“Alternate Worlds,” or the other worlds presented in literature and comics, are up for discussion on Monday, Feb. 27, at 4:30 p.m. in the Guilford House Parlor. The free, public event is cosponsored by the Department of English and the Popular Culture Working Group. Refreshments will be served.
The acclaimed authors invited for the program are: Casey Daniels, the Cleveland-based author of the Pepper Martin mystery series; Mara Purnhagen, the author of Beyond the Grave; and Marc Sumerak, creator of All-Ghouls School.
About the panel’s guests:
Casey Daniels once applied for a job as a tour guide in a historic cemetery. She didn’t get the job, but she did get the idea for the popular Pepper Martin mystery series. Pepper works in a Cleveland cemetery and solves mysteries for the ghosts there. The eighth book in the series, Wild, Wild Death, was released in January, and book No. 9, Supernatural Born Killers, will be out in September. Daniels also writes the Button Box mystery series as Kylie Logan. The first book of that series, Button Holed, was released in September 2011 and the second book, Hot Button, will be out in June. Daniels began her career writing historical romances. She’s also written contemporary romances, young adult horror and a children’s book. She is a resident of the Cleveland area.
Mara Purnhagen is the author of the young adult novels Tagged (March 2010), Past Midnight (September 2010), One Hundred Candles (February 2011), and Beyond the Grave (August 2011)—all published by Harlequin Teen—and two novellas, Raising the Dead (January 2011) and Haunting the Night (August 2011). Past Midnight has been nominated for Young Adult Library Association’s (YALSA) 2011 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, the 2010 Cybil Award for best Fantasy/Science Fiction novel for young adults and the 2010 YABC Readers Choice Award. One Hundred Candles has been nominated for YALSA’s 2012 Reader’s Choice Awards.
Marc Sumerak has worked professionally in the comic book industry for more than a decade, helping to chart the course for a number of today’s most popular characters, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Avengers, the Hulk, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and many more. Sumerak spent four years on the Marvel Comics editorial staff before transitioning to writing full time. In 2005, Sumerak piloted the relaunch of Marvel’s Power Pack franchise. His work as co-writer on Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius earned an Eisner Award nomination (2006) and two Harvey Award nominations (2006 and 2008). Sumerak’s first creator-owned project, All-Ghouls School, was released in August 2011 by IDW Publishing.
For information, visit case.edu/artsci/engl/ or call 216.368.2340.