Elizabeth Huntoon Coursen (Liz) grew up bouncing between Brunswick, Maine, and Sarasota, Florida. In Sarasota she attended Southside and Pine View schools, and played tennis on the Sarasota High tennis team. She graduated from Brunswick High School, where she was number one on the tennis team for two years.

 

Liz graduated from Emory University in 1981 with a BA in English literature. She put herself through college by starting a lawn care service, and played on the ice hockey team as the only girl all four years.

 

A self-described serial entrepreneur, Liz got her first taste of entrepreneurship in sixth grade, when she sold Christmas ornaments of her own design and manufacture door-to-door in her Sarasota neighborhood. Over the years Liz has owned companies that sold imported linens, imported Italian terra cotta, and large diamonds.

 

Liz owned a landscape construction company in Atlanta through 1999, and had numerous projects featured in local magazines. Besides putting herself through college and publishing four books (so far!), Liz says her most memorable accomplishment was playing an instrumental role in catching a career criminal, a man wanted by the FBI and Secret Service in seven states. In recognition of her assistance, the U.S. Marshals Service flew her from Tampa to Kansas City to watch him get sentenced. The FBI, impressed by her dogged persistence, invited her to apply to the FBI academy, but, alas, she had missed the age cut-off for new applicants.

 

Liz is the author of Brunswick and Bowdoin College (Arcadia Press, 2009) and The Complete Biography Workbook (FirstPersonPublications.com). Her third book, Self-Editing for the Self-Published Author, was published in January of 2012. Liz’s fourth book and first ebook, The Book Tourist: Seven Steps to a Wildly Successful Book Tour, was published on Amazon.com in July of 2012; a print edition became published in February 2013. Her fifth book, Having Fun, Wish You Were Here! An Illustrated History of the Postcard in Florida, is due out in April 2013.

 

Liz enjoys gardening and is active in local animal rescue efforts. She recently started a 6000+ volume library in the Salvation Army homeless shelter with donations gathered from libraries and private individuals all over Florida.

 

Liz also owns AmericanPostcardArt.com, an online art business that has been featured in over sixty newspapers and magazines, including Entrepreneur magazine (twice), Town & Country magazine, and Southern Living magazine, no fewer than five times.