Authors
Wenxian is a member of the Rollins faculty since 1995. He is the liaison to the Anthropology and Asian Studies at Rollins, a research associate of the Rollins China Center, a recipient of the Cornell Distinguished Faculty Service Award, and the Arthur Vining Davis Fellow. He is also a recipient of the Patrick D. Smith Award for his academic work with Dr. Maurice O’Sullivan on A Trip to Florida for Health and Sport (FHS Press, 2010). In addition to articles on library information studies, historical research, and Chinese business management, his recent book publications related to China include The Biographical Dictionary of New Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders (Edward Elgar, 2009), A Guide to the Top 100 Companies in China (World Scientific, 2010), The Entrepreneurial and Business Elites of China: The Chinese Returnees Who Have Shaped Modern China (Emerald, 2011), and A Winter in Sunshine (Shanghai University Press, 2012).
John Ashworth taught writing at Columbia University, worked as a journalist for the Office of War Information during World War II and worked as a journalist for the Hindustan Times and the Boston Transcript. In addition, he wrote for Harper s, the Atlantic Monthly and other major national magazines. He was also a playwright. His O. Henry Award winning short story, High Diver, was made into a film by Universal Studios. Overhead The Sun is Ashworth s last novel. During the 1950s, he compiled interviews with the survivors of the Rosewood tragedy. John Ashworth died in 1993 and did not live to see the descendants of the Rosewood massacre win a large monetary settlement from the State of Florida, which acknowledged its failure to protect African-American citizens.
New York Times, October 18, 1993, Section B, Page 10
John Ashworth, an author of short stories who taught writing at Columbia University for nearly two decades, died on Friday at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 83 years old and lived in Pound Ridge, N.Y.
Complications from cancer were the cause, his son Daniel said.
One of Mr. Ashworth's stories, "High Diver," which described the lengths to which people will go to escape working-class lives, won an O. Henry Award and was one of three tales on which the 1950's film "Queen for a Day" was based.
Mr. Ashworth, a graduate of Harvard University, with degrees in English and comparative literature, had an eclectic writing career. He contributed articles to The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine, serving as a foreign correspondent for The Boston Transcript and The Hindustan Times, and worked for the Office of War Information during World War II as an analyst of Nazi propaganda.
For 17 years, he lectured on his craft at the School of General Studies at Columbia University, his son said.
Mary Eschbach is the author of River Road Stories
Bill is a native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He attended the University of Virginia (Charlottesville), earning a bachelor’s degree in commerce with a concentration in Finance. Bill was awarded the Wall Street Journal Outstanding Student Award for the highest grade point average in Finance. After graduating from Stetson University College of Law, Bill began his career in 1975 as a lawyer practicing in Broward County, Florida, in a broad field of law, including real estate law, probate and trust litigation, architectural law, and commercial litigation.
The prestigious Martindale Hubbell organization has awarded Bill its highest “AV” rating for each of the last twenty consecutive years, “a testament that his peers rank him at the highest level of professional excellence, while also maintaining the highest level of ethical conduct.” In 2007, Bill published “Florida’s Big Dig,” the story of the financing and construction of Florida’s Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and the laying out and sale and transfer of a million acres of public land in towns, villages, and settlements throughout southeast Florida earned from the State of Florida in constructing the waterway. This publication earned Bill the Rembert Patrick Prize for the Best Scholarly Book on a Florida history topic by the Florida Historical Society in 2008.
In recent years, Bill has devoted significant time in consulting with other lawyers and professionals such as engineers, architects, and planners about the financing and construction beginning in 1881 of what would become the public, federally controlled Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in 1929, with a litany of rights and obligations accorded private citizens, federal, state, and local governments as well as local, state, and federal agencies with jurisdiction over the Intracoastal Waterway as well as navigable rivers and streams as of March 3, 1845 and wherever private lands abut navigable bodies of water.
Dorothy Smiljanich is an award-winning editor and writer who has worked for Florida newspapers including the Gainesville Sun, the Clearwater Sun, the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), and, most recently, the Tampa Tribune, where she was travel editor. Her 2007 biography, Then Sings My Soul: The Scott Kelly Story, was published by the Florida Historical Society Press and won the Charlton Tebeau Book Award for Best General Interest History Book that year. She wrote the text for Quite The Show, which features nature photographs of Paynes Prairie and was published by the Friends of Paynes Prairie. She has a B.A. and an M.A. in English from the University of Florida and taught there, as well as at the University of South Florida in Tampa and St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg. She was born in Camden, N.J., grew up in Clearwater, and now lives in Gainesville, Florida.
Maity Schrecengost is an author and former classroom teacher now specializing in helping K-5 teachers teach elaboration and writing craft. She is the author of High above the Hippodrome, Researching Issues, Writing Whizardry, Research to Write, Researching Events, Researching People, Write to be Read, and the award-winning Tasso of Tarpon Springs, and Panther Girl.
Maity is a skilled teacher-trainer, and she presents workshops at schools and libraries, professional conferences, and writers institutes. Maitys engaging approach to research and her love of Florida history make her a sought-after speaker at Young Authors conferences and school in-service workshops and seminars.
When she’s not writing or giving talks about writing, you will find her curled up with a good book, swimming, or perhaps paddling a canoe. Maity enjoys hearing from her readers.
University of South Florida professor Jack Moore's four-decade career in academia covered a number of disciplines, including: American literature, African-American studies, pop culture, photography, and baseball. After graduating with a Ph.d. in American literature from the University of North Carolina, Moore established USF's American Studies department in 1962. Moore wrote scholarly articles and books on historian W.E.B. DuBois, baseball great Joe DiMaggio, poet Maxwell Bodenheim,Tampa-area photographers, the Burgert Brothers, and the cultural history of skinheads titled Skinheads Shaved for Battle. Moore was director of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for five years and served on the board of directors for the Hillsborough County Friends of the Library. Moore retired in 2002 and passed away in 2003. Mohlman, G., & Moore, J. B. (1993). Photographs of African-Americans at Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Main Library. Tampa, Fla: University of South Florida, Dept. of Anthropology.
MOORE, Dr. Jack B., passed away July 9, 2003 in New York. He was originally from Maplewood, N.J. and resided in Tampa, Florida.
After graduating from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1961, Robert received a B.A. degree in History from Union College, a M.A. in American Studies from Union, and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Science from Syracuse University. Dr. Snyder taught American Studies for 38 years in the State of Florida University System, specializing in Popular Culture, Film, and the American South and won several awards for excellence in teaching. Dr. Snyder was the author of Cotton Crisis, and Pioneer Commercial Photography: The Burgert Brothers of Tampa, Florida. Pioneer Commercial Photography, was the recipient of the Charlton W. Tebeau and D. B. McKay Awards, and a certificate of commendation from the Association of State and Local History. Dr. Snyder was a prolific scholar with many articles in state and local publications and was awarded the Willie D. Halsell Award from the Mississippi Historical Society. He worked as a Humanities consultant for the Ken Burns documentary film "Huey Long," which was nominated for an Academy Award. Dr. Snyder was an active member of the Florida Historical Society and served on the Board of Directors (1999-2018), and was elected President (2009-2012), before retiring in 2018
Snyder, Robert E., Ph.D., passed away peacefully at home on April 26, 2019, in Lutz, Florida after a valiant battle with cancer.
Sally J. Ling is known as Florida's History Detective and is an author, speaker, and historian. She writes historical nonfiction, adult and children's historical fiction, specializing in little known or fascinating stories about Florida history, and biblical mysteries with a Florida setting.
As a special correspondent, she wrote for the Sun Sentinel newspaper for four years and was a contributing journalist for several South Florida magazines.
Based upon excerpts from her book Run the Rum In, Sally appeared in two TV documentaries ("Gangsters"--National Geographic Channel and "Prohibition and the South Florida Connection"--WLRN, Miami). She served as associate producer on the latter production. Two additional short documentaries based upon her books "Small Town, Big Secrets" and "Who Killed Leno and Louise," are in production and will be aired later this fall on WLRN (Miami).
She has been a guest on South Florida PBS TV and radio stations, a guest presenter at the Lifelong Learning Society at Florida Atlantic University, guest presenter at Future Authors of America, and guest speaker at numerous historical societies, libraries, organizations and schools.
Sally lives in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Dr. Joe Knetsch received his BS degree from Western Michigan University, his MA from Florida Atlantic University, and his PhD from Florida State University. He has taught at the secondary and collegiate levels, and worked as a historian for the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Natural Resources.As the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Senior Management Analyst, Knetsch was responsible for researching Florida history for early methods of transportation on and the usage of Florida's water-bodies.
The University of South Florida has a collection of his papers. Knetsch has written papers on the history of surveying and various aspects of Florida's history and landscape. He has written about Hamilton Disston. He has also written about Pembroke Pines and the Armed Occupation Act of 1842. He translated an 1856 letter from Smith Mowry to Jefferson Davis about Indian Key, Florida.
Knetsch lives in Tallassee with his wife Linda.