Presenting Authors
Presenting Authors 2026
The author and their book.
Aideed Medina
Fresno Poet Laureate
Her work has appeared in various publications, including Issue #26 of The Common: Farmworkers Portfolio and Somos Xicanas Anthology, Riot of Roses Publishing House, and has been featured in Eclectic Collective theatrical productions, The Opera Remix, Fresno Grand Opera, and 559 Mural Project murals. She is the author of 31 Hummingbird, Editorial Xingao, Segmented Bodies, Prickly Pear Publishing, and a forthcoming binational chapbook, selected poems from Segmented Bodies/ Salmos de la Sierra Madre, with Aziz Córdova, published by Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico.
The author and their book.
Alyssa Jarrett
Alyssa Jarrett is a romance author who is busy writing happily-ever-afters. Her novel, Love Apptually, kicks off a five-book series of California-based rom-coms. When she’s not writing steamy, satirical love stories, she can be found drinking an iced tea or cuddling with her cats. Born and raised in Fresno, she holds an M.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism from CSU Fresno and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can follow her @authoralyssajarrett on Instagram and subscribe to her newsletter, Grumpy + Sunshine, on Substack.
The author and their book.
Angelica Shirley Carpenter
ANGELICA SHIRLEY CARPENTER’s recent titles include a young adult biography, Born
Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist (South Dakota Historical Society Press,
2018), and two picture books, The Voice of Liberty (SDHSP, 2020) and The Secret Gardens of Frances Hodgson Burnett (Bushel & Peck, 2024). Her 2025 young adult biography is Arm in Arm: The Grimké Sisters Fight for Abolition and Women’s Rights (Lerner Zest Books). Curator emerita of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at California State University, Fresno, she is a past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. She has master’s degrees in education and library science. Here’s her website.
The author and their book.
Apryl Lewis
Apryl Lewis received her PhD in English from Texas Tech University in 2021. Her research interests center on contemporary African American literature, Black Feminist Studies, intersectionality, and trauma studies. Her book, Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies Within Contemporary African American Literature (Lexington Books), examines select African American novels and applies trauma studies and Black Feminist Studies to advance scholarly discussions about an African American literary tradition that articulates the impact of slavery’s traumatic legacy over time.
The author and their book.
Beth Pratt
A lifelong advocate for wildlife, Beth Pratt has worked in environmental and conservation leadership roles for over thirty years, and in two of the country’s largest national parks: Yosemite and Yellowstone. As the President & CEO of the nonprofit The Wildlife Crossing Fund, Pratt leads the #SaveLACougars campaign to build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. Her innovative conservation work has been featured by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC World Service, CNN, CBS This Morning, the Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, PBS The Guardian, NPR, AP News, and more. Beth’s newest book, which she spent thirty years researching and developing, is Yosemite Wildlife: The Wonder of Animal Life in the Sierra Nevada. Her other published works include I Heart Wildlife: A Guided Activity Journal for Connecting With the Wild World and When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: People and Wildlife Working It Out In California.
The author and their book.
Brenna Womer
Brenna Womer (she/they) is a queer, childfree, Latine prose writer, poet, and artist. They are an Assistant Professor of English at California State University, Fresno, where they teach in the MFA in Creative Writing program. They’re the author of the full-length, mixed-genre collections Unbrained (FlowerSong Press, 2023) and Honeypot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019) as well as the chapbooks Atypical Cells of Undetermined Significance (C&R Press, 2018) and cost of living (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Their work has appeared in North American Review, Blackbird, Indiana Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Pinch, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere.
Brenna was a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at W&L University in rural Virginia where they served as interim Editor-in-Chief of Shenandoah, and at Louisiana State University. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Michigan University and an MA in English and a BA in English Literature from Missouri State University.
The author and their book.
Bryan Medina
Spoken word artist S. Bryan Medina is author of More Than Soil, Less Than Sand (2017) and the more recent Tears of a Man Transfixed (2025). His poetry has graced stages across California, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. Bryan founded the Inner Ear Open Mic, The Beat Down Slam, and Poetry and Pints Free Writer’s Workshop as a way to free poetry from the confines of academic institutions, making it accessible to all. Medina, a long-time art activist, has been awarded two City of Fresno Commendations for contributions to the rich artistic and cultural heritage in Fresno. His work has appeared in journals such as Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets, In the Grove, The San Joaquin Review, among others. In 2017, Medina was named Fresno County’s third Poet Laureate, continuing his significant literary presence in the Fresno community through readings, school visits, writing workshops and meetings with leaders throughout California.
The author and their book.
Claire Annette Noland
As a child, Claire Annette Noland alway carried a notebook and pen as she searched for ideas to turn into stories. Her life’s work has been focused on children and books as a mother of four, children’s librarian, reading specialist, kindergarten teacher, and author.
Claire writes heart-filled stories that invite kids to think creatively and spread joy. Her books include the award-winning picture books Evie’s Field Day (2020), Raven’s Gift: A Feathered Flight of Faith (2023), and Nancy Bess Had a Dress (2024). Her latest picture book, A Knot of Frogs, A Passel of Hogs: Recess with Collective Nouns will launch in fall 2026. When not traveling, Claire writes from her home in Central California where she lives with her husband and her canine companion, Mr. Ernie. She still never leaves home without a notebook and pen.
The author and their book.
Connie Patton
Connie (Owens) Patton is a writer living in California’s Central Valley. She was the recipient of a California Arts Council 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship in the category of Emerging Artist for the Central California Region. In 2025, she was a finalist in the National BlackBerry Peach Spoken and Written Word Contest.
Her debut chapbook of poetry, “Through a Tightly Coiled Lens”was self-published in 2024. To hear her work in spoken word listen on Soundcloud at Kaanee.
The author and their book.
Edward Dennis
Edward Andres Dennis is an acclaimed Mexican-American author of the Boy from Mexico children’s book series. A former Special Education teacher and AmeriCorp member, Edward is deeply committed to empowerment through literacy and art, using his writing to reflect and celebrate the richness of the Mexican-American experience. He was a 2023 Latino Film Institute LatinX in Animation Spark Grant Finalist with Netflix and is currently pursuing the adaptation of his books into an animated series. Edward has been featured on major media outlets, including Univision, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN en Español. His professional portfolio includes collaborations with brands such as Toyota USA, Sesame Street, Disney, and Paramount, and he has been featured in publications like Outside Magazine and Bicycling Magazine. He was recognized in the Hispanic Star Rising Stars Volume 3 for his contributions to Latino excellence.
The author and their book.
Joan Schoettler
Joan Schoettler earned a Master’s in Arts in Reading and Language at Fresno Pacific University. She taught children’s literature, storytelling, reading and writing in the Education Department at CSU, Fresno. She began writing for children after a career in sharing children’s literature with readers of all ages. Joan is an award-winning author of five picture books and one middle grade novel. A Doctor at Heart: A Story of Groundbreaking Scientist and Teacher Vivien Thomas is her latest picture book. (Available: May 12, 2026) Joan’s creativity is illuminated in her stories about nature, art, and artists. Joan’s writing demonstrates a global view as her stories traverse the world. When not writing, she can be found with family and friends, cycling in the countryside, and reading. Joan believes stories come to life when we pay attention to what we love, to stories that touch our lives, and to cherished experiences.
The author and their book.
Joanna Clines
Joanna Clines was born and raised in Fresno, CA (except for a year in France and two
years in Lesotho, Southern Afica). She attended Fresno City College where she took an
introductory biology class taught by Bob Winter, and become enthralled with biology.
Having found her calling, Joanna earned a BA in Environmental Biology, then a
master’s in botany at CSU Fresno. Her thesis research was reproductive and fire
ecology of the rare shrub Carpenteria californica. She has been the Forest Botanist for
the Sierra National Forest since 1990. Joanna served on the statewide board of
directors of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and the California Invasive Plant
Council. She was president of the Sequoia Chapter of CNPS during the 1990s. Joanna
began working on this book project with photographer Stephen Sharnoff in 2008. She
has lived in the Sierra Nevada north of Oakhurst for 26 years.
The author and their book.
Kristin Rathmann Telles
Kristin served as the chair of the Creek Fire Storytelling Project, a project of the Central Sierra Resiliency Fund and the Museum of the Sierra in Shaver Lake, CA. As a child, Kristin was frustrated about not being able to get information about the WWII airplane in the bottom of Huntington Lake. When the Creek Fire broke out in September 2020, Kristin felt strongly about preserving stories of the experience so that future generations would have access to information about this very significant local history event. She also wanted community members to have the opportunity to tell their stories, and have those stories preserved. This book is the result of that multi-year community-based project, approximately sixty-five stories collected, compiled, organized, photo-illustrated and edited by Kristin and the Creek Fire Storytelling Project team.
The author and their book.
Kwamise Fletcher
Kwamise Fletcher, known on stages nationwide as LadyK, is a powerhouse spoken-word poet, educator, and performer whose work braids vulnerability, grit, and unapologetic Black womanhood. A nationally ranked competitive poet and the 2025 Grand Slam Champion with Loudmouth Poetry Slam, LadyK delivers pieces that move seamlessly from sniper-sharp precision to machine-gun intensity. Her poetry explores identity, faith, race, body image, mental health, perimenopause, and the sacred work of self-reclamation.
The author and their book.
Lilibeth Jimenez
Lilibeth Jimenez is a Mexican-American artist. She graduated from Cogswell College with a B.A in Digital Art and Animation, with a focus on entertainment design. She is a children’s book author-illustrator and a background painter in animation. Lilibeth was born and raised in the central valley surrounded by the sunny agricultural fields of California. Growing up as the youngest of five in an immigrant household, family has always been very important to her and has become a huge focus of her work. She loves to illustrate colorful stories, with whimsical settings that showcase the fun memories of childhood and the tender moments between family. Cultural representation in media is something she strives to achieve with her work. She is currently based in Central California.
The author and their book.
Manuel Muñoz
Manuel Muñoz is an author from Dinuba, California, and a first-generation college student. He graduated from Harvard University and received his MFA in creative writing at Cornell University. Muñoz is the author of the novel What You See in the Dark and the short-story collections Zigzagger and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, which was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. His work is widely recognized for its attention to class, place, and the emotional lives and experiences of his characters. Muñoz has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His most recent work, The Consequences, was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and was longlisted for the Story Prize. In October 2023, Muñoz was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship for “depicting with empathy and nuance the Mexican-American communities of California’s Central Valley.”
The author and their book.
Margarita Engle
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, including Wild Dreamers, a Pura Belpré Honor book that was also long listed for the National Book Award. Wings in the Wild received an International Latino Book Award Gold Medal, and The Surrender Tree, received a Newbery Honor. Margarita is the recipient of Pura Belpré Medals, Walter Honors, Américas Awards, the NSK Neustadt Prize and others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Her newest picture books include Hopeful Heroes and Christiana Figueres, Friend of the Rain Forest. Her most recent verse novels are Island Creatures and Evamar. Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California with her entomologist husband and soccer-playing Border Collie.
The author and their book.
Marisol Baca
Marisol Baca is the author of a book of poems called Tremor, and she was named Fresno’s first woman and first Chicana/Latinx Poet Laureate for 2019-2021. Marisol’s poem about the naming of Fresno has been designated the city’s official poem. Marisol Baca’s poetry has been published in Narrative Northeast, Riverlit, Shadowed: An Anthology of Women Writers and The Acentos Review, among others. She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later settled in Fresno, California. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell and is a professor of English at Fresno City College.
The author and their book.
Matt Abraham
Awarded Pulp Detective’s Best Newcomer of 2015, Matt Abraham currently lives in Stockton, California where he splits his time between being a father, husband, and author. Currently he’s finishing his series, The Black Cape Case Files, which follows Dane Curse, a former villain turned PI, as he navigates the powered underbelly of Gold Coast City, and Northland Mysteries which stars Detective Jake Carter and his partner Dr. Nafissa Rayan. You can find him at mattabrahambooks.
The author and their book.
Megan Bohigian
Megan Anderson Bohigian served as the City of Fresno Poet Laureate from 2021-2023. She has an MFA from Fresno State, and has taught creative writing and poetry at all levels.
Her poems are widely published in journals, including Salt, Whiskey Island Magazine, and The Comstock Review, and have been anthologized. Her books of poems include Sightlines (Tourane Poetry Press, 2013) and Vanishing Point, (Orchard Street Press, 2019). She is active in the Fresno writing community, giving readings, teaching workshops, and speaking about Fresno poetry to anyone who will listen. For fourteen years she curated the poet and author readings for the Respite by the River events of the San Joaquin River Parkway. Recently she has organized protest poetry readings at the Fresno Arts Council’s gallery space.
The author and their book.
Merry Miller-Gass
Merry is a children’s book illustrator who believes stories have the power to heal and connect. Her work blends humor, heart, and a touch of whimsy, celebrating individuality, empathy, and community. She has illustrated several traditionally published picture books (and one very handy self-published Picture Book Planner for fellow creators). Her art has appeared in magazines and galleries throughout California, from cozy bookshops to bright community spaces.
The author and their book.
Michele Mills
Top 40 Amazon Bestselling author Michele Mills has an obsession with all things science fiction and monster romance. She is known for her bestselling rom-com series Monsters Love Curvy Girls and the spin-off, Monster Bites. To her husband’s horror, Michele left behind a twenty-year teaching career to write steamy romance full time and is now happily the author of 50 books and counting. She lives in California with her husband, younger son, and two spoiled cats. You can find her at: https://beacons.page/authormichelemills
The author and their book.
Roh Morgan
Roh Morgon writes fantasy, supernatural suspense, and horror for adult, young adult, and middle grade readers. She is best known for her supernatural suspense series, THE CHOSEN and WORLD OF THE CHOSEN, and is a past winner of the International Vampire Film & Arts Festival Silver Stake Award. Roh dreams up her dark tales while driving and hiking through California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, but it’s her time spent in more remote locales—the soaring peaks of Colorado, the windswept plains of Wyoming, the mysterious Carpathian Mountains of Romania—that provides the settings for her stories and opens the door into hidden worlds filled with seductive, lethal creatures and the secret lives they lead. Based in Central California, Roh shares her home with her very patient husband and an extremely demanding cat who helps her write by periodically walking on the keyboard. You can find Roh online here: https://linktr.ee/Author_Roh_Morgon
The author and their book.
Samina Najmi
Samina Najmi, author of the award-winning memoir Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time, teaches multiethnic US literatures at California State University, Fresno. A scholar of race, gender, and war in US literature, she coedited three volumes of critical essays and midwifed the reissue of a 1903 novel, The Heart of Hyacinth, by Onoto Watanna, Asian America’s first known novelist. Samina is a founding faculty advisor for the annual Undergraduate Conference on Multiethnic Literatures of the Americas (UCMLA) at Fresno. Samina’s personal essay commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 ushered in a new era of creative nonfiction in her writing. Her personal essays have been published widely, including in World Literature Today. Literary’s creative nonfiction prize, and “Trinita” was nominated for a Pushcart by Under the Sun.
The author and their book.
Steven Banbury
Steven Banbury is the bestselling author of the Pumpkin Princess series. He currently lives surrounded by farmland in Central California alongside his legend of a wife and their annoyingly cute dog.
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