Non-Fiction

WORKS OF NON-FICTION

As Editor

Checkmate
By AnnaLisa Grant with Nick Fullen-Collins & Randy Holcomb

Vesuvian Books | ISBN 978-1944109769 | September 2021

Based on a true story, Checkmate chronicles the rise and fall of one of the most successful drug kingpins to ever run the streets of Chicago, as told by a former Chicago PD Detective.
Despite growing up in the projects of Chicago's West Side in the 1960s, Richard "Rico" Townsend believed he was destined for greatness. By the 1980s, his greatness would lie in becoming the most successful drug lord Chicago had ever seen. Sexy, brilliant, and shrewd, Rico was a cunning businessman. Every move he made was carefully orchestrated, mirroring his favorite game of strategy—chess. It wasn't until Aja walked into his life that Rico realized he wanted something else. He wanted love and a family, and he was ready to leave the empire he built behind … if it wasn't too late. A modern-day Robin Hood to some, whose best friend was a Chicago PD Detective, Rico built an illegal empire the Feds couldn't infiltrate—or so he thought.

Defending a Serial Killer: The Right to Counsel
By Jim Potts

Vesuvian Books | ISBN 978-1645480358 | May 2021

The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States guarantee the right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent, and the right to counsel.

A crime wave swept California in the late 1970s. Several young girls were abducted, raped, and murdered. Michael Dee Mattson was convicted of these crimes and sentenced to death.

In 1982, Jim Potts—a brilliant, idealistic law student—is recruited to assist in writing a death penalty appeal on behalf of a serial killer. Potts discovers a loophole in the case that had been overlooked. One that could not only get Mattson off death row, but once presented to the Supreme Court of California, release him to rape and murder again. When Potts confides in his pregnant wife, she says if Mattson goes free, their marriage is over. But if Potts quits the case, or withholds information, he violates his duty to client and Constitution and risks his career before it even begins.

To avoid losing his family and releasing pure evil back into the world, Potts must be smarter than his options. He must find a way to keep his family together, fulfill his duties, and keep Mattson behind bars. But can he?

Academic Texts

Visual Data Storytelling with Tableau

Pearson Addison Wesley | ISBN 978-0134712833 | May 25, 2018, 1st ed.
*Video companion series available.

Visual Data Storytelling with Tableau brings together knowledge, context, and hands-on skills for telling powerful, actionable data stories with Tableau. This full-color guide shows how to organize data and structure analysis with storytelling in mind, embrace exploration and visual discovery, and articulate findings with rich data, carefully curated visualizations, and skillfully crafted narrative.

Whether you’re an analyst, executive, student, instructor, or journalist, you’ll learn to craft data stories that make an immediate impact--and inspire action.

Educator resources, including sample data sets, lecture notes, and a full curricula kit, are available on the VDS Educator Portal.

The Visual Imperative

Morgan Kaufmann | ISBN 978-0128038444 | March 24, 2016
Visual insights are becoming increasingly dominant in information management, and with the reinvigorated role of data visualization, this imperative is a driving force to creating a visual culture of data discovery. The traditional standards of data visualizations are making way for richer, more robust and more advanced visualizations and new ways of seeing and interacting with data. However, while data visualization is a critical tool to exploring and understanding bigger and more diverse and dynamic data, by understanding and embracing our human hardwiring for visual communication and storytelling and properly incorporating key design principles and evolving best practices, we take the next step forward to transform data visualizations from tools into unique visual information assets.

Academic Chapters

Directory of Academic Publications

Ryan, L., Diaz, E., & Grow, A. (2021, Accepted). Women in computer science and engineering: A transformational leadership approach to gender equity. Women in Leadership Journal.

Ryan, L., Silver, D., Laramee, R., & Purdue, D. (2019). Teaching data visualization as a skill. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, (39)2, 95-103.

Ryan, L., & Gratale, G. (2017). Using visual analytics to combat cyberbullying in New Jersey Schools. Proceedings from the 80th Annual Association for Information Sciences and Technology. Washington, DC.

Ryan, L. (2013). Leading change through creative destruction: How Netflix’s self-destruction strategy created its own market [published master’s thesis]. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 7(4), 429-445.