Speakers

I live and write in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and I like to explore the different ways that humans – and sometimes animals and insects – live and work together.

 

I especially enjoy creating characters who make their dreams come true through ingenuity, grit, and determination. Readers of my debut novel, Queen Bee, will be delighted to learn that it is the first in a trilogy that will follow the adventures of Manuka, a determined young honeybee, and her friends.

 

Sometimes people ask me about my influences. Like any writer, I’ve been influenced by everything I’ve read from the time I was a small child up until the present. However, for Queen Bee, I was influenced by a few key works:

 

—Watership Down – Richard Adams (1972)

—The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien (1965)

—The Last Unicorn – Peter S. Beagle (1937)

—Wind and the Willows – Kenneth Grahame (1908)

—Fantastic Mr. Fox – Roald Dahl (1970)

Melanie Taylor, granddaughter of Ted Everingham and Distinguished Young Woman of Michigan 2018, tells of her time in Mobile, Alabama for the 62nd annual Distinquished Young Woman scholarship program's national finals.  Melanie returned to Mobile a year after completing as an ambassador for the program, affectionately dubbed a "Has-Been."  She will be speaking on her experience, including a meal with the Sunrise Rotary of Mobile County.

To address the alarming trend in chronic disease, Beaumont is partnering with key community stakeholders to improve health one community at a time.

Healthy Communities is a place-based initiative that encourages residents to lead healthier lives - and provides resources to help. Its integrated framework coordinates primary healthcare, public health and community interventions; and emphasizes a shared responsibility for community health, while encouraging residents to take active roles in their own health.

Each Healthy Community is a partnership between Beaumont, the city’s mayor and the city’s public school superintendent. Individual Healthy Communities feature formalized coalitions with membership including residents and representatives of local government, schools, business, health care, social service, faith based and other community organizations. Coalition members work collaboratively to optimize the reach of existing programs; and support development of new programs, events and land use that promote healthy living in their community.

Four guiding principles drive strategies for improvements within Healthy Communities:

• Address community health needs through partnerships.
• Implement large scale interventions in multiple settings.
• Reach diverse population groups in order to promote health equity.
• Make interventions sustainable.

The Healthy Communities philosophy maintains that sustainable change must come from the ground up. Because each community has its own distinct culture and resources, coalition members develop programs and strategies to fit the unique needs and assets of their own community. The coordinated, collective impact approach taken by each coalition allows individual members to have a greater influence on the health of their community than they would achieve by acting individually.

A Healthy Communities Leadership Coalition was also launched in early 2015 to bring together leaders from all sectors committed to driving health improvement forward in Wayne County. Through goals and strategies that synchronize initiatives and resources, the coalition strives to have the greatest impact on health and wellness in our communities through collective impact.