Author Linda Black grew up in Curtis, Arkansas as the fourth of twelve children. She received her early education via a one-room schoolhouse and in many ways it was a blessing, as it exposed her to varying levels of education.

Linda developed a love of writing early in her young life. At the tender age of 10, she wrote her first song. It was promptly sent off to Nashville to be set to music and even though it was not published, Linda never lost sight of her love for writing.

After graduating high school in Chicago, Illinois, Linda relocated to Lansing, Michigan where she found employment with the General Motors corporation. She was a faithful employee for over thirty years.

While in Lansing, she chose Lansing Community College as her institution of higher learning. She was recommended for honors writing courses and became a valued member of the poetry club. Linda and her husband Richard are proud to call six children, nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren family.

Together they reside in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas with two of their grandsons. Linda is an avid member of the Village Writer's Club and works as a 911 operator at her local police station. She continues to write and still considers children to be her purest inspiration.

Amelia Brumm of Haslett, MI in her personal life served in the United States Navy during the Korean Conflict. Upon discharge she devoted her life to being a full time wife and mother of two adopted children.

Later she graduated from LCC in 1985 Magna Cum Laude. In 1989 she graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. Her positions include being a caseworker, counselor and student intern clinical instructor at the Lansing Salvation Army.

Pursuing a fourth career, she became an author, The Voice of the Healer. She received the Editors Choice Award by the International Library of Poetry. Because of her accomplishments she was inducted into her hometown Hall of Fame.

In February of 2011 she wrote and published her second book, The Message of the Healer. Both books contain expressions of healing, nature and glory prayers in poetic form with accompanied evocative imagery and biblical scriptures.

At the age of 43, I got into recovery and a few years later decided to go back to school. I double majored in Human Services and Writing at Lansing Community College, finishing up in 2009. While back in school, I did an internship with a psychologist who specializes in addiction treatment.

I enjoyed counseling but found writing to be my true passion. Deciding I could potentially help more people by writing, I began putting together the things I had learned in recovery. "Becoming Normal: An Ever-Changing Perspective" is the result, and my first book. I have been in recovery for ten years. My next book, titled "Fear: Feel It, Face It, Grow", is scheduled for publication in March 2012.

Lori writes in Eagle, Michigan. She is primarily interested in young people’s fiction (chapter books for middle grades readers), but recently has been enjoying short stories and even a poem or two.

Her published pieces include

• Underwater fantasy chapter books (please visit Riley Press)
• Short pieces published in two Cup of Comfort anthologies (Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers and Cup of Comfort for Families Touched by Alzheimer’s)
• Three short pieces in Pets Across America 2009
• “Another High Noon” a short story published in Washington Square Review, 2009 (published as Loraine Garn)
• Short stories in Small Towns: A Map in Words

Lori’s great loves – her husband and daughter, her church, nature, dogs, horses, stained glass, and writing.

Dr. Margaret O'Rourke Kelly is a professor of communication in Graduate & Professional Studies at Spring Arbor University. She has been teaching for 26 years both in the classroom and online. She has also taught at Davenport University and the University of Phoenix.

Margaret earned two MA degrees-one from the University of Michigan in Educational Psychology and the other from Michigan State University in Theatre History following her BA in theatre studies from MSU. Her doctoral degree is from Walden University in Educational Administration.

Margaret has written “Phenomenal Woman: The Dora Stockman Story.” And she created and performs a one woman show based on the life and times of Dora Stockman. She also lectures on the Stockman story throughout the state. Margaret was an Ingham County Commissioner and was a candidate for the State House of Representatives. Margaret resides in Canton, Michigan.

Hi! I’m Randy Pearson. After my birth at St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, my parents (Marvin the artist/LCC art professor and Colleen the homemaker) moved us around the area quite a bit. So, I got to live in all sorts of exciting places, like Grand Ledge, Mason and Okemos. However, I spent most of my childhood in the formerly small town of DeWitt, where I graduated high school in 1985. My creativity and my love for the written word came about at a very early age. As a child, I wrote my own comic strip series called The Weirdos, starring Hic and Bunyan. Recently, I came across the first story I ever wrote, a cartoon book entitled, The Adventures of Marvin and Randy, that I concocted at age nine as a birthday gift for my father. From there, I began writing creative fiction and the occasional essay on my Atari 800 home computer.

Over my many years writing fiction, I have won several national writing contests, and received honorable mention in an international contest in 2005. I also received honorable mention in 1986 for a novella I wrote a couple years earlier and had “published” on my computer bulletin board system (BBS, the precursor to the Internet). This tale, a ghost story from the ghost’s point of view, is something my mother is convinced was stolen off my BBS and turned into the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore movie Ghost. (I don’t buy it, but it’s my mom… what’s a son to do?)

My work has been published in both of the Writing at the Ledges anthologies, Small Towns: A Map in Words and Seasons of Life, as well as Pets Across America III and the Washington Square Review 2011.

I currently reside in a small domicile with my bizarre little cat Zoe.

Rosalie was born and lived between two great lakes, Michigan and Superior. Her father said that her first word was water…her next word sky. Her love for the lakes and nature was taught to her by her family—to appreciate the smell of lilacs, the velvet softness of a Mourning Cloak’s wing, the rustle of wind through fiddlehead ferns. She grew up in nature in the pristine Upper Peninsula of Michigan where she cultivated her love for words and writing. Much of the imagery that she borrowed from that landscape appears in many of the poems she writes today.

Rosalie now lives in the Lower Peninsula in an older Victorian home built in 1910 with her teacher husband, her beautiful and talented daughter, Senara, and their dog, Hendrix. Every evening she walks by the river seeking daily healing and inspiration for her work. Rosalie is the co-founder of Writing at the Ledges.