Mark your calendar for the Inaugural Clinton Community College Author Showcase on Wednesday, April 24, 2019. The event will begin at Noon – 2:00 p.m. in the CCC Library, 1000 Lincoln Blvd., Clinton. The showcase will consist of readings from the authors, Q & A opportunity, book signings and sales. Light refreshments will be served.
Each of the authors participating in the Clinton Community College Author Showcase is associated with the college. The topics range from history to biography to wellness, something for everyone!
Steven D. Barleen earned a PhD in history from Northern Illinois University. He currently teaches at Clinton Community College in Clinton, Iowa. His primary historical focus is labor history, and he has published articles in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, the Journal Labor History and others. Most of his published works relate to the tavern, the prohibition movement, and working-class issues. In 2014 he was awarded the Harry E. Pratt Memorial Award for Outstanding Scholarly Publications in Illinois History for an article about mining communities. At the end of May 2019 he has a book coming out called The Tavern: A Social History of Drinking and Conviviality, published by Greenwood Press. It examines the significance of the tavern in American society from the arrival of the first English colonists to the present. He is currently working on an article about the anti-saloon preacher Billy Sunday and a book about working-class resistance to the prohibition movement.
Penny Plautz is a transformational coach who helps people turn an ordinary life into an extraordinary one by practicing what she calls Everyday Alchemy. She is also an ACE Certified fitness instructor, certified eating psychology coach, and creativity coach. She has published a blog, Midlife MacGyver, since 2011 that explores the stories of a lifetime, one blog post at a time. To support her writing habit, Penny is the facilitator at CCC Maquoketa Center where she advises students, oversees operations, and teaches CE classes on health and wellness.
Aleda Doran is a Thomson, Illinois native. A minister, a great grandmother, a “chef” part-time, and an author. I love to travel, often wandering about the world on my own when no one else wants to join me. I have 56 things on my bucket list and have completed 54 of them. I am currently in training to run the bases at Wrigley Field (just have to figure out how to get past the security and onto the field….they let the kids but not us old folks for fear of heart attacks, I think), and in June I plan of skydiving on my 71st birthday. I probably should do the Cubs thing first in case the skydiving doesn’t pan out as planned. I want to leave this work with a bang. I admit to my addiction of being a chocoholic. I love to dance, and I am not allowed to sing in public. Some days I wear my crown to school just so the kids know just whom they are dealing with but also bake them chocolate chip cookies (144 dozen last school year). That is pretty much me, in a nutshell (no pun intended).
Margo Hansen has a degree in Horticulture from Iowa State University and currently serves as the Director of Programs at CCC/ Bickelhaupt Arboretum in Clinton Iowa. Having grown up on an Iowa dairy farm in the 1960’s and 1970’s Margo wanted to document a lifestyle which will soon be lost through modern technology. Her short stories portray a life lived outdoors tending to the livestock and helping plant and harvest the crops on the family farm. These stories are guaranteed to spark some of your own childhood memories.
Ginger Busby shares the challenges of being a foster/kinship caregiver. The exasperation that comes from it. It is her hope that legislative change will come from the book on a family law level as well as mental health. It is also Ginger hope to restart her “Family gathering” ministry. That would offer help for caregivers, such as house projects, finding community resources, respite and much more. Author Ginger Busby graduated from Clinton Community College in 2007. During her time at CCC she was a student Ambassador and lobbied at the Capitol for more community college funding. That experience sparked a desire to be a change agent for families and provided a learning experience that was life changing because of CCC commitment to community.
Molly Lyle Brown, M. S. Ed., an expert in learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism and behavior disorders, has used her knowledge to make life easier for classroom and special education teachers. Her publications have included such titles as The Behavior Disorder Companion, The LD Teacher’s IEP Companion, and 100 Activities for Transition. Molly has also used her love of writing, reading, and kids in general to write two books Literature in Bloom, where she discovered she can write short stories, and EEEs Into Writing. Molly retires this year from over 15 years of teaching composition, literature, and education courses at Clinton Community College. One of her main aspirations upon retirement is to write a children’s book.
For more information, contact at 563-244-7001.
