MN Library Association

Jenna Blum

Author
presenting the One Book, One Conference session The Stormchasers

Jenna Blum is the New York Times and international bestselling author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers. She is also one of Oprah’s Top Thirty Women Writers. Jenna runs master novel workshops and is an advice columnist for Grub Street Writers and divides her time between Boston and rural Minnesota, where she writes in the town where her mother and grandmother were born. Please visit Jenna on Twitter, Facebook, and at www.jennablum.com.

Elisabeth Doucett

Director, Curtis Memorial Library (Brunswick, ME)
presenting two featured breakout sessions: Merchandising Matters: What Your Library Can Learn from the Local Grocery Store and Trend Tracking: A Tool to Help Your Library Better Serve the Needs of Your Community

Elisabeth Doucett holds a BA from Smith College, an MBA in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and an MLS from Simmons College. She is the author of two books: Creating Your Library Brand and What They Don’t Teach You in Library School, both published by the American Library Association. Her strategy and marketing proficiencies were developed over more than a decade spent in the consumer packaged goods industry as a marketing director at Quaker Oats and Dunkin’ Donuts and as a brand manager at Kraft Foods in the Maxwell House Coffee Division. Liz and her husband spend their spare time exploring the great state of Maine, camping and kayaking in the summer, and snowshoeing in the winter. Neither has yet to see a Maine moose but they continue to be assured that the creatures really do exist.

William Kent Krueger

Author
presenting the luncheon keynote Go Forth!

Kent, as he likes to be called, writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. The tenth book in his series, Vermilion Drift, released in 2010, was a New York Times bestseller. The next novel, Northwest Angle, is scheduled for publication in September of 2011. Kent does all his creative writing in a little coffee shop in St. Paul.

Scott Nicholson

Associate Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
presenting the dessert keynote Engagement through Games: Reaching Library Users through Playful Ways

Dr. Scott Nicholson is an Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. He is also the director of the Library Game Lab of Syracuse and studies gaming in libraries, game design as a pedagogical tool, and online education. He wrote Everyone Plays at the Library: Creating Great Gaming Experiences for All Ages, which was published by Information Today in 2010. He was the designer of Tulipmania 1637, a board game published by JLKM Games in 2009, and has several other board game designs currently with other publishers. He was the host of Board Games with Scott (2005-2010), an Internet video series about board games, and currently writes as The Game Professor for http://boardgameinfo.com and is a voice on the On Board Games podcast. His Ph.D. in Information Science is from the University of North Texas, and he was a reference librarian at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas and a statistician for Citigroup.

Rebecca Shlafer, Ph.D.

Research Fellow, University of Minnesota
presenting the session Children of Incarcerated Parents: Who’s Counting & Why Should We Care?

Rebecca Shlafer, Ph.D., is a developmental psychologist in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Shlafer’s research interests include understanding the outcomes of children with incarcerated parents. She is particularly interested in understanding how antisocial and criminal behavior are transferred across generations and how effective interventions can disrupt cycles of offending. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Shlafer volunteers as a guardian ad litem in Hennepin County.

Anita Silvey

Author
presenting the keynote session Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book

Anita Silvey is the author of Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, 100 Best Books for Children, and The Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac (http://childrensbookalmanac.com). Considered to be a leading expert on children’s literature, she has worked with a number of publishers, as editor of The Horn Book, and currently teaches at Simmons College.