UC Authors Featured at Cincinnati’s Third-Annual Books by the Banks: Cincinnati USA Book Festival

The 2009 Books by the Banks is organized by University of Cincinnati Libraries, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the Mercantile Library, Joseph-Beth Booksellers and Cincinnati Magazine. Here’s a sample of what’s in store for book lovers who attend.

• More than 80 authors and illustrators will hold signings.
• Panel discussions will cover topics such as sports, local history, cooking (demos), popular fiction, the supernatural, nature and wildlife, and music.
• Kids can meet costumed storybook characters, see children’s author readings and make fun crafts in the Target Kids’ Corner.

The UC authors to be featured at Books by the Banks are

James Braziel, adjunct assistant professor of English & Comparative Literature for the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences (A&S)
Braziel was also featured at the festival last year. This year for the fiction category, he’ll feature “Snakeskin Road,” described as a woman’s harrowing journey of survival along a passageway of terror and hope. Braziel’s fiction and poetry have appeared in Berkeley Fiction Review, Chattahoochee Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review and Clackamas Literary Review, among other journals. He has also been the recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Braziel's first novel with Bantam, “Birmingham 35 Miles,” came out in 2008. Braziel teaches creative writing at UC.

Joseph Clark, professor of neurology for the UC College of Medicine
Clark’s book, “My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City,” describes his experience working as an ambulance attendant on the most dangerous streets of New York beginning at the age of 18, a job to pay his way through college. Click on an interview with the author.

Melissa Kramer, UC journalism student, A&S
Kramer’s first book, “The Inclines of Cincinnati,” was released last March. The book, part of Arcadia’s “Images of Rail” series, examines a time when Cincinnati’s streetcars carried locals and tourists to the peaks of Mount Adams, Mount Auburn, Clifton and Price Hill, and explores reasons for the disappearance of the city’s number one tourist attraction, the Mt. Adams incline.
Click on this link for more about Kramer’s book

Carol Tyler, UC adjunct instructor of fine arts, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP)
Tyler is an internationally acclaimed award-winning artist and writer who lives in Avondale. Her graphic novel, “You’ll Never Know. Book 1: A Good and Decent Man,” is the first of a three-part series that uses comics and graphics to help veterans and their families deal with the effects of war. The book is a tribute to her father, a World War II veteran.
Click on this link for more about Tyler’s book

James Wilson, professor of English & Comparative Literature, A&S
Wilson’s memoir, “Weather Reports from the Autism Front: A Father’s Memoir of His Autistic Son” (McFarland & Company, Inc.), is described as follows by Amazon.com: “Based on detailed research and a lifetime of personal experience, James Wilson recounts his personal journey as the primary companion of his now twenty-seven-year-old autistic son, Sam. This realistic, irreverent account of an autistic young man and his misadventures while transitioning to adulthood provides enlightening truths as well as sardonic humor. Formally seen as a neurological disorder, autism is increasingly being looked upon as simply a form of neurodiversity. Rejecting mainstream attitudes, Wilson explores this modern view of autism through his own experience as well as quotes from autistic people and bloggers, some of whom are the most vocal proponents of this viewpoint. A detailed bibliography accompanies this engaging memoir of a father and son's experience negotiating the slippery slopes of normality.”

The Books by the Banks Web site has information on all of the authors scheduled to appear at the event, as well as directions and parking information.