Each year, the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum hosts several regional authors for their annual Lew Wallace Hoosier Author Fair. The event takes place on the third floor of Fusion54 Coworking Space, which is located at 101 W. Main St., Crawfordsville. We are planning the 2024 Hoosier Author Fair for the evening of Saturday, November 30, 2024, from 5 – 8 p.m.
The Hoosier Author Fair is free and open to the public. Authors will have books and book-related merchandise for sale and are happy to sign copies and chat with readers. Attending authors represent several genres of writing.
Attend the Hoosier Author Fair
As an author
Authors should email Thomas Meeks with questions. Completed author applications can be emailed to Thomas, or mailed to PO Box 662, Crawfordsville, IN 47933. Final day for registration is November 15, 2024.
2024 Author Fair ApplicationThere is no fee to participate. We provide tables and chairs. Banners are allowed, subject to space availability.
You are responsible for taking payments, so consider how you will handle credit cards, checks, cash, and other forms of payment.
A small parking lot is located west of the Fusion54 building. Street parking is also available. An elevator is located in the lobby.
As a reader
The Hoosier Author Fair moved to Fusion54 (101 W. Main Street) in 2019 as a result of outgrowing our meeting space in the Carriage House Interpretive Center of the museum. The Fusion54 location allows for better social distancing, in addition to being more convenient to downtown Crawfordsville.
Each author is responsible for taking payments, so readers should bring cash as well as credit cards.
A small parking lot is located west of the Fusion54 building. Street parking is also available. An elevator is located in the lobby.
2024 Authors
The following authors attended the 2024 Hoosier Author Fair.
Laura VanArendonk Baugh is an award-winning writer of speculative fiction, mystery, and non-fiction. Her works have earned numerous accolades including praise from Publishers Weekly. Laura enjoys hiking, and chocolate.
Ray E. Boomhower is senior editor at the Indiana Historical Society Press, where he serves as editor of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. He has written extensively about Indiana history. His books include Indiana Originals: Hoosier Heroes and Heroines; The Sword and the Pen: A Life of Lew Wallace; and To Be Hoosiers: Historic Stories of Character and Fortitude.
Agata Izabela Brewer was born and raised in Poland. A teacher, a mother, an activist for immigrant rights, she is Professor of English at Wabash College. Her creative writing has appeared in Guernica and Entropy. The Hunger Book is her first book of creative nonfiction set in communist Poland and contemporary Montgomery County, Indiana.
Josh A. Brewer studies part time with Harvard University (DCE) and currently serves as visiting faculty at Purdue University. He has taught writing at the University of Miami, University of South Carolina, Tennessee State, and Aquinas College. His work appears in Harvard Review, RHINO, Poetry Quarterly, Southeast Review, and Poets Against War, as well as other fine venues. He published a book, Writers Resist, with Chatter House Press (2017).
Tony Brewer is a poet and audio artist from Bloomington, Indiana. He is executive director of the Spoken Word Stage at the 4th Street Festival and co-producer of the Writers Guild Spoken Word Series. He has published 8 books, including Homunculus, and Pity for Sale. Tony has been offering Poetry on Demand at coffeehouses, museums, churches, bars, and festivals for over a decade, and is a frequent collaborator with experimental music & field recording collective Urban Deer.
David Brown is an Electrical Engineer by education, a software developer by profession, and an author by choice. David grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN but moved to Indiana for college. He is a writer of Christian Fiction and Fantasy with his books The Omega Gambit, En Passant, and The Paladin.
Stephanie A. Cain writes epic & urban fantasy novels. She grew up in Indiana, where much of her urban fantasy is set. Her books include the Storms in Amethir series, the Circle City Magic urban fantasy set in Indianapolis, and several anthologies. She will also be selling copies of New Richmond, IN: A History of the Greatest Little Town on Earth, by her grandmother, Phyllis Waye Boone.
James Graham retired after thirty years working for an automobile manufacturer and began to chase his passion for writing. Active in his church, Graham has written two Christian historical fiction books McDougal’s Glen and Parson Booker, and Riding the Circuit. His website thehoosierwordsmith.com has nearly 500 of his poems and short stories available.
Jason Hendrickson has been a designer, art director, and illustrator for over thirty years. A rural Crawfordsville native, Jason grew up surrounded by books to keep him company. His art interests led to illustrating several children’s books, as
well as the creation of his own work, BOOK! and The
Legacy Drawer.
Ethan Hollander is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Wabash College. He is the creator of the 24-lecture series on Wondrium (Formerly Great Courses) called Democracy and Its Alternatives, which looks at the future of democracy, not just in the United States, but globally. Ethan’s work strives to bridge the gap between academic disciplines to better understand our world.
Shannon Sullivan Hudson is a middle school by day, and a diligent historian by night. She is passionate about local Indiana history and has produced several books on Crawfordsville history including The Legend of the Legendary League: A History of the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, and To Remember the Forgotten School: Lincoln School for Colored Children Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Garrett Hutson writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction, driven by characters who are moving and unforgettable. He lives in Indianapolis with his husband, three adorable dogs, one odd-ball cat, and more fish than you can count. You can usually find him reading about history,
and daydreaming about
being there.
Krystina K. Leganza uses her Ph. D. in mathematics from Notre Dame to teach the problem-solving skills to children with her book M is for Math. She has taught at the University level in Indiana for more than thirty years, living in Carmel with her husband and two rescue dogs.
David J. Marsh came to belief as a child and grew up steeped in biblical narratives. His mother read to him and his father was a pastor as well as a student of both theology and biblical languages. His debut novel, The Confessions of Adam, a re-telling of the universal and dramatic narrative that opens the book of Genesis, was a 2020 Oregon Christian Writers Cascade Award finalist and a 2021 Illumination Award medalist.
James Pauley Jr. has been jet-setting around the world as a flight attendant since 1978. His book Bumpy Rides and Soft Landings follows his life, one meaningful adventure at a time. His writing style is uniquely humorous, poignant, sarcastic, self-deprecating, honest, and mildly outrageous, saying things exactly as he sees it.
Katie Andrews Potter is a poet and novelist. She writes for the young and young-at-heart, drawing from her inspiration from nature and the people of the past. Her books range from fairy tales to family history. A lifelong Hoosier, she has written a children’s picture book about an Indiana Pioneer ancestor, as well as novels inspired by Indiana literary legends Gene Stratton-Porter and James Whitcomb Riley.
M. K. Scott is the husband and wife writing team behind the cozy mystery series, The Painted Lady Inn Mysteries, The Talking Dog Detective Agency, The Way Over the Hill Gang, and The Tenacious Librarian series. Morgan K. Wyatt is the wordsmith, while husband Scott is the grammar hammer and physics specialist.
Kelly O’Dell Stanley is a graphic designer who writes. Or maybe a writer who also designs. She is the author of Praying Upside Down and Designed to Pray. She’s received awards from the NAHB, Public Relations Society of America, the Webby Competition, and Art Directors Club of Indiana. Kelly’s writing awards include first place in Inspirational Writing in the 2013 Writer’s Digest competition and a finalist in the Cascade Oregon Christian Writers Contest in 2017.
Sarah Styf is a high school English teacher who lives in Hancock County where she enjoys writing, running, and camping with her family. She is the author travel memoirs Embracing the Journey, and The Life I Never Knew
I Wanted.
Larry Sweazy is the author of nineteen novels and one short story collection, including Lost Mountain Pass, The Broken Bow, and Where I Can See You. His western fiction and mystery thriller writing has earned him two Spur Awards, four Will Rogers Medallion Awards, and the West Willa Award. He lives in Noblesville, Indiana.
Stephen Terrell is a retired Indiana attorney with a passion for writing. He has written three novels, numerous short stories, and is a columnist for the American Bar Association’s Experience Magazine. His historical true crime book The Madness of John Terrel: Revenge and Insanity on Trial in the Heartland was just released in late October.
Jamie Ward is the author behind Cornfields and High Heels, a travel and lifestyle site dedicated to sharing travel and adventures. Her books 100 Things to Do In Indiana Before You Die and Midwest Road Trip Adventures show her love of travel and experience, especially in Indiana.
Why an Author Fair?
The Beginning of the Golden Age
Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, published in 1880, is generally credited with initiating the Golden Age of Indiana Literature. Ben-Hur sold more copies than any other printed work in the 19th century with the exception of the Bible.
All in all, the Golden Age lasted into the 1920s and spawned hundreds of titles. Two novels by Hoosier Booth Tarkington won the Pulitzer Prize. Writers like Meredith Nicholson, Gene Stratton-Porter, Maurice Thompson, James Whitcomb Riley, and Lew and Susan Wallace became defining voices of Midwestern culture to the rest of the world.
A Continued Legacy
Although the Golden Age began to wane in the years following World War I, Hoosier writers continued to have an impact in the publishing industry throughout the 20th century with writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Jessamyn West, John Green, and James Alexander Thom.
Today, dozens of authors make Indiana their home. Every Small Business Saturday, as part of Crawfordsville Main Street’s Downtown Party Night, we invite some of those authors to sell and sign books and visit with readers.