Friday, July 15
Intensive Writing Workshops:
Ralph McInerny
Lucy Rosenthal
Harriette Austin Writing Program
| Schedule of Events |
Manuscript Evaluations | HAWC Bookstore |
| Fees, Lodging | Registration |
|
| |
|
|||
|
||||
| |
||||
Manuscript samples submitted for evaluation must be in our
offices byJune 20, 2005 |
|
|
Silent Auction
To benefit the Athens-Clarke Literacy Council programs in support of adult literacy. |
| The University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education Athens, Georgia |
Harriette Austin Writers Athens, Georgia |
Visitors
Scott Bard is Publisher and President of Longstreet Press. Founded in 1988, Longstreet Press has been known as the South’s preeminent publisher and one of the country’s leading independent publishers in its brief history. They publish approximately 15 books a year and have more than 400 titles in print, including the New York Times bestseller No Such Thing as A Bad Day by former White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan. Other Longstreet favorites include several comedic bestsellers by famed Southern humorist, Lewis Grizzard, as well as the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Bowden Way: Fifty Years of Leadership Wisdom by renowned Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden.
Manuscript Evaluations: Nonfiction, sports, biography, novels, cookbooks, self-help, art books, personal investment, and business materials.
Bobbie Christmas, a book editor (sometimes called a book doctor), has worked in communications and publications for more than 30 years. Her first book, Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), won First Place in the Royal Palm Literary Awards. Bobbie's “Ask the Book Doctor” column appears in a dozen newsletters and Websites for writers, and her latest book, Ask the Book Doctor: How to Beat the Competition and Sell Your Writing just hit the market. http://www.zebraeditor.com/.
Session topic: "Ask the Book Doctor: How to Beat the Competition" For more than ten years, book editor Bobbie Christmas has written a column called “Ask the Book Doctor” for periodicals and Web sites for writers. Her newest book, Ask the Book Doctor: How to Beat the Competition and Sell Your Writing, features hundreds of those questions and answers. In this session, she picks the top eight questions from her book and gives you her answers.
Manuscript Evaluations: Nonfiction, short stories, essays, fiction with the exception of fantasy and romance, and business materials.
Judy Long is Editor in Chief of Hill Street Press, a publishing company in Athens, Georgia whose editorial goals are to present the best in new writing from the South and to revive and restore to print southern classics. Hill Street publishes literary fiction, women's fiction, nonfiction, mystery, and food writing--especially anything with a southern flavor.
Manuscript Evaluations: Literary fiction, women's fiction, mystery, non-fiction. Especially anything with a Southern flavor.
Brian Seidman is the managing editor, including acquisitions, for NewSouth Books (www.newsouthbooks.com) in Montgomery, AL. He is a former editor of Oxford Magazine, and an alumnus of New York University and the Miami University Graduate Creative Writing program. He has been at times a newspaper reporter, a bookseller, and an English teacher, and has worked with the Virginia Barber Literary Agency, DC Comics, and Sesame Street Workshop.
Manuscript Evaluations: Fiction with Southern settings or themes of Southern social issues and culture, and nonfiction regarding Southern history, memoir, and civil rights, African-American and Native American topics, and other books of literary merit.
Debbie Carter's agency, Mysterious Content, is listed in the Literary Market Place and at PubishersMarketplace.com. Prior to starting her own agency in 1998, Ms. Carter trained with an AAR literary agent, and worked in the record business as a talent scout and in artist management. She has a BA in English and music from NYU. As an independent literary agent, Ms. Carter focuses on editorial development, and the sale and administration of print, performance and foreign rights to literary works. Ms. Carter seeks storytellers from all walks of life with a strong sense of narrative and drama -- writers committed to the art of narrative. This reflects her long-time interest as a reader of fiction with literary merit and narrative nonfiction.
Manuscript Evaluations: Mysteries with literary merit, Thrillers, Suspense, Espionage, Crime fiction, Action/adventure, Military fiction w/ sci-fi elements, Contemporary fiction (excl. romance and sci-fi and fantasy category fiction), Literary fiction and short story collections, Escapist fiction, Children's picture book middle-grade and YA fiction and nonfiction. Special call: Novels and mysteries for young people by junior high and high school teachers. Narrative nonfiction: memoir travel sports outdoors gardening music and writing (please query other subjects).
Session topic: "The Writer's Game: Finding a place in an ever-changing book world"
Session topic: "The Exploding Kids' Market for Novels: An open door" Editors are looking for new writers for tweens and teens.In addition to numerous award-winning articles, short stories and poetry written for children and adults, Barbara Casey is the author of two award-winning contemporary adult novels of fiction, SHYLA’S INITIATIVE (Independent Publishers Book Award and also an award of special literary recognition by the Palm Beach County Cultural Council), and THE COACH'S WIFE (Publishers Best Seller and Semi-finalist of the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel). She is also the author of two middle-grade novels, LEILANI ZAN and GRANDMA JOCK AND CHRISTABELLE, both nominated for awards of excellence by the National Association of University Women Literary Award, the Golden Kite Award, and the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award.
Ms. Casey has participated as guest author and panelist of BookFest of the Palm Beaches; and for the past thirteen years, she has served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Florida.
Ms. Casey has a manuscript editing and evaluation service; is the publisher of Publishers Update, a bimonthly directory of children’s publishers and literary agents; and is president of her own literary agency. She represents children’s as well as adult material, fiction and nonfiction. Her professional associations include being editorial consultant for The Jamaican Writers Circle in affiliation with the University of West Indies and Mico Teachers College in Kingston and former Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She also received special recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of Albanian children’s stories.
She lives in Wellington, Florida, with her husband, Al, and her six-pound Seraphim Maltese named Hemingway.
Manuscript Evaluations: A variety of children and adult; fiction, nonfiction, poetry.
Session topic: "You Want an Agent—Now What?" Literary agent, editor, author, Barbara Casey discusses key elements in finding the right agent and the working relationship that follows. She will outline proper procedures necessary in a good author/agent relationship, what to expect from an agent, and working with an agent in marketing a book once it has been published.
Rachel
Vater
Rachel Vater joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2003. Prior to working for the agency, she was an editor with Writer’s Digest Books in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is currently the editor of The Agents Directory, an annual guidebook for writers published by Emmis Books. She is actively building a client list, especially on the lookout for chick lit, sf and fantasy novels, thrillers and mysteries. She is also interested in handling mainstream and literary novels and true-to-life young adult novels.
The Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York, founded in 1980, represents more than 100 fiction writers and sells more than 100 novels per year to top publishers in America and overseas. Recently they have obtained six- and seven-figure advances from publishers such as Warner, Ballantine, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Harcourt Brace, Penguin Canada and others for authors like mystery writer Anne Perry, thriller writer Gregg Keizer, historical novelist Jack Whyte and science fiction writers Diane Duane and Todd McCaffrey. Donald Maass is himself the author of fourteen pseudonymous novels and of the books The Career Novelist (Heineman, 1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (Writers Digest Press, 2001) and the forthcoming Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (Writers Digest Press, 2004). He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. (AAR).
Manuscript Evaluations: Ms. Vater will evaluate chick lit, sf and fantasy novels, thrillers and mysteries. She is also interested in mainstream and literary novels and true-to-life young adult novels.
Session topic: "Beyond the Basics: 7 Advanced Novel Writing Techniques" With focus on heightening stakes, charging important scenes with emotion (creating special moments), building tension, keeping it visual, crafting subtle language, making characters more winsome, and polishing prose in the final draft.
Cherry Weiner
Cherry Weiner (Agent) was born in Australia, but has lived in the US since 1972. She began her career as an assistant to a well-known New York agent. When she left there, she had not intended to continue as an agent, but a number of authors "insisted" that she continue to represent them, and then began sending new writers to her. Thus, the Cherry Weiner Literary Agency was formed. That was in 1977. She has been very successful. She was named Agent of the Year in 1997 and again in 2000 by the WordCraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers. The last two years she has averaged selling a book every 4 working days.
Manuscript Evaluations: Ms. Weiner handles most adult fiction, and young adult science fiction and fantasy lines. She does not handle poetry, very young children's books or picture books, and it takes a special hook to interest her in non-fiction. (But, she has sold non-fiction books on golf, and Native American Tribes, so …).
Session topic: "What Do You Want To Know?" Open free wheeling question and answer and discussion session with Cherry Weiner.
Lynn Whittaker is a literary agent with Graybill & English in Washington, DC for seven years, representing primarily mysteries, literary fiction, nature writing, sports, and history. She has worked with books and other publications throughout her career, after earning a master’s in English and beginning work toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Georgia. In addition to freelance editing of numerous books, she has served as director of publications for three nonprofit associations, an editor of two scholarly journals, executive director of a research center at Harvard University, and publisher and editor-in-chief of an independent trade press, which published books on history and women’s issues. She has taught editing and writing at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Georgia; served as president of both the Washington chapter of the Women’s National Book Association and Washington Book Publishers; done freelance editing and writing for such clients as the Washington Post, U.S.News & World Report, and the Commissioner of the Ivy League; and coauthored two books on women’s history. Among her clients are mystery novelists Sarah Stewart Taylor and Judy Clemens, both nominees (in different years) for Agatha Awards; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McGregor Burns; best selling pet how-to writer Susan McCullough; and sports writer and cohost of ESPN’s popular “Pardon the Interruption” (PTI) Michael Wilbon, whose coauthored book with Charles Barkley, Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man? is currently climbing the best selling charts.
Manuscript Evaluations: Mysteries, literary fiction, nature writing, sports, history, memoirs, how-to in business and health. No children’s/young adult, romance, sci-fi, poetry, plays.
Session topic: "Publishing 101: What Writers Need to Know about the Way the Book Publishing World Works" An overview of book publishing, including different kinds of presses and how they operate; how agents work; when you need an agent; ins and outs of self-publishing; etc. There will be time for questions and answers. Handouts will be provided.
Session topic: "Writing
Effective Query Letters" This session will review the purpose
of query letters and what they can and can’t do for you; provide
advice on what to send and when and how; and discuss common mistakes
writers make in query letters and how to avoid them. There will be time
for questions and answers. Handouts will be provided.
Marika Flatt
Marika Flatt launched PR by the Book in 2002, combining her love of the media and public relations. After garnering experience with her own cable television show, her college newspaper and TV station, and the NBC affiliate in Dallas, Flatt spent seven years with Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists. Most recently, she was the director of the publisher services division, managing key publicity campaigns and serving as the company’s spokesperson. Flatt is a regular speaker at conferences around the country, educating audiences on topics related to publicity and overall promotion tactics.
Flatt was awarded a 2004 Gold Bulldog Award for her publicity campaign for Revolve: The Complete New Testament (a Bible for teen girls that looks like a fashion magazine). The award, given by Infocom Group, is for a publicity campaign that she orchestrated on behalf of Nelson Bibles (a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers). This publicity campaign was key in making Revolve the best-selling Bible for 2003 after exposure in over 700 media outlets.
In 2003-2004, Flatt served as the president of the Austin chapter of the Association for Women in Communications (AWC). Flatt is the recipient of the 2002 Anne D. Robinson Creative Initiative Award and a nominee for the 2004 Profiles in Power Award. A cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University and a tri-athlete, she lives with her husband and two young children in Austin, Texas.
Session topic: "Vital Book Publicity: You Can't Succeed Without It" The time to think about book publicity is before you write the first page. But if you’re past that point, you still need to attend this MUST HAVE workshop on publicizing and promoting you and your book. Marika Flatt, owner of PR by the Book, will offer advice and tips on outlining a successful publicity campaign, which includes strategy, back-door approaches, building relationships and tips on getting in front of the media. After this presentation, you’ll understand why publicity is a vital investment in your book as a product. You will receive hands-on training and come away with handouts, references and a plan of action.
Session topic: "Media Training: Getting the Most Bang for Your Buck" You can get on hundreds of shows, even the Today Show, but if you don’t know what to expect and what to say to sell books, it is a waste of time and energy. Seasoned media trainer and former television host, Marika Flatt, owner of PR by the Book, will teach you everything you need to know to perform a successful interview for print, radio or television. Learn key concepts and deliver a powerful interview like the professionals, whereby getting asked back on shows and selling more books.
Instantly recognizable by millions of devoted viewers for over 30 years as "Johnny the weatherman," the winner of two Emmys, John Beckman has been a writer since his teen years. He has published fiction in The New American Review, O' Georgia and the Habitat for Humanity Christmas Book. His non-fiction has appeared in numerous newspaper articles and editorials, in Modern Aviation and Nam magazines, and he served as a monthly contributing editor to Southern Distinction magazine. John understands from first hand experience, the frustration and disappointment of rejection form letters. He knows what it's like to work a year on a piece and get as his "pay" a copy of the magazine that published it.
When he left TV he went back to college to learn web site design. And after freelancing commercial work for awhile, he realized that there were virtually no web builder companies that devote their time to developing professional looking, accessible, user friendly web sites for writers - at the lowest reasonable cost. That's when he established Webbeck (www.webbeck.com), a web site design company that puts first time and beginning writers at the top of the list for good, clean, innovative web sites.
Session topic: "The Internet and Writers, A Perfect Combination." Why the Internet is the perfect place to sell your work and your talent. How much does an author web site cost? Can I get a free web site? (Yes, you can.) What are the ten best things a web site will do for you? (And what it won't do.) Why should you have your own web site? (Maybe you shouldn't). Who is out there to scam you out of what little money a writer makes? Get the straight answers to these, and more questions from an Internet Professional Web Site designer. !!Notice!! Some lucky door prize winner at Johnny's session will receive a free web site for a year donated by Johnny from Webbeck.com!
*Congratulations to Beverly Connor* winner of a 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award in Mystery & Suspense from the Romantic Times BOOKClub magazine!!
Beverly
Connor is the author of the Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery series and
the Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation. Her
novels in the Lindsay Chamberlain Series are: A
Rumor of Bones, Questionable
Remains, Dressed
To Die, Skeleton
Crew, and Airtight
Case. The first two books in the Diane Fallon forensic investigation
series, One
Grave Too Many and Dead
Guilty, were in the Top 10 on national mystery
bestseller lists in the U.S. and Canada. Dead
Secret, her third book in the Diane Fallon series, is scheduled
for release in December 2005 from Penguin-Putnam. Her
books are available through all major bookstores in the North America.
Five of her titles have been translated into Dutch and are available
in countries of the European Union. Before she began her writing career,
Beverly worked in the Southeastern United States as an archaeologist.
She weaves her professional experiences as an archaeologist and her
knowledge of the South into interlinked stories of the past and present.
Friday Session topic: "Making
Setting Come Alive" How to integrate research in your
writing to make your setting come alive and be as memorable as your
characters.
If you find a fresh, newly dead corpse, you call in a pathologist. But if it’s a skeleton in a ditch, charred remains in a burned-out automobile, or bone fragments in a wood chipper, you call someone like Emily Craig, Ph.D., the forensic anthropologist for the state of Kentucky (the only such full-time state position in the nation). In her intriguing memoir Teasing Secrets from the Dead : My Investigations at America's Most Infamous Crime Scenes, (Crown 2004), which grew out of a meeting with her future agent at the Harriette Austin Writers Conference, Craig proves yet again that real life is much more compelling than anything you see on CSI or Cold Case Files.
While forensic anthropology is getting a lot of attention these days, there are only sixty board-certified practitioners in North America; of them, Craig is known as one of the best. Her background is unique: for fifteen years she worked as a medical illustrator, translating the intricacies of bones and joints into sketches and sculpture. When the police asked her to create a facial approximation using the skull of an unidentified corpse, she was hooked. At the age of 44, she went back to school to initiate her dramatic midlife career change.
Session topic: "Forensic Anthropology: From The Field to The Courtroom" In her session, Craig will present and discuss:
- The amazing things that bones can tell us about who someone was, how death occurred, and sometimes even what the victim looked like.
- Her work on high-profile cases including being a key member of the team that discovered and analyzed the fatal gunshot wounds in the Branch Davidians in Waco; she helped identify victims of the Waco incident, the Oklahoma City bombing, and at the NY World Trade Center attack. One of her more recent cases was the Noble, Georgia, crematory site.
- Her work in-the-field in remote areas of Eastern Kentucky. Crime scenes here include abandoned coal mines, marijuana fields, steep mountain ridges and raging rivers. These venues provide colorful and informative material to Dr. Craig's presentations.
- How she keeps her humanity and compassion in a job that exposes her to so much cruelty and suffering.
- Where shows like CSI get it right, and where they get it wrong.
- Exciting new developments in the world of crime-scene
investigation.
Wes DeMott
As an FBI agent, Wes DeMott worked undercover and served on the SWAT team. Today he writes thrillers about the government and military, and satisfies his adventure addiction by surfing in hurricanes and raising teenage daughters. His books have been recommended by Nelson DeMille, Robert Ludlum and veterans' groups, and have appeared on several Best Fiction lists. His new techno-thriller about a military school for assassins, Heat Sync, will be published in June.
Session topic: "From FBI Agent to Novelist: Turning Scars Into Fiction" Knives, broken bottles, divorce, deaths, crashes, fists, and explosions are the scars endured by characters in thrillers, by members of law enforcement and criminals alike. Do the war-wounds and struggles of your life offer dramatic scenes for your books? Wes talks about his own experiences and how personal trauma can become material for your writing.
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey was born in Dallas, Texas,
not far from the
home of her maternal grandmother, whose life inspired her first novel
A Woman of Independent Means.
She graduated from Hollins College (now Hollins University) in Roanoke, Virginia, after having spent a year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. During the summers while attending college, she worked as a reporter on her hometown paper The Dallas Morning News where she met her husband-to-be Oliver Hailey. They married in 1960 and moved to New Haven where she worked as an editorial assistant at the Yale University Press while he attended the Yale Drama School. They then moved to New York where his plays were produced on and off Broadway and finally to Los Angeles where they produced two daughters, Kendall and Brooke, and worked as a team writing for film and television (most memorably as creative consultants for the classic soap-opera parody "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman").
At the age of forty Ms. Hailey published her first novel A Woman of Independent Means. She later adapted it for the stage as a one-woman play starring Barbara Rush which toured the country following its Broadway debut. In l995 it became a six-hour miniseries for NBC starring Sally Field (with her daughter Brooke playing the granddaughter Betsy) and can currently be seen on the Lifetime Network.
Her other best-selling novels include Life Sentences, Joana's Husband and David's Wife (which she adapted for the stage as a two-character play co-starring her daughter Kendall) and Home Free.
She lives in Studio City, California, and when she is not writing or traveling, she works as a community activist for causes promoting peace and justice.
Session topic: "Writing One's Life" Novelist and playwright Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey will explore the continuing intersections between life and art in her own work and discuss techniques for transforming raw autobiographical facts into compelling drama and fiction. She will reflect on the contemporary issues that led to her own emergence as a writer and the challenges common to all artists.
Judy Iakovou collaborates with her husband, Takis, on the Nick and Julia Lambros mystery series, set in a restaurant in a Georgia college town. She is presently working on a new series set in the ethnic communities of New York at the turn of the twentieth century, and relies on her research, as well as her considerable experience with her "very ethnic" family, to create accurate characterization. When not writing, she helps her husband in their real life restaurant and teaches in the English department at the University of Georgia.
Friday Session topic: "Old, Ethnic and Offbeat: Characters Who Challenge The Writer" Writers are always advised to make their characters interesting and memorable. "Make him ethnic" or "Give her a disability" is advice fraught with peril, unless. . . . This session will include a discussion of general methods of characterization, with a special focus on creating historical, ethnic, disabled and offbeat characters who are believable, engaging, and most importantly, realistic. Research methods and suggested resources for writers facing challenging characters will be included.
Don Keith was born in Alabama and has lived in the South all his life. He attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa where he received his degree in broadcast and film with a minor in English and literature. While working as a broadcast journalist, he won awards from the Associated Press and United Press International for news writing and reporting. He was also the first winner of Troy State University's Hector Award for innovation in broadcast journalism. As a radio host, Don won the Billboard Magazine "Radio Personality of the Year" in two formats, country and contemporary. Keith was a broadcast personality for over twenty years in Birmingham and Nashville, and also owned his own consultancy, co-owned a Mobile, Alabama, radio station, and hosted and produced several nationally syndicated radio shows.
His first novel, The Forever Season (St. Martins Press, 1995) received commercial and critical success. It called heavily on Keith's own athletic and academic experiences in telling the story of a true scholar/athlete. Reviewers praised its unique approach and powerful story. It won the Alabama Library Association's "Fiction of the Year" award in 1997 and was re-issued in the fall of 2002 by the University of Alabama Press as part of its prestigious Deep South Books series. His second novel, "Wizard of the Wind," was based on Keith's years in broadcasting. As was the first book, the second work was published under the imprint of widely praised New York editor Robert Wyatt as A Wyatt Book for St. Martin's Press. Keith next released a series of young adult/men's adventure novels co-written with Kent Wright. They are set in stock car racing and titled The Rolling Thunder Stock Car Racing Series. The works are being released in paperback by Tor Books, as audio books by Durkin-Hayes Publishing, and in hardback by Econo-Clad Books. Don's next novel, a thriller co-written with former nuclear submarine commander George Wallace, Final Bearing, was released by Forge Books of New York City in April 2003. A mass-market paperback edition is now available from Forge. Keith's first non-fiction work, Gallant Lady, the true story of a remarkable World War II submarine, the USS Archerfish, written with the significant help of former Archerfish crew member Ken Henry, was published by Forge Books in June 2004. The Associated Press called the book "moving and worthwhile reading."
Don's upcoming work, In the Course of Duty, tells the story of the amazing accomplishment of another World War II submarine, and also spins the tale of how that sub came to rest today in a bean field in Muskogee, Oklahoma...in the middle of the dust bowl. It will be published in October 2005 by Penguin Putnam.
Keith lives in Indian Springs Village, Alabama, with his wife, Charlene.
Session topic: "The Seven Fatal Mistakes Most New Writers Make" Many...if not MOST...talented, hard-working writers are doomed to never see their works in print. Or, if they do, they are never heard from again after the first book. There are some basic reasons why so many writers fail and go quietly into the night. It's difficult enough to succeed, to have a long publishing career and a following of readers, even if a writer does everything the correct way. Interested in lowering the odds against you? Here are seven common mistakes that could doom a writing career before it ever gets started.
John McCormack, DVM - has taught at veterinary colleges at Auburn University, Louisiana State University, University of California-Davis, and the University of Georgia. His specialty is farm animal practice.
Dr. McCormack's latest novel, Hero of the Herd (1999), like his two previous novels, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. His first hardback, Fields and Pastures New, My First Year As a Country Vet (Crown 1995) was selected by Reader's Digest and published in condensed version in August 1995. It was an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Conservative Club, and is available on tape from Audio Renaissance. A production company in Hollywood has purchased an option on this book, with plans for a movie, perhaps a series. His second hardback, A Friend of the Flock, Tales of a Country Vet (Crown 1997) was selected by Doubleday as a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate, and is available on tape from Audio Renaissance.
Dr. McCormack has presented seminars and humorous after dinner talks at numerous local, state, regional, national and international meetings. His Saturday After Dinner Speaker topic: "The Importance of Humor and Laughter in Writing and in Life"
Ralph McInerny holds degrees from the St.Paul Seminary, University of Minnesota and Laval University. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1955, and since 1978 he has been the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies. For seven years he was director of the Medieval Institute; since 1979 he has been director of the Jacques Maritain Center. A specialist in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, he has written and edited 22 books about Thomistic and other medieval philosophies, including Aquinas and Analogy, The Question of Christian Ethics, Aquinas on Human Action and the Penguin Classic, Thomas Aquinas Selected Writing. In addition, he has written more than 60 novels, including the well-known Father Dowling mysteries, the most recent of which is Triple Pursuit (2001), the Andrew Broom mysteries, the Sister Mary Teresa mysteries and a series of mysteries set at the University of Notre Dame, the most recent of which is Emerald Aisle (2001). Blood Ties (St. Martins, July 2005), book 24 in the Father Dowling Series, will appear this summer.
He has served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, The Metaphysical Society, the American Maritain Society and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He has been visiting professor at nearly a dozen universities and is the recipient of various fellowships, honors and awards, among them the Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement award. He is a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His Gifford Lectures, delivered in Glasgow in 1999-2000, were published under the title Characters in Search of Their Author (2001).
President Bush in January 2002 appointed professor McInerny to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The committee, established by an executive order in 1982, is charged with advancing public understanding of the arts and the humanities and forming new partnerships between the private sector and federal agencies to address critical issues in cultural life. First lady Laura Bush was the honorary chair of the committee.
Dr. McInerny is active in assisting struggling writers through his commercial writing courses, his work with the Elder Hostel, and his many workshops and presentations.
Keynote Speech: "The Mystery Of Fiction" Is the mystery and other popular fiction radically different from what we call literature or located on a spectrum with it...I will argue on behalf of the second.
Intensive Workshops:
A Day With Ralph McInerny: Writing
the Mystery Novel On Friday, July 15, by special
registration, participants can experience a six-hour long restricted
admission interactive workshop with Ralph McInerny. The workshop schedule
will consist of a three-hour morning session, lunch with Dr. McInerny,
and a three hour afternoon session.
Click here to
learn more.
Cathy Pickens, a former trial attorney, is a college professor with a passion for crime history. Her technical legal articles include poisons, private detectives, corporate wrong-doing, a Prozac-popping spree killer, and a serial poisoner/physician. She is a founding board member of the Mecklenburg Forensic Medicine program, dedicated to training first responders in crime scene evidence collection. Her first mystery novel, Southern Fried, won St. Martin’s Press 2003 award for Best New Traditional Mystery.
Session topic: "Where CSI Ends . . . Crimes and Chroniclers" Science has dramatically changed everything about crime investigation—except human nature. And fiction writers have long blurred the line between fact and fiction, their writing inspired by true tales of crime. The Richmond murders that inspired Patricia Cornwell's first novel; the trials Erle Stanley Gardner covered as a pre-Court TV commentator; the real-life Psycho; the crime lab creator inspired by Sherlock Holmes; Edna Buchanan’s Miami crime reports: these and other classic tales explore the "why" of crime, the startling parallels to more recent crimes—real and fictional—and make us long as DeQuincey did for "murder as one of the fine arts."
Peter Reinhart, a widely respected leader in the culinary world, is best known for his artisanal bread expertise. In 1986, Peter founded the award winning Brother Juniper’s Bakery in Santa Rosa, California, with his wife, Susan. He is the first “Chef on Assignment” at Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, having taught at the university’s Providence campus the previous four years. For the five years prior to teaching at Johnson and Wales, Peter was a full-time instructor at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
In November 2003, Peter’s sixth book was published, American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza. He is currently developing a PBS series based on the book, scheduled for fall 2005.
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Peter’s fifth book, was released in November 2001. It was the winner of both the James Beard and IACP Cookbook of the Year awards, as well as the International Gourmand Award for Best Baking Book in the World.
Peter is also the author of Bread Upon the Waters: A Pilgrimage Toward Self Discovery and Spiritual Truth (Perseus Books, 2000); Crust & Crumb: Master Formulas For Serious Bread Bakers (Ten Speed Press, 1998); Sacramental Magic In a Small Town Café: Recipes and Stories From Brother Juniper’s Café (1994); and Brother Juniper’s Bread Book: Slow Rise As Method and Metaphor (1991, both from Perseus Publishing). Crust and Crumb was also named the James Beard Best Baking and Desserts Book of 1998. A newly revised and updated Brother Juniper’s Bread Book will be reissued in fall of 2005 from Running Press.
Peter has been regularly interviewed on national television and radio, including CNN, All Things Considered on National Public Radio, Here and Now and The Connection on WBUR (NPR), and was a frequent guest on The Mike and Maty Show (ABC). He was a featured chef instructor on the PBS series Global Cuisine From The California Culinary Academy, and also on Master Class from Johnson & Wales (airing in April, 2002), as well as guest chef on the PBS series Mollie Katzen Cooking. Recently, Peter also was featured on Follow That Pizza with Gordon Elliott on The Food Network. In addition, Peter has been interviewed and profiled in Pastry Arts Magazine, and Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines. Peter was the regular food commentator on One Union Station, on National Public Radio’s WRNI, as well as a guest commentator for the op-ed page of the Providence Journal.
Peter’s writings have appeared in Gastronomica, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Food & Wine, Johnson & Wales Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tastes and Trends, Fine Cooking, Bon Appetit, Epiphany Journal and The Whole Earth Review, among others.
Peter speaks regularly to both culinary and business groups on the topic of bread, and food in general, as a metaphor for personal transformation and self-discovery, and on the growing artisan bread and pizza renaissance. Peter was the keynote speaker in November 2003 at the First National Bread Summit and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Wheat Symposium in November 2004, and at the 2004 Professional Association of Innkeepers International Conference.
As a bread expert, Peter won the 1996 James Beard Foundation’s National Bread Competition for his “Wild Yeast Country Bread,” featured in Crust and Crumb.
Peter has taught many entertaining and educational one-day seminars in locations such as Draeger’s Cooking School in Menlo Park, Napa Valley Community College in St. Helena, The Ahwahnee Chef’s Series in Yosemite, The Book and The Cook in Philadelphia, Santa Rosa Junior College, Sur la Table (nationwide), Ramekins (Sonoma), the Viking Culinary Centers, The Central Market Culinary Centers (all 5 locations), and The Peter Kump Cooking School in NYC (now known as the I.C.E.).
Peter also has developed a line of frozen gourmet pizzas, calzones, toaster snacks and bagels for Amy’s Kitchen, the nation’s largest producer of organic, vegetarian frozen entrées. The pizzas were the overwhelming hit at the Natural Foods Product Show in Baltimore, Maryland, and entered the marketplace in December 1996.
In the fall of 2004, Peter began development of his own line of branded products. Plans include sauces, salad dressings, healthy baked products, and nutritional soft drinks.
Peter is on the Chef’s Council of The Center for Culinary Development, is a consulting product developer for The California Culinary Development Group, a founding Board member of Raphael House (San Francisco’s first family shelter) served four years on the Board of Directors for the IACP, and is on the Advisory Board of the Bread Bakers Guild of America.
Session: "How To Write a Best Selling Cookbook" Every good cook thinks about writing a cook book, and most cooks have at least one great subject just waiting to burst onto the page, but aren't sure how to bring it forth. But what are the odds of getting it published? What are publishers looking for, what are the do's and don'ts, and how does a cookbook author establish a unique voice in this overcrowded genre? Then, even if you get it published (or self published) will it sell? What are the qualities that readers look for in making their decision from among the numerous cook book options? Peter Reinhart, author of the acclaimed, The Bread Bakers Apprentice (which swept all the Cook Book of the Year awards in 2002), will address these and many other questions to help you write a best selling cookbook.
Ronda Rich
Ronda Rich, a former sportswriter, is an eleventh-generation Southerner who truly believes that charm disarms. She is the author of the best-selling What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should). In her weekly syndicated column, “Dixie Divas,” she writes humorously and poignantly about the South and its women. Her debute novel, THE TOWN THAT CAME A-COURTIN’ (Berkley Hardcover; May 2005) is a love letter to the South, based on Ronda’s own experience signing books at That Bookstore in Blytheville, Arkansas. With every book she signed that day, Ronda heard raves about the single mayor who apparently all the locals loved. After a day of good-natured conspiring and friendly pressure from the residents of Blytheville, Ronda agreed to go on a date with the mayor, and the idea for her first novel was born. Also in May 2005, Perigee is excited to publish Ronda’s follow up to What Southern Women Know, WHAT SOUTHERN WOMEN KNOW ABOUT FLIRTING.
Session topic: "Turning Real Life Into Fiction"
Session topic: "The Art of Marketing Yourself To An Agent, Publisher and Consumer" An idea or manuscript must be marketable to sell an agent on representing you and then to make it feasible for a publisher to buy. Ronda will show you how to find the angles that will make both the writer and the project marketable.
Lucy Rosenthal is a member of the faculty of the nationally recognized Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College where she teaches graduate and undergraduate workshops in the art and craft of writing fiction. Ms. Rosenthal received her B.A., University of Michigan. M.S., Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. M.F.A., Yale School of Drama. Fiction writer, critic, editor, playwright; author of the novel The Ticket Out and editor of the anthologies Great American Love Stories and World Treasury of Love Stories; reviews and articles published in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune Book World, Ms., Saturday Review, The New York Times Book Review and Michigan Quarterly Review; plays produced at Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center, Waterford, Connecticut; recipient, Pulitzer Fellowship in Critical Writing; served on Book-of-the-Month Club's Editorial Board of judges and as the Club's Senior Editorial Advisor.
Intensive Workshops:
A Day With Lucy Rosenthal: Fiction Writing
Workshop. On Friday, July 15, by special registration, participants
can experience a six-hour long restricted admission interactive workshop
with best selling author Lucy Rosenthal. The workshop schedule will
consist of a three-hour morning session, lunch with Ms. Rosenthal, and
a three hour afternoon session.
Click here
to learn more.
Diane Trap
Diane Trap is a past winner of the Mystery category of the Authorlink New Authors Writing Competition. She is published in the New American Review and the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and is a reference librarian at the University of Georgia Libraries. Diane is absolutely the best in the use of telling detail in your narrative writing.
Friday Session topic: "Sensual Shorthand: The Art of the Telling Detail" Description and attribution that keep your writing speeding along, and not slow it down.
Alumni of the Harriette
Austin Writers Conference
Who Have Come Back As New Authors This Year
Session: Success Stories New authors discuss their experiences with agents, editors, and what they have learned in becoming published.
Jackie Brooks - Jackie
was born in Washington D.C., raised in Arlington, Virginia, and educated
in the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains. Her interest in mysteries
started at a young age with the Nancy Drew series. "I remember
my mother giving me $1.04 each week so I could ride my bike over to
the local department store and buy a new book. I wouldn't stop reading
until I'd finished the book. Then I would proudly place it in its rightful
numerical place amongst the rest of the series. That's probably where
my compulsion for series began.
Being the youngest of three girls, her sisters will tell you she's always gotten away with murder. Maybe she finally has. Her first book, Paradise Prey, is the first in a series of mysteries taking place in the Florida Panhandle.
Prior to writing mysteries, Jackie wrote freelance articles, as well as newsletters and promotional materials for newspapers and non-profit associations. Her background includes work in public relations, marketing, fund-raising, event planning, photography, television production, commercials and voiceovers.
Anne B. Jones
- is the author of Gold
Thunder, an autobiography of 1960 NASCAR Champion Rex White,
and STOP, a manual for youth violence prevention. Gold
Thunder was recently released by McFarland Publishers and is stocked
in historical centers, speedway and museum gifts shops, NASCAR memorabilia
shops, and traditional venues. McFarland reports sells are going well.
STOP was published and released by the Atlanta Council on Battered
Women, distributed nationwide, and included as part of the television
documentary Behind Closed Doors, narrated by Monica Kaufman of Atlanta’s
Channel 2 News Team. Dr. Jones has published over 500 feature articles
on topics ranging from travel destinations to personality profiles and
makes frequent presentations at bookstores and writing workshops. She
is currently working on Flat Out and Belly to the Ground: Hysterical
and Historical Tales from the Track, a collection of writings on
motorsports personalities. A high school Social Studies teacher for
thirty-one years, Dr. Jones specialized in working with at-risk students.
She has taught in a variety of school settings, including Job Corp,
Boys and Girls Town (a shelter for status offenders), and Dekalb Alternative
School (an educational center for suspended students). She has been
a volunteer mediator, rape crisis counselor, victim-witness assistant,
volunteer probation officer, writer for a charity clinic, and member
of the Gwinnett County Domestic Violence Task Force.
Bobby Nash has been writing
and drawing comic books for thirteen years. In August 2005, Bobby’s
first novel, Evil Ways hits stores. Comics on stands in 2005
include the Fuzzy Bunnies From Hell graphic novel from Arcana
Studios (www.arcanastudios.com),
Demonslayer: Finale from Avatar Press (www.avatarpress.net),
and Life In The Faster Lane from Hard Line Productions (www.bobbynash.com/ro).
Projects coming soon from Bobby include Shadow One with co-creator
Blake Wilkie (www.bobbynash.com/s1),
Black Terror (with co-creator Blake Wilkie and Jeff Austin),
Yin Yang from Arcana Studios (www.arcanastudios.com),
and much, much more.
Sara Rosett
- an English Lit major, graduated summa cum laude from Texas
Tech University. That's also were she met her future husband, an Air
Force pilot, and they've been on the move ever since, living in central
and southern California, Washington state, Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia.
Hopscotching around the country gave her a checkered resume. Sara worked
as a credit processor, a staff reporter for two Air Force base newspapers,
and a researcher/writer for a travel company. Eventually, she combined
full-time parenting with writing and used her military spouse experiences
as background material for the Mom Zone Mystery series. Sara's writing
appears in several anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Military
Wife's Soul. Kensington Books will publish Moving is Murder
in April 2006. The first of the Mom Zone Mysteries, it features military
spouse and professional organizer Ellie Avery. Please visit Sara's website
at www.sararosett.com.
Dinner Speaker
Saturday, July 16, 7:00 PM
John McCormack
John McCormack, DVM - has taught at veterinary colleges at Auburn University, Louisiana State University, University of California-Davis, and the University of Georgia. His specialty is farm animal practice.
Dr. McCormack's latest novel, Hero of the Herd (1999), like his two previous novels, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. His first hardback, Fields and Pastures New, My First Year As a Country Vet (Crown 1995) was selected by Reader's Digest and published in condensed version in August 1995. It was an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Conservative Club, and is available on tape from Audio Renaissance. A production company in Hollywood has purchased an option on this book, with plans for a movie, perhaps a series. His second hardback, A Friend of the Flock, Tales of a Country Vet (Crown 1997) was selected by Doubleday as a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate, and is available on tape from Audio Renaissance.
Dr. McCormack has presented seminars and humorous after dinner talks at numerous local, state, regional, national and international meetings.Dinner Topic: "The
Importance of Humor and Laughter in Writing and in Life"
Entertainment!
Banish Misfortune
"When Banish Misfortune plays, the only people having more fun than the audience are the folks in the band."
This quote from a patron of Molly O'Sheas' pub sums up the performing style of this eclectic group of Celtic musicians from Athens, Georgia. The group, or maybe orchestra is more appropriate, featuring Julia McPeek and Carl Rapp (fiddle), Doug Yarn (pipes and whistle), Matt Kiritsy (whistle), Julia McDermott Cannon (hammer dulcimer), Tracie Brown (harp), Sandra Haddad (flute), Pat Lyons (guitar), Jack Jones (mandolin and accordion) and Owen Devine (percussion), plays a wide range of Celtic music from slow aires to burn-the-house-down polkas that challenge listeners to stay in their seats. They have recently appeared in venues ranging from the North Georgia Folk Festival, the North Georgia Celtic Festival, the Asheville, North Carolina, Renaissance Faire, and the Harriette Austin Writers Conference. If you love a good time with a bunch of fun-loving Celtic musicians, join us for a night with Banish Misfortune.
Performance: Saturday, July 16, 8:30 PM - Midnight. Bring your dancing shoes.
. . . To contact Banish Misfortune to inquire about
availability for engagements, email Banish Misfortune at banishmis@hotmail.com. Check out their
web site at http://www.banishmisfortune.org.
Tell 'em little Charlie Connor sent ya'.
For more information, contact Dr. Charles Connor.
E-mail cconnor@uga.edu. Harriette
Austin Writing Program, Suite 570, 2351 College Station Rd, Athens GA
30605, Phone 706-743-3810, Fax 413-622-8007.