authors – permissions

Check http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

Or search for a plugin for more flexibility.

Look in Dashboard – Under Users and if you are the Admin you can change what any user can do by editing any user – click on a user and change their roll – then change them back when you get back in town –

You can upgrade your Authors to Editors

In looking at the Roles and Capabilities Page

page it looks like you could tweak an Author to be able to add approve comments and publish posts for Authors but how to is above my understanding of WordPress