Sunday, February 4, 2018

Author Feature: W. Stephen Coleman

Stephen Coleman has spent most of his adult life as a professor of theater at the University of Pittsburgh. A specialist in Shakespeare, acting, directing, and stage combat, he taught for more than 30 years and practiced his craft on stage and screen, including roles in Silence of the Lambs, where he had the pleasure of being literally defaced by the epicurean Hannibal Lecter and in the PBS Series The War That Made America, where as the ill-fated General Braddock he was shot from the back of a horse. It was only after he retired that he discovered a new interest: The Civil War, and especially, Gettysburg.

Illustrator Tim Hartman is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been professionally acting, singing, writing, cartooning, and storytelling since 1982. He is also an award-winning political cartoonist and illustrator whose work has appeared widely in newspapers. (Tim was integral to the development of Discovering Gettysburg but is not attending Fest.)

Find more information about Stephen and Discovering Gettysburg at Savais Beatie, LLC




Author Feature: Ruth Ochs Webster

Ruth Ann Ochs Webster was born and raised in Covington, Kentucky, a not quite Northern and not quite Southern town on the Ohio River. That location sparked a lifelong interest in both history and travel.  Ruth now lives in Metro Pittsburgh, near the confluence of the two rivers that form the Ohio. She is a retired National Board Certified Teacher, specializing in language arts and United States History.

Ruth has been published in various magazines, literary journals, and newspapers.  She was a newspaper columnist for seven years. She is the recipient of the Backbone Mountain Review Fiction Prize, the Stanier Award from the Pittsburgh International Children’s Festival (a collaboration), and the Author Zone (TAZ) Award for Historical Fiction.

Her current project is a six-novel series entitled Toe the Mark. The novels are inspired by the lives and military records of real men, ancestors of the author, based heavily on genealogical and regimental research. Published by Tree Shadow Press: Ancestrals.

Book one of the series—Henry: The Jersey Brigade—won First Place in Historical Fiction at the TAZ Awards in 2017.

Book two of the series—Jesse: 53rd Kentucky—will launch this spring and be available first at the West PA Book Festival.