Our Authors

Let’s start with Jeff LaHurd, whose presence is being sponsored by the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation. Jeff is also a director of the Historical Society of Sarasota County, a prolific author and beloved repository and presenter of our local history. Catch him at the SAHP booth in the exhibits field fronting on Tamiami Rail.

David John Turner became fascinated, as a docent at Selby Garden, on just how this marvelous garden came to be, on some of the most valuble lnd in downtown Sarasota. Follow the story, presented in a smooth-flowing, almost novel-like narrative, and meet the author of Land of Selby Gardens.

Author Henry Duggan has written Silver’s Odyssey,  telling the story of a 1622 Spanish shipwrecked soldier. After being thrown off the Atocha galleon in a hurricane off the Florida Keys, he must survive a 4-year trek through wilderness Florida enroute back to Spain.

Anne Easter Smith ventures back in history and Across The Pond. She is an award-winning historical fiction novelist with a series of six books set in the Wars of the Roses. She is first and foremost a storyteller, whose passion for her period makes an emotional connection with her characters, both real and imaginary, as she brings history to life.

DL Havlin’s credo:  I endeavor to create characters that are someone you’d like to meet, someone you’d despise, someone you’d fear, someone you’d root for…someone you can emotionally identify with, yet are characters that have realism emanating from them. His motto, when writing, is “Open Minds, Open Books” and as such, he writes all sorts of fascinating books, ranging from history to horror. His book, Blue Water, Red Blood won the Florida Writers Association, Royal Palm Literary Award.

Brenda M. Spalding is a prolific award-winning author. She is a past president of the National League of American Pen Women- Sarasota Branch, a member of the Sarasota Authors Connection, Sarasota Fiction Writers, Florida Authors and Publishers, and a co-founding member and current president of ABC Books Inc. Braden River Consulting LLC was formed to help other authors on their creative journey.

From a veteran of the political wars waged inside the U.S. government comes an intricately plotted story of a revenge-fueled terrorist determined to destroy America and the only man who can stop him. Kevin Kuhens, author, is a retired supervisory special agent for the US Department of Defense and the author of Terror’s Sword, A Kyle McEwan Novel, the first of his thrillers involving the elite counterterrorism case officer.