Fox Cities Book Festival

Jen “jen fu” Larsen is a writer, editor, proofreader and interpretive dancer living for less on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. She is the author of Stranger Here (How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed with My Head). She had weight loss surgery in 2006 and lost almost 200 pounds. While she is still trying to figure out what that means in terms of health and body acceptance, she feels she’s been lucky to have experienced the full spectrum of weight and size issues on either end of the scale. If you put a gun to her head and said “chocolate or cheese?” she’d close her eyes very tight and say pull the trigger, man. She loves ponies, puppies, cumulus clouds and you–just the way you are.

Gardening expert, TV/radio host, author & columnist Melinda Myers has over 30 years of horticulture experience and has written over 20 gardening books, including Can’t Miss Small Space Gardening, The Birds & Blooms’ Ultimate Gardening Guide, and Jackson and Perkins’ Beautiful Roses Made Easy: Midwestern Edition

Laura Schaefer is the author of The Secret Ingredient , The Teashop Girls, Why We Fall Out of Love, and Ultimate Money-Saving Hacks for College Students. Under the pen name Avery Sawyer, Laura Schaefer is the author of Notes to Self, a young adult novel about a teen with a traumatic brain injury, and The Forever Contract, a young adult dystopian novella about escaping from hardship by loading one's consciousness into a digital paradise.

Martha Bayne is a writer and editor based in Chicago. Currently the associate managing editor of Plate magazine, a bimonthly magazine for professional chefs, she is also the founder of the Soup & Bread series of hunger-relief fundraisers at Chicago's Hideout bar and author of the Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time