Rabbit House Press
About Rabbit House Press
It is our vision with Rabbit House Press to create a publishing company with uncompromising integrity. Setting the highest standards in both content and aesthetics, the objective is to share unique works that promise enduring appeal. We will forever remain passionate about evocative stories which are uniquely American, celebrating the glorious quilt of disparate characters that make up the fabric of our country. It is our pleasure to connect writers with their readers.
Our Authors
Frances Strickler
Hardly A Lady is Frances Strickler’s second novel dealing with the broad range of Kentucky history.
Frances holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kentucky as well as a minor in history. She also has a master’s degree in Counselor Education from Western Kentucky University and additional graduate hours in psychology and counseling. Strickler is licensed in mental health counseling in the state of Kentucky.
In addition to writing, Frances teaches yoga and mental health/yoga workshops to both adult students and other teachers.
Benjamin Rue Silliman
Benjamin Rue Silliman (he/him/his) is a professor of accountancy in the Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University in New York City and is the department chairperson.
Originally from Kentucky, Benjamin is a Kentucky Colonel. He resides in Manhattan with his husband.
Laura Chester
Laura Chester, the Pied Piper of Poetry, has been writing since she was ten. And now, many years later, here we go again! With a remarkable affinity for children and animals, her youthful spirit is embedded in the zany poems of Spooning With Mojo, a book for all who are forever young, for kids and adults who still want to have fun. This keepsake of delights will soon become an heirloom on your forever bookshelf.
Phil Knoll
With a cornucopia of divergent styles, Phil Knoll's artwork evolves from the same trueblue heart. Fearlessly stylish, and consistently heartfelt, his vision takes us back to the fresh-eyed wisdom of our earliest years. Beauty is the supreme goal. His one wish is to make the Museum of the World a more sensitive place in which to live.
Jonelle Fisher
Jonelle Jones Fisher was born in Lyon County, Kentucky, in the summer of 1933. She moved with her family to Louisville when she was twelve years old and graduated from the University of Louisville in 1954. She and her husband married in 1956 just after his sophomore year in medical school. When his training was completed, they moved with their two children to a small town in Central Kentucky where he began his practice of General Medicine.
Mark Compton
Mark Daniel Compton was born in Sumter and raised in Camden, SC. He spent his early years going to
weddings, funerals, church and family reunions. His grandparents spoiled him with the beauty of the
Carolina low country and its culture. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre and Speech from the
University of South Carolina, Columbia, a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Tourism Development and a MFA in
Fine Art with a focus on Time-Based Media and Graphic Design from East Tennessee State University. He
has written, produced, acted and directed in both stage and screen. His photography has been shown at
the Reese Museum. Beginning in 2007, he has taught various Humanities courses in higher education,
including Cinema for the Tennessee Consortium for International Study in Edinburgh, Scotland, and
English for AB Tech at Craggy Rock Prison in Asheville, NC. Mark has lived from Miami to Seattle and
many places in between; currently he lives with his partner in Columbia, SC.
Bob Rouse
A proud native son of Midway, Kentucky, Bob has published a collection of hometown holiday stories, Christmas in the Bluegrass, as well as a pandemic project, Backyard Poetry: Reflections on a ho-hum 2020. He holds degrees from Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky. Bob resides just outside of Midway with his wife, Mary Beth. Their sons, Steele and Clay, both live nearby with their loved ones.
Palmer Tolly
PALMER TOLLY is a retired Psychotherapist with a Master of Arts Degree in Psychology.
Her musical achievements as a composer and performer won her an international award from the Native American Music Awards of New York, 2018, for the CD Dreamwalker Suite by People of the Star Orchestra. She is also the Assistant Director of the Metropolitan Contemporary Jazz Orchestra.
She constantly strives to bring an awareness of humanity through her creativity of music and literature, which also includes her publication of Chronicles of Two Wolves: A Path to Heart Spirit through Rabbit House Press.
In her twenty years as a Licensed Clinical Professional counselor in Illinois, Palmer presented workshops at universities and colleges on various topics of wellness in the Chicago region. Often joined by Chief Joseph Big Feather Schallmo, of the Two Feathers Medicine Clan, they imparted knowledge from both the traditional and the Indigenous modalities for healing heart and spirit.
James Riordan
James Riordan is the author of The New York Times Bestseller Break on Through, Riordan’s biography of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison, named as one of the Ten All-Time Best Rock Biographies by Amazon.com.
Riordan’s The Platinum Rainbow was called “One of the best how-to books ever written” by the Los Angeles Daily News and “The ultimate career book on the music industry” by Recording, Engineer & Producer. Critics described Riordan’s The Bishop of Rwanda as “one of the most important books you’ll ever read” and The Coming of the Walrus, Riordan’s novel about the 60’s as “the definitive book on the era” and “a hilarious tale of a harrowing search for the greatest truth of all”.
Riordan became one of America’s premier rock journalists with articles reaching millions of readers including those of Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Circus, Musician, and newspapers like The Chicago Daily News, The Kansas City Star, and many others. The guide to “succeeding in the music business without selling your soul” was praised by Variety, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Las Vegas Sun, The Minneapolis Tribune, Billboard, Record World, and many more.
The Platinum Rainbow became an industry-wide phenomenon and interviews with James Riordan were aired on over 1200 radio stations and numerous television talk shows. Riordan collaborated with Pulitzer Prize winner Jason Miller on a mini-series for network television, The Irish, and a movie of the week for CBS, Bless Me Father. He has written several screenplays since including John Horse which won
Best Screenplay at the San Antonio Film Festival in 2018.
Kyle Alvey
Kyle Robert Alvey is an educator and writer living in Greenup County, KY. After earning a Bachelors in English degree from the University of Kentucky, he earned
MA degrees in English and Secondary Teaching. He is currently working on a Master of Arts in History degree at Marshall University. Kyle typically writes fantasy, science fiction, and realistic fiction short stories, but has recently become involved in writing about Appalachian life, Kentucky culture and history, and rural realities through poetry, essays, short fiction, and long-form fiction.
Janet Holloway
Award-winning Kentucky-based author and entrepreneur, Janet Holloway, is pleased to release her third book, Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, following publication of two previous memoirs, A Willful Child (2012) and Leaving: Sometimes You Have to Leave (2017). Holloway is published in Business Lexington, Silver Threads, Cake & Whiskey, Appalachian Heritage, and Glimmer Train.
Holloway grew up in southwest West Virginia and Meadow View, Virginia. She has a B.A. from Marshall University, an MSW from the State University of New York, and is ABD from Columbia University. Holloway’s talents are apparent in the dizzying array of work she has done in her lifetime, ranging from high school Spanish and English teacher in Michigan, theatre production in NYC, public relations for renowned theatre producer Jean Dalrymple, and youth worker in East Harlem.
Holloway moved to Lexington, KY, to become state director of the KY Small Business Development Center network. In 1990, Holloway founded Women Leading KY, a non-profit that provides leadership opportunities and scholarships for women attending Kentucky colleges and universities. She lives in Lexington, KY, with her Cavalier spaniel, Sadie, and serves on the boards of the Carnegie Center and Arts Connect.
Robin Lippincott
Robin Lippincott has published four novels—In the Meantime, Our Arcadia, Mr. Dalloway, and Rufus + Syd (a YA novel co-written with Julia Watts), as well as a collection of short stories, The 'I' Rejected. His short fiction, essays, poems, and book reviews have appeared in over 40 journals, including The Paris Review, Fence, American Short Fiction, Provincetown Arts, Diode, and many others. For ten years, he wrote reviews of mostly art and photography books for The New York Times Book Review. He has held fellowships at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. He lives outside Brattleboro, Vermont, and teaches in the MFA Program of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University.
Michael Blumenthal
Michael Blumenthal is a celebrated poet, essayist and novelist who spent a decade as the Briggs-Copland lecturer in poetry at Harvard University before becoming the director of their Creative Writing program. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Water Mark Poets of North America First Book Prize, Juniper Prize and Isabella Steward Gardner Prize, he lived in Budapest Hungary from 1992-1996 as senior Fulbright lecturer. Blumenthal’s novel, Weinstock Among the Dying won the Ribalow Prize for Best Work of Jewish Fiction.
Kay Long Roberts
Kay Long Roberts grew up on a farm in Union County, KY and is a registered nurse and nurse educator. At the age of thirteen she announced that when she was a grownup she would write and publish a book. She went on to publish a doctoral dissertation with fifty peer reviewed health research articles and has written many grant applications for health research. She received her MFA from Spalding University and has written several profiles of older women from an underserved neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky. However, she still did not feel as if she was a writer. One day she listened to her soul, picked up a pen and wrote Stream. Stream is an ode to the rhythm of nature and speaks to the core of the human soul. Kay helps us discover, or remember, our spiritual connection to nature and nourish the core of who we are as humans living on this good earth. It is her hope that Stream will inspire us to join her in seeking sustenance from nature and doing our part to protect nature for those who will come after us.
Bruce Lewis
“Bruce Lewis is a masterful jazz/blues/folk guitarist whose pursuit of his muse took him from the central Kentucky tobacco farm of his boyhood all the way to Budapest, a vibrant center of art, music, fashion, and entertainment, where he remained for almost two decades, and launched a legendary career, playing clubs, music halls, and festivals all over Europe. Now back in Kentucky, he has distilled that experience in fictional form in a fine, wide-ranging novel, Joshua Fragmented, which chronicles the adventures of itinerant performer and luckless citizen of the world, Joshua Celeste. To read it is to join him on that poignant odyssey, and thereby to treat oneself to a terrific ride.”
Ed McClanahan- Novelist
Mike Wilson
Mike Wilson’s work has appeared in magazines including Cagibi Literary Journal, Stoneboat, The Aurorean, The Ocotillo Review, London Reader, and in anthologies including for a better world 2020 and Anthology of Appalachian Writers Vol. X. He received Kentucky State Poetry Society’s Chaffin/Kash Prize in 2019. He resides in Lexington, Kentucky, but summers in Ecstasy and winters in Despair.
Pamela Dae
Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Pamela Dae received degrees in English Literature and Journalism from Indiana University. She graduated with a J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law and has worked as a federal criminal defense practitioner for nearly two decades. Pamela has been published in AvantAppalachia and Nowhere Magazine. After the Race is her first novel.
Nancy Royden
With more than twenty years of full-time newspaper and substantial online media experience, Nancy Royden earned her bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Georgetown College in Kentucky. Her writing has been published by The Associated Press, Texas Highway Patrol Magazine, JET magazine, South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Times, Nu Magazine of Austin and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her photo credits include The Baltimore Sun, The Huffington Post, NBC4 (Washington, D.C.) and Kentucky Living. Her volunteer photography encompasses Latinitas Austin, The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and the Ward Hall Foundation. A native of Ashland, Kentucky, Nancy has traveled extensively, living in Germany for five years and residing in Texas, Alabama, Maryland, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Nancy lives and works in Frankfort, Kentucky with her husband and cats, regularly posting nature and architectural photos on social media. She is the proud mother of Ian Riddle, a college student in Maryland.
Kevin Lane Dearinger
Kevin Lane Dearinger enjoyed a professional acting career that took him to Broadway, on national and international tours, and to many regional stages. He retired from performance and from his second career as an educator, returning to live and write in Kentucky. He is the author of The Bard in the Bluegrass, Marie Prescott, a “Star of Some Distinction,” Clyde Fitch and the American Theatre, and several plays, including Regarding Mrs. Carter and Naked on Request. He is currently working on a new play, two theatrical biographies, and a volume of poetry.
Erin Chandler
Erin Chandler is an author, teacher and publisher from Versailles, Kentucky. With twenty years’ experience as a playwright, actress and producer in Los Angeles she returned home to further her literary interests, getting a Master’s degree at the University of Kentucky with a focus on playwriting and an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. She teaches memoir for the Carnegie Center and is a Mentor for their Author Academy. Her publishing company Rabbit House Press releases new works from writers all over the country celebrating the diverse fabric of our American experience. Her memoir June Bug Versus Hurricane and collection of essays, Cinderella Sweeping Up garnered critical acclaim from Kentucky luminary, Silas House and celebrated author, Leslie Jordan among others.
Sara Don Shaver
An army brat who moved around her entire life experiencing different states and countries and cultures, Sara Don Shaver bartended in casual and fine dining establishments in downtown Savannah, Georgia among others. Dogs a constant during her travels, she became a certified dog trainer and when these two passions came together, she came together with Rabbit House Press to create this fun gift bag/bar and coffee table book Unleashed Libations: Canines and Cocktails. Mix up, train up and drink responsibly!
Find her book at unleashedlibations.com
Denise Lutz
As diverse as her Motor City birthplace, Denise Lutz brings her observations of eclectic mortals to life through the zany characters in her novels. From the thoroughbred racetrack to the Lexington show ring, her rolling stone career has taken her from advertising and filmmaking to the corporate automotive world, always with her love of horses, cars, flying machines and earthly philanthropic causes.
Elizabeth Beck
B. Elizabeth Beck is a poet who writes fiction. Her fifth collection of poetry, Dancing on the Page, will be published by Rabbit House Press in 2024. Swan Songs, her debut collection of short stories, will be published by Accents Publishing, also in 2024. She is the author of the Summer Tour Trilogy. Her work appears in journals and anthologies, including Poetica Magazine, Appalachian Review, Limestone Blue, and Harvard Education Press. Elizabeth is the founder of two poetry series: Teen Howl and Poetry at the /ˈtā-bəl/ in Lexington, Kentucky. For more information about Elizabeth: www.elizbeck.com
Our Team
Erin Chandler
Founder and Editor of Rabbit House Press
Erin Chandler is an author, playwright, actress, and creative writing professor. Her memoir, June Bug Versus Hurricane, was released in 2017 and Cinderella Sweeping Up: A Collection of Essays was released in 2019.
Erin worked professionally in the entertainment industry for over twenty years in Los Angeles. Film and television credits include Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel, Dead Husbands, Chicago Hope, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This led her to producing independent film and theatre, winning awards such as Best Actress Dramalogue Award for In the Boom Boom Room and Best Ensemble, Best Script at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival for Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel with Leslie Jordan.
Upon returning to Kentucky in 2015, Erin attended graduate school at Spalding University, receiving her MFA in Creative Writing and turning her attention to a literary life. As it was a pleasure to find great material, talent, and a venue to create special theatrical events, she decided to apply the same principle to books. Rabbit House Press was born of a passion for sharing the voices of authors who might otherwise not have been heard, helping them create beautiful books to put out in the world.
Erin currently teaches Memoir and Playwrighting at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky. Her new book of non-fiction, (working title) Bluegrass Sons, is based on her father, Dan Chandler, a Las Vegas casino executive, and her uncle, Bradley Bryant. The book is set in the 1970s and early 80s, a time when their lives intersected with Brad’s work as a CIA operative and drug smuggler for the infamous Chagra family from El Paso, Texas. A companion podcast is in the works with award-winning documentarian, Evan Mascagni and Peabody-winning podcast producers, journalists Sean Cannon and Heather Schroering.
Mark Thomas
CEO
Mark Thomas returned to Kentucky after living in Washington, DC, for twenty years. There, he worked for seven years at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery. He then turned his attention to the hotel, bar, and restaurant industry in Dupont Circle where he created inviting
atmospheres alongside world-renowned chefs such as Jose Andres and Gregory Hill. His love of art, travel, history (and his wife Erin Chandler) partnered with his education in English literature made him a natural fit for participation in the small publishing industry.
Mark Thomas
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Mark Thomas returned to Kentucky after living in Washington, DC, for twenty years. There, he worked for seven years at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery. He then turned his attention to the hotel, bar, and restaurant industry in Dupont Circle where he created inviting
atmospheres alongside world-renowned chefs such as Jose Andres and Gregory Hill. His love of art, travel, history (and his wife Erin Chandler) partnered with his education in English literature made him a natural fit for participation in the small publishing industry.
Emily Wilhoit
Partner, Author Liason
Emily Wilhoit is a Versailles native and is very excited to rejoin her colleagues at Rabbit House Press as an editor and author liaison!
Emily's education, training, and career path have been in ER/community health nursing since 1989. She has cultivated a parallel career in community, public, and commercial radio in addition to her clinical experience for as many years.
Her journey as a broadcaster began in 1988, doing 3 consecutive internships in copywriting, news, and production at 98.1FM WKQQ from January 1988 to December 1988 before changing majors from journalism to nursing. Apart from her clinical experience, she played "week-end broadcaster" at 88.1FM, WRFL, and ultimately 95.7FM, WLXL—creating, programming, producing, and hosting shows around talk, trivia, comedy, and women's health issues. Emily has even dabbled in sports announcing, doing a stint as the first female park announcer at the Kentucky Wild Health Field for the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes professional baseball team for the South Atlantic League in 2021.
Taking her love of community and her life's first career of nursing and combining them, she co-founded Friends For Skateparks, doing health and wellness research for new skate/action sports installations in the city of Lexington.
When Emily is not setting the world on fire, she is at home, content to make delicious meals with her chef husband, Pat Wilhoit, and doting on their 3 kids, 2 grandbabies, and 2
impossible, wonderful cats! Currently, Emily works as a news/talk radio announcer and producer at 97.3FM WVLK, Lexington.
Brooke Lee
Book Designer
Brooke Lee, is a book designer, editor, writer, creative consultant, and media/web designer. She grew up in Lexington, KY, and has been a lover of all things musical and literary since childhood, writing and designing her first book at the age of ten. It was her grandmother and great-grandmother, both teachers, who initially taught her to appreciate quality literature. Formally involved in the making of newspapers and books since serving as the managing editor of her high school newspaper, Brooke has been assisting writers with self-publishing since 2009. She is passionate about working with authors in a collaborative manner, helping to create pathways to success to bring forth the best version of their written and visual work. Services include book design and formatting (both eBook and print versions), editing (proofreading, line by line, copy, and developmental), author platform creation, including social media accounts and Amazon Author profile, one-sheets and press release creation, website design, and search engine optimization. In her spare time Brooke enjoys literature, music, art, her grandchild and fur babies, and spending time with loved ones exploring the beauty of nature.
Kristin Minter
Marketing and Author Liaison
Kristin Minter is a thirty-year veteran of the Arts. An accomplished photographer, and screenwriter, she made her acting debut on The Outsiders television series, later starring in Cool As Ice, Home Alone, ER, Friends With Money, and Ray Donovan, to name a few credits. After several creative collaborations with Rabbit House Press founder, Erin Chandler, Kristin decided to join the team. With her knowledge of the written word along with her experience championing all walks of life, Kristin was a natural at a small press to be an author liaison and help cultivate a community of authentic and enlightening writers.
