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction.

He is also the co-author of Environmental and Nature Writer: A Writers' Guide and Anthology and the forthcoming Advanced Creative Nonfiction: Writers' Guide and Anthology.

​He is also the series editor for Bloomsbury's Writers' Guide and Anthology textbook series, which has three books in print and multiple books in production.

Author Physical Address - Street - City / Town - State
Woodbury

Crosscut: Poems
Crosscut: Poems

Finding Abbey
Finding Abbey

Env. and Nature Writing
Env. and Nature Writing

The Science of Story
The Science of Story