WRITERS FESTIVAL

Kim Cool is the author or co-author of over 30 books, including a needlepoint book that was a national best seller. She has been the Venice Gondolier features editor for over 20 years. During those same years, she began her series of ghost stories and founded her own publishing house. She has worked with book printers in Florida, Minnesota, Hong Kong, Korea, and Maryland. She has presented numerous seminars on publishing. She has won state, regional, and national awards for her books and numerous awards in journalism. Kim is also a national judge of figure skating.

Clarissa Thomasson is a novelist, playwright, children’s author, and freelance writer.  Her first two novels, Defending Hillsborough and Reconstructing Hillsborough were chosen by the North Carolina Association of Public-School Librarians for use in the high school study of the Civil War and two of her plays won first prize in the Firehouse Theater playwriting competition.  Her newest book Forgotten Florida, which tells the story of the earliest American settlers on Florida’s west coast, was released September 1, 2022.  Clarissa is also Lane DeGregory’s mom.

Lane DeGregory is a Pulitzer Prize–winning enterprise reporter at the Tampa Bay Times.  Lane’s stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, and she has won dozens of national awards, including twice winning Scripps Howard’s Ernie Pyle Award for human interest writing. She teaches at the University of South Florida, the Poynter Institute and journalism conferences around the world.  Her latest book The Girl in the Window and Other True Tales, published by University of Chicago Press, officially hits the streets on April 12.  You can listen to her weekly podcast, WriteLane, on SoundCloud or iTunes.

Barbara Field has worked in marketing, publishing, and communications. She was on staff at CBS, Harcourt Brace, UC San Diego, Pace University and The Op Ed Project. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Salon, Shape, The Independent and elsewhere. She's given presentations at museums, universities, libraries and for private groups in CA, NY and FL. Barbara's novel, The Deeper, The Bluer won a Writer's Digest fiction award. She's the founder of Writing Life Stories, a memoir-writing business for non-writers who want to leave a legacy for family and friends.

Al Lyman has lived a rich life, relentlessly failing forward as a parent, partner, musician, athlete, coach, therapist, author, artist, carpenter, business owner, and dreamer. At 19, he embarked on a career as a percussionist following music school. In addition to parenting, practicing, traveling, and performing, he simultaneously amassed a wide variety of athletic achievements, most notably a 2:39:37 Boston Marathon personal best, and qualifying three times for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii. Overcoming obstacles and learning hard lessons along the way, each step of his journey was always centered around his ultimate goal of becoming truly healthy and aging well so that he could not only extend his lifespan, but more importantly, his healthspan. The dream was to forever be able to do what he enjoys with those who matter the most, right up until his last day. He’s always been passionate about sharing all that he’s learned during his life with others.

Among Raymond Sinibaldi's passions are baseball and history. His first book, The Babe in Red Stockings was published in 1997 and co-authored with David Hickey and Kerry Keene. A chronology of Babe Ruth’s time with the Red Sox, it gives an in-depth account of the first five years of his remarkable career. It would be fifteen years for his second book Images of Fenway Park (2012) again co-authored with Hickey and Keene.
Since then, he has produced one a year: Spring Training in Bradenton and Sarasota (2013), 1967 Red Sox, The Impossible Dream Season (2014), 1975 Red Sox American League Champions (2015). In 2016 came 61 Motivational Stories for Every Coach of Every Sport, co-authored with longtime baseball coaches Craig Faulkner and Joe Komoroski.
In addition to the legendary Red Sox, Coach Sinibaldi has turned his literary talents to another Massachusetts dynasty: the Kennedy family. He has written three books about America's 35th president, and fourth introduces his readers to a young Jacqueline Bouvier in Jackie's Newport: America's First Lady and the City by the Sea.
A regular guest on WBZ radio’s Jordan Rich Show for many years, Sinibaldi was also a part of the special Baseball From the Beginning, A History of Spring Training in Florida. He has twice spoken at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.