American Book Review - Ann Weisgarber, Nov. 4  ̶  Weisgarber has been fascinated by the gritty spirit of pioneer homesteaders ever since her first childhood trip to the American West. After graduating from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, she was a social worker in a psychiatric hospital before moving to Houston with her husband. She earned a master’s degree in sociology at the University of Houston and taught high school and then sociology at a junior college. Inspired by a cookstove in a South Dakota sod dugout and a photograph of an unnamed woman, she spent seven years writing “The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.” Ann has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa, but now splits her time between Sugar Land and Galveston . She is working on her next novel, a story about the 1900 Galveston hurricane.  For more information about the UHV/ABR Reading Series, call ABR Managing Editor Charles Alcorn at 361-570-4100 or go to www.americanbookreview.org.