The 30th AIW Writers Conference
Sponsored by American Independent Writers

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING IN A CHANGING WORLD

The George Washington University
Cafritz Conference Center
Marvin Center Building
800 21st St. N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20052

Saturday, June 13, 2009

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2009 Literary Agents (PDF - 163 KB)
2009 Literary Agents Sign-Up Form (PDF - 14 KB)
Pitching Formula for Success—Do Your Homework

REGISTRATION, Third floor, lobby
7:00 – 9:00 a.m.

AGENT BREAKFAST (Advance reservations only), Third floor, Continental Ballroom
7:30 – 8:30 a.m.

OPENING REMARKS, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
9:00 – 9:10 a.m.

Cecilia Seppis currently serving her second term as president of AIW and was first elected in 2007. An association management consultant and writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland, she joined AIW in 2004, and served as 2007 Conference Co-Chair.  She is also an active volunteer with the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership (ASAE & the Center), where she is currently serving as Vice Chair of the Communication Section Council and is Immediate Past Chair of the Gold Circle Awards program that recognizes excellence in association communications. Cecilia is a member of the ASAE & The Center CenterU faculty, facilitating online courses in component relations, marketing, and leadership. Cecilia writes on a variety of issues related to association management and personal/professional development at Association Puzzle (www.associationpuzzle.typepad.com), the blog she launched in 2005. She received her BA in political science, with an adjunct degree in management, from Webster University in St. Louis, MO. In her spare time, she writes book reviews for Book Launch Café (www.booklaunchcafe.com).

PLENARY SPEECH, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
9:10 – 9:45 a.m.

Michael Shilling is the author of Rock Bottom, a novel recently published by Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company. Michael will be discussing the opportunities online media presents in book promotion, from social networking sites to blogging to podcasts.  His presentation will center around his web site for the book, www.rockbottomnovel.com, in which he created a virtual band web site for Blood Orphans, the band about which Rock Bottom is centered. Among other things, rockbottomnovel.com contains songs, merchandise, band member bios/member illustrations, and a tour blog. A Lecturer at the University of Michigan, where he received his M.F.A. in creative writing, Michael is currently working on a novel that takes place in 1820's England, and which involves several of the characters from Jane Eyre.

BREAK
9:45 – 10:00 a.m.

MORNING AGENTS PITCH SESSIONS, Room 308
10:00 a.m.—12:45 p.m.
There are 15 literary agents signed up for the Agents breakfast, two 10-minute pitch sessions, and the Fiction and Non-fiction Agent Roundtables.  The list to select agents from will be posted on the Web site on Wednesday, April 1, 2009.  It is on a “first come—first served” basis and you can register in advance for the conference to be ranked in the order of your registration.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
10:00 – 11:15 a.m.

FICTION AGENTS ROUNDTABLE, Room 307
What are the hot book topics in 2009? How can you boost your chances of getting an agent to represent your project? Here's a chance to ask four top literary agents who represent fiction everything you ever wanted to know.

Moderator: Paige Wheeler is founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC (Folio). Prior to forming Folio, Wheeler formed Creative Media Agency (CMA) in 1997 and served as its president for nine years until 2006 when she merged the company into her new venture, Folio. Wheeler is interested in representing all commercial fiction and upscale fiction (book club books) as well as women’s fiction, romance (all types), mystery, thrillers, psychological suspense, and young adult. She also represents narrative nonfiction and prescriptive nonfiction, books in which the author has a huge platform and something new to say in a particular area. Other nonfiction areas that interest her are lifestyle, relationship, business, pop culture, popular/trendy reference projects and women’s issues. Over the course of her career, she has worked as an agent in both a literary and entertainment capacity. Before forming Folio and CMA, she began her agenting career with New York-based Artists Agency, Inc. where she worked as a literary and talent agent representing authors, script writers, television producers, and on-camera personalities. Before that she was an editor for Harlequin/Silhouette in New York and Euromoney Publications in London. An active member of Women in Publishing, she served as the organization’s president from 1996 to 1998. Wheeler earned a B.A. from Boston University.

RESEARCH: BESIDES AND BEYOND THE WEB, Room 310
Do we depend on the Web for too much of our research?  What is out there that you can’t get on your screen at your desk?  What other approaches are available and how can you employ them in your work?

Moderator: Lester Reingold has been a freelance writer and editor for more than 30 years, concentrating primarily on aviation and space. He has written for magazines such as Air & Space/Smithsonian, American Heritage and Condé Nast Traveler and newspapers such The Washington Post and USA Today, plus many aerospace trade publications. His first book, a pictorial history of the Wright Brothers’ home town—Dayton, Ohio—was published in 2005. He is a commentator for WAMU and for NPR’s Morning Edition. After the accident that destroyed Space Shuttle Columbia, Reingold served as Lead Editor in the investigation. Since then, he has continued to work as Publications Editor on projects for NASA. His current assignment is with an independent panel established by the White House to assess U.S. space flight plans. A former AIW Board member, Reingold won the 2004 Washington Writing Prize for Reported Nonfiction and was runner-up in the 2003 competition. 

Thomas Mann is a reference specialist in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the Library of Congress.  He is the author of The Oxford Guide to Library Research and Library Research Models, both from Oxford University Press.  Mann also worked as a private detective before joining the Library of Congress.  He has worked with many of our members over the years on a wide variety of research projects.

A specialist on investigations of organized crime since 1974, best-selling author and investigative journalist Dan E. Moldea has published seven nonfiction books:  The Hoffa Wars; The Hunting of Cain:  A True Story of Money, Greed, and Fratricide; Dark Victory:  Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob; Interference:  How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football; The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy:  An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity; Evidence Dismissed:  The Inside Story of the Police Investigation of O.J. Simpson; and A Washington Tragedy:  How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Firestorm.  Moldea, a former president of Washington Independent Writers, is currently at work on his eighth and ninth books. 

BROKEN BONES, BALLISTICS, AND BURNS: TECHNICAL STUFF THAT WRITERS SHOULD GET RIGHT, Room 301

Nothing ejects a reader out of a story faster than fumbled details.  Drawing on his expertise as a firefighter, EMT, safety engineer and explosives safety expert, bestselling author John Gilstrap will give you the lowdown on how bullets behave, what happens when they impact the body, what everybody gets wrong about fires, and other stuff that all writers should know before they start shooting people on the page.  Gilstrap is the New York Times bestselling author of six thrillers, the latest of which, No Mercy will be released on June 27.  His previous books include Six Minutes to Freedom, Scott Free, Even Steven, At All Costs, and Nathan’s Run, four of which were selections of the Literary Guild.  His novels have been translated into more than 20 languages.  John has also adapted four bestselling novels for the big screen: Red Dragon (uncredited) from the Thomas Harris novel, for Dino DeLaurentiis Productions, Word of Honor (from the Nelson DeMille novel, for Dino DeLaurentiis Productions); Young Men and Fire (from the Norman Maclean book, for Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures/Warner Brothers); and Nathan’s Run (from his own novel, also for Warner Brothers).  Last month, he signed on to write the screenplay for Six Minutes to Freedom for Sesso Entertainment.  Gilstrap holds a master’s degree in safety engineering from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree in history from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.   Please visit www.johngilstrap.com.

SPEECHWRITING: TIPS FROM THE TOP, Amphitheater
Whether learning the “nuts and bolts” of writing speeches or how to find work as a free lancer, this session will provide insight into one of the most lucrative fields of writing in Washington, DC.  Following this interactive discussion, you’ll walk away knowing how to:

  • Translate general writing skills into remarks for the ear;
  • Be fearless in helping CEOs improve their presentations;
  • Manage the lion share of the speech process—beyond the keyboard;
  • Capitalize on visual support in a great presentation;
  • Improve structure without sacrificing style;
  • Tackle a wide range of writing assignments; and
  • Leverage a speech to reach beyond those in the room.

Whether you’re ready to write for the CEO or you’re just trying to hone your use of tone, rhythm, and cadence, joins these veteran speechwriters to learn the tricks of the trade.  Or just come by to hear entertaining stories of what it’s like to work in the shadows of power.  Among them:

  • A flopped joke about nude beaches for remarks in Heidelberg;
  • A near-miss at a press conference on missile defense in Moscow; and
  • A heart-warming moment about Washington’s lovely Tidal Basin in the spring.

 Moderator: Acclaimed speechwriter Dr. Rosemary King has written for the Secretary of Defense, two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and corporate executives.  She has taught English at the Air Force Academy and published Border Confluences:  Borderland Narratives from the Mexican War to the Present.

Panelists:
Dr. Stanley Dambroski has written speeches for U.S. government officials at the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and State. He won Cicero Speechwriting Awards in 2007 and 2008. He has taught communications and linguistics courses at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University. 

Tim Hayes is a nationally-known speechwriter who has earned more than 25 awards at the national and regional level for his writing.  His clients include CEOs from Fortune 200 companies, elected officials, professional athletes, and civic leaders.  He is the author of the soon-to-be published book on effective speechwriting, "The Sunrise Sentence," available through Amazon Books.

Neil Mansharamani writes speeches for the Chief Operating Officer and several executives at the Federal Aviation Administration.  He has taught Advanced Public Speaking and Argumentation and Debate, and is pursuing a doctorate in Communication at the University of Maryland.

BREAK
11:15—11:30 a.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
11:30 a.m.—12:45 p.m.

NONFICTION AGENTS ROUNDTABLE, Room 307
No matter what kind of non-fiction you write-- biography, self-help, memoir, pop culture-- it's important to know what's selling and how you can increase your chances of getting an agent. Ask four top literary agents who represent non-fiction everything you ever wanted to know.

Moderator: Regina Ryan is a literary agent, primarily in the adult nonfiction market. Areas of interest include well-written narrative nonfiction, architecture, history, business, natural history (especially birds), science, the environment, women’s issues, parenting, cooking, psychology, health, wellness, diet, fitness, lifestyle, home improvement and design, business, and leisure activities, including sports, travel and gardening. She founded Regina Ryan Publishing Enterprises, an independent literary agency, and 30 years ago. Her clients include Kairol Rosenthal, author of  Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in your 20’s and 30’s; Susan Carrell, author of Escaping Toxic Guilt: Five Proven Steps to Free Yourself from Guilt for Good; David Deardorff, Ph.D. and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with my Plant?   Easy Diagnosis and Natural Remedies, Suzanne von Drachenfels, author of The Art of the Table; Michael Karpin, author of  Tightrope: Six Generations of a Jewish Dynasty; Judith Wurtman, author of The Serotonin Power Diet; Andrea Warren, author of Under Siege: Three Children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg; Edwin Shneidman, author of Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind; and Paul Holinger, author of What Babies Say Before They Can Talk. Before launching her agency, Ryan was editor-in-chief of Macmillan Adult Books, the first woman to hold that position in a major hardcover publishing house. Before that she was an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Ryan is a member of the Women's Media Group, PEN, the Authors Guild, the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR), and the Agents Roundtable. She is a past president and former board member of the American Book Producers Association.

DO’S AND DON’T’S OF WRITERS’ WEB SITES, Amphitheater
Join us for a hands-on workshop on how to create a successful website for your writing business. Discuss how-to’s, pitfalls, and best practices, and lead interactive exercises to help you define a strong Web strategy.

Moderator: Kristen King, M.P.S., is a communications consultant who has been writing and editing for business and publication for more than five years. She launched her first business, Kristen King Freelancing, in 2004 and re-launched it in June of this year as Inkthinker Communications, LLC, which provides a full range of writing, editing, and consulting services. Her website www.kristenkingfreelancing.com was a finalist in the 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest. King currently writes four blogs, two of her own (www.inkthinkerblog.com, named one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers in 2006, and www.meowbarkblog.com) and two for global information network b5media (www.bizchicksrule.com and www.livelywomen.com). She was profiled in the fifth edition of Lucy V. Parker’s How to Start a Home-Based Writing Business (Globe Pequot Press, 2008), and is scheduled to appear in the revised edition of The Well-Fed Writer, by Peter Bowerman. King has spoken on marketing, networking, blogging, and online promotions to the National Writers Union, the Society for Technical Communications, 40plus, and The George Washington University, among others, and is a familiar face at AIW events. She was elected to a two-year term as an AIW Board Member for 2008-2010. King has a BA in English from Mary Washington College and an MPS in publishing from GWU. She lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, an uncoordinated 140-lb English mastiff puppy, a long-suffering 100-lb bullmastiff, an energetic pug, and three very tolerant cats.

Jo Golden, M.S., Ph.D., is a principal at Chaos To Clarity LLC, a woman-owned small business established in 2003, providing education services in the DC Metro area and web presence services to clients across the US. Jo specializes in self-education and communication in the digital world. She has worked with adults from 18–80+ as they change their relationship to education and technology. Jo cares deeply about supporting people who feel left behind by technological change and want to empower themselves by learning new ways of living and working in a digital world. She refined her approach to education, in part, while teaching at Georgetown University for several years, and believes in starting from wherever people are, customizing their approach to education, and establishing the confidence and competence they need to succeed in a digital world. Jo also supports clients by polishing their story for the web, communicating their business or professional identity in writing, and establishing a compelling web presence that allows others to connect with their work in meaningful ways. She is currently writing about self-education strategies and skills, knowledge work, identity, and conflict around learning and change in a digital world.

Tracey Holinka, M.S., began working with the Web more than ten years ago and quickly developed a passion for creating easy-to-use, functional, end-user focused technologies. Before joining Chaos To Clarity LLC full-time, she worked as a Senior Web Developer, creating innovative web development tools and cutting-edge approaches to programming, procedures, and applications. Tracey is the Technology Specialist and Managing Partner who supports clients by developing and implementing their web presence, educating for business success, and supporting technological competence and confidence. She believes that technology ought to be clarified by professionals, not cloaked in mystique to exclude everyone else.

WRITING CORPORATE, ASSOCIATION, AND ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORIES, Room 301
Companies are always looking for effective ways to portray a positive image of themselves. An effective and unusual means of doing that is through a corporate history. These can be used as promotional tools, as inexpensive "rewards" for employees, even as a "gut check" on where an enterprise has been and where it should be headed. At the same time, corporate histories provide opportunities for writers with experience in history, business, book design, and the industry in question.

Moderator:  Ed Moser has recently completed a corporate history of Abbott, the Fortune 100 medical products company. He is the author of seven published books in the fields of history, information technology, politics, and science.  His varied background includes stints as a speechwriter for the President of the United States, and as a writer for Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show." He has a B.A. in history from the University of Albany in New York, and a Masters in business, economics, and technology from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Sandy Kolman Laycox has authored digital publications for The History Factory's clients, including the history of a diversified, global holding corporation that owns and operates businesses across a range of industries. She has been a contributing writer and lead editor for several educational publications, as well as the corporate history of a leading financial services company. She also covers an annual training conference for a leading global retailer, producing a detailed photojournal of the event. As The History Factory's senior writer and editor, Sandy manages the company's quarterly e-publication and heritage management blog. A former senior editor for The Corporate Executive Board and travel writer/editor, Laycox earned a BA in History and Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Writing from the University of New Orleans.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CRAFT SESSIONS
EXPLODING A SCENE: ADDING DETAIL, DEPTH, AND SURPRISE TO YOUR FICTION, Room 310
What makes one scene feel alive and another fall flat?  How can your scenes work harder?  What constitutes a good scene, anyway? This discussion (with handouts and audience participation) will show you how to wring the most from your scenes through thoughtfully-chosen details, as well as weave in the nuance that will lead you—and your characters—to exciting new discoveries. It would be helpful, but not necessary, if you were to bring with you a few pages of a scene you’ve written.

Mark Farrington is a coordinator and the faculty fiction advisor for the M.A. in Writing Program at Johns Hopkins. He has an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from George Mason University and a B.A. from Colby College. He has published short stories in The New Virginia Review, The Louisville Review, The Potomac Review, and other journals, and he has served as editor-in-chief of Phoebe: The George Mason Review. He also has published numerous articles on the teaching of writing. In 2003 and 2008 he received the Johns Hopkins Writing Program's Outstanding Teaching Award, and in 2004 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Advanced Academic Programs at Hopkins.

Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree (Avon Books) and A Year and a Day (William Morrow). Her short fiction has appeared in many journals and magazines, including The Iowa Review, New England Review, The Sun, TriQuarterly, and Shenandoah. Visit Leslie’s blog at: http://www.workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/)

BREAK
12:45—1:00 p.m.

LUNCHEON, AWARDS, AND KEYNOTE SPEECH, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
1:00—2:15 p.m.

AIW WRITING AWARDS
Beryl Leif Benderly, Chair, AIW Writing Awards

PRESIDENT’S AND STERN AWARDS
Cecilia Sepp, President, AIW

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Keith Donohue is the author of The Stolen Child (Nan Talese/Doubleday, 2006), a novel that uses the folk legend of the fairy changelings to explore issues of identity and memory.  The Stolen Child received favorable reviews from National Public Radio, Newsweek, USA Today, the New York Times, Washington Post Book World, Detroit Free-Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and other national press, and it was a bestseller on the Amazon.com Fiction List, the New York Times Fiction Hardcover List (extended), the San Francisco Chronicle, and Book Sense.  In addition to the North American edition, the novel was published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and is scheduled to be translated in over 20 languages.  Nominated for Quill Award, Borders Original Voices, Crawford First Novel, QPB New Voices, Audie Recorded Books Award (recipient), Mythopoeic Society Award, and the International Horror Guild Award, The Stolen Child was a May 2006 Book Sense Pick, the novel was named a 2006 Best Book by the Library Journal, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Amazon.com, and Locus Magazine (UK). His second novel, Angels of Destruction was published by Shaye Areheart Books in Spring 2009, and has received favorable notices in the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others.  It will be published by Jonathan Cape (UK) in July 2009, and is currently slated to be published by an additional eight foreign languages. Donohue has spent most of his career as a ghostwriter.  For the past 20 years, he has written speeches, articles, and books and created websites for national arts and cultural organizations. Currently, Donohue is the Director of Communications for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the grant-making arm of the National Archives in Washington, DC.  Prior to joining the staff in February, 2004, he was most recently Creative Director at the Center for Arts and Culture. He also worked for three years as Senior Policy Advisor for the Office of Management and Worklife at the U.S. General Services Administration, where he wrote about federal child care policy, held training programs for the agency’s senior executives, and wrote speeches, articles, and Congressional testimony. From 1984 to 1998, he worked at the National Endowment for the Arts.  He wrote hundreds of speeches for chairmen John Frohnmayer and Jane Alexander, and directed the first international online conference on the arts and culture at Art-21 in 1994.  Donohue also created Open Studio, a national project in the early 1990s to provide artists and arts organizations with the skills needed to go online. As Director of Publications, he edited and produced the agency’s website (arts.endow.gov), over one dozen books, including Writing America, an anthology of literary works from creative writing fellowship recipients.  Two of his speeches were included in Representative American Speeches (LSU Press), and his ghostwritten articles appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers. Donohue holds a Ph.D. in English from The Catholic University of America.  His dissertation on Irish writer Flann O’Brien was published as The Irish Anatomist: A Study of Flann O’Brien (Maunsel Press, 2003).  He wrote the introduction to the Everyman’s Library edition of the Novels of Flann O’Brien (Knopf, 2008). At Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, he earned an M.A. in English, studying under Samuel Hazo, poet laureate of Pennsylvania and director of the International Poetry Forum.  Donohue also taught freshmen composition and literature courses. He also spent his undergraduate years at Duquesne, paying for college through two creative writing scholarships and as an English Department intern, and writing numerous short stories, poems, and plays performed by the university’s Red Masquer theatrical group and by Carnegie-Mellon University’s musical theater company.  He spent summers working on construction of townhouses, in the box office at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, and for a year, ran a tobacconist’s shop in a Pittsburgh hotel. Donohue’s short stories have appeared in Cricket, Elysian Fields Quarterly, and Friction magazines, and he has reviewed fiction for the Washington Post Book World.  He has given the Schleg Memorial Lecture at Albion College, the First Year Lecture at McDaniel College, and lectured at the University of Central Florida, the U.S. Naval Academy, and American University.  He lives with his family in Wheaton, Maryland.

BREAK
2:15—2:30 p.m.

AFTERNOON AGENTS PITCH SESSIONS, Room 308
2:30—5:00 p.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
2:30—3:45 p.m.

WRITING FOR ON-LINE AUDIENCES, Amphitheater
Good writing is good writing in print or online, but there are distinct differences between writing for hardcopy or electronic readers. This session provides an overview of different types of Web audiences at the techniques and tools you need to know to reach them effectively. Writing for the web is vastly different from writing for print. Readers have different expectations, different reading patterns, and a veritable flood of content to pick and choose how they will spend their online time.  Learn how to make your writing stand out from the crowd and land your dream e-signment.

Moderator: Kristen King

Deborah Ager is an online marketing strategist with 14 years’ experience in fundraising, training, and marketing. Her SEO (search engine optimization) skills have placed quality websites into Google’s top two organic search results, and her SEM (search engine marketing) skills have attracted thousands of qualified leads while reducing acquisition costs for her clients. She specializes in helping her clients acquire qualified leads and clients while reducing costs.  She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Florida and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Her work has appeared in New England Review, The Georgia Review and in Best New Poets 2006. She blogs at http://www.clickwisdom.com on marketing, at http://blog.32poems.com on poetry, and at http://www.womengrowbusiness.com on business. She recently received the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Her business is ClickWisdom, LLC and can be found at http://www.clickwisdom.com.

Beth Jackson Bates is the owner of Web Strategies Internet Solutions, LLC and a jack of all trades in the web world. She consults with small to mid-size businesses and nonprofits on social media marketing and helps her clients find effective ways to leverage these mediums to meet business and marketing goals. With over 14 years experience in web development, project management and marketing, Beth enjoys putting a new twist on traditional web technology and methods. She specializes in social media marketing and how strategy and tactics help businesses expand their reach through their web presence.

Jill Kurtz is Director of Client Services for Balance Interactive, an interactive web strategy firm located in Springfield VA. Her clients include large and small businesses, nonprofits and associations. She has more than 20 years of experiences working in strategic communication and public relations. She has worked for General Motors, International Paper, Fairfax County Public Schools and Arlington Public Schools. For several years she also worked as a freelance writer. In 2006, she earned the Accredited in Public Relations (APR) professional credential. 

Mayra Ruiz-McPherson is a social media strategist working with organizations to encourage their emergent behavior and help them to establish their social identity.  With more than 14 years of diverse marketing, communications, brand management, and creative direction experience, she brings a seasoned eye, original perspective, and a unique approach to any marketing challenge.

OTHER PLACES, OTHER TIMES: THE SPECIAL CHALLENGES OF WRITING (and PUBLISHING) HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL FICTION, Room 310
 
"A novel worth reading," said Susan Sonntag, "is an education of the heart." This is no easy task and especially challenging for novelists whose works are set in periods and places unfamiliar to their readers. How to make the characters and scenes vivid and compelling? How much research is needed, and when should the writer say, "Pencils down" and rely on imagination? When is detail necessary, and when does it become clutter? And then the book comes to market. At what point does it deserve, or become ill-served by the label "historical fiction," or, say, "romance," or "fantasy" or "mystery"? Panelists discuss some of the tricks, traps, delights and opportunities in writing novels set in other places and other times.
 
Moderator: C.M. Mayo is the author of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire (Unbridled Books, 2009), an historical novel based on the true story; Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico (Milkweed Editions, 2007) and Sky Over El Nido (University of Georgia Press, 1995), which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Mayo's other awards include three Lowell Thomas Awards, and three Washington Writing Prizes; fellowships to the Bread Loaf, Sewanee and Wesleyan Writers Conferences; as well as residencies at Ragdale, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. A long-time resident of Mexico City and an avid translator of Mexican poetry and fiction, she is founding editor of Tameme, a bilingual chapbook series, and also the editor of an anthology of Mexican writing, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, which Mexican poet and critic David Huerta has called "one of the outstanding contemporary works on this country." She divides her time between Mexico City and Washington DC where she is on the faculty of the nearby (Bethesda Maryland) Writers Center. Her website is www.cmmayo.com
 
Olga Grushin was born in Moscow, grew up in Prague, moved to the United States at the age of 18, and became the first Russian citizen to graduate from an American college. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, The Guardian, Partisan Review, Vogue, and elsewhere. Her first novel, The Dream Life of Sukhanov, won the 2007 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award and Orange Prize for New Writers; it has also been translated into fourteen languages and named a NewYork Times NotableBook of the Year. Her second novel, The Line, will be published in 2010. Grushin was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35. A citizen of both Russia and the United States, she lives near Washington, DC, with her husband and their two children.
 
Wayne Karlin’s new non-fiction book, Wandering Souls, about an American soldier who returned captured personal documents and befriended the family of a man he killed during the Vietnam war, will be published by Nation Books in October, 2009.  Karlin has previously published seven novels: Marble Mountain, The Wished-For Country, Prisoners, Lost Armies, The Extras, Us, and Crossover and two works of creative non-fiction: Rumors and Stones: A Journey, and War Movies.  As American editor for Curbstone Press' Voices from Vietnam series, he has edited and adapted translations of writers from Vietnam, including (with Le Minh Khue and Truong Vu), The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, which received a Critics’ Choice Award for 1995-1996, and (with Ho Anh Thai) Love After War: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam, an anthology chosen by The San Francisco Chronicle as one of the 100 best books of 2003. He was the consulting producer and writer for a six part National Public Radio series on the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Karlin has received five State of Maryland Individual Artist Awards in Fic­tion, two Fellowships from the National En­dowment for the Arts, the Paterson Prize in Fiction for 1999, and the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in Arts Award for 2005. He is a professor of languages and literature at the College of Southern Maryland.

Frederick Reuss is the author of four novels, Horace Afoot (MacMurray & Beck), a New York Times Notable Book; Henry of Atlantic City (MacMurray & Beck), awarded the Notable 2000 prize by the American Library Association, The Wasties (Pantheon), which Esquire Magazine listed in their Ten Best Books You Didn’t Buy in 2002. Of the critically acclaimed, Mohr: A Novel (Unbridled), Booker Prize winner, John Berger wrote: “His aerialist’s sense of history, his sleight of hand, his animal knowledge of political practice, his silver tact and his cool tenderness make his performance nothing less than Orphic.” Richard Eder of the New York Times wrote: “Painful and beautiful….Reuss…writes with Jamesian complexity about states of mind and character…with brilliant understanding and a painter’s rich detail.”

BUILDING YOUR BULLY PULPIT: A PLATFORM FROM WHICH TO PEDDLE YOUR WARES, Room 301
After you complete your book and find an agent willing to represent it, an unexpected wrinkle in the process presents itself.  The publisher to whom your agent has presented your hard work wants to know about your platform before he or she will agree to offer you a contract.   Basically, the publisher wants to know what else you’ve done in your life that will make folks want to read your baby.

Moderator: Alan C. Portner spent 35 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, editor and publisher throughout the country including Hawaii, California, Iowa and the metro DC area.  He has spent the past five years as a freelance writer and author, as well as the president and founder of The Assignment Desk.

Ed Barks is the author of The Truth About Public Speaking: The Three Keys to Great Presentations, and the “Speaking Sense” columnist for the Washington Business Journal.  Barks has conducted trainings for more than 3,100 business leaders, association executives, physicians, government officials, non-profit leaders, athletes, entertainers, and public relations staff. He earned his expertise in the sometimes bruising public relations arena of Washington, D.C. He has spent 20 years in the nation's capital directing efforts in such critical areas as media training, media relations, public speaking, and Congressional testimony.  In addition, he logged over a decade as a radio broadcaster, news director, talk show host, and reporter.  He has served as President of Barks Communications since its founding in 1997.

Robert Deigh is a frequent speaker and writer on business communication topics including social media.  He is author of the PR book,  “How Come No One Knows About Us?”  (W Business Books) which, in 2009, won both the Axiom and Independent Book Publishers Awards for excellence in business writing.  He has more than 25 years of experience in public relations and journalism. Before starting his own PR firm in Fairfax, Va., - RDC Communication/PR --  Deigh was communications director for two divisions of America Online and was national communications director for the PBS TV network. An award-winning writer and television producer, Deigh spent more than a dozen years in print and broadcast journalism. Before PBS, he was associate editor of U.S. News & World Report magazine. 

Michael Shilling is our 2009 plenary speaker.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CRAFT SESSION
THE PERILS AND PLEASURES OF WRITING FICTION AND NONFICTION, Room 307
What techniques can nonfiction writers learn from fiction writers, and visa versa?  What are the dangers of cross-pollination?  How can writers ensure that readers discern between fact, fiction, and the varieties of truth in between?  Join three writers who practice both forms for a conversation about the rewards and pitfalls of working in fiction and nonfiction.
   
Bill Loizeaux is Writer in Residence in the Johns Hopkins Writing Program.  His stories and essays have appeared in journals such as TriQuarterly, The American Scholar, and The Christian Science Monitor.He is the author of two memoirs: The Shooting of Rabbit Wells and Anna: A Daughter’s Life, a New York Times Notable Book.  His children’s novel Wings received a 2006 ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Award and was the 2006 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction.   Another children’s novel, Clarence Cochran, A Human Boy has just been released by FSG.  Currently, he is at work on an adult novel.

Tim Wendel is the author of seven books, including the novels Castro's Curveball and Red Rain. His stories have appeared in Gargoyle and The Potomac Review, and his articles in Esquire, The New York Times, GQ and USA Today, where he is on the op-ed page's board of contributors. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he teaches nonfiction and fiction writing there. Visit the author at www.timwendel.com.

Wendi Kaufman's fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Fiction, New York Stories and Other Voices. Her stories have been widely anthologized including Elements of Literature, Faultlines: Stories of Divorce, and most recently Enhanced Gravity: more writing by Washington area women. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and Washingtonian Magazine. Wendi was a recipient of the Mary Roberts Rhinehart award for short fiction, a Breadloaf Writer's Conference Scholar in Fiction, and has been a designated Scholar for Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature, a reading and discussion series with Nextbook (www.nextbook.org) and the American Library Association. Visit her blog at: www.thehappybooker.net.

BREAK
3:45—4:00 p.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
4:00-5:15 p.m.

RUNNING YOUR WRITING BUSINESS IN A TOUGH ECONOMY, Room 301
As the recession has deepened and the administration has changed, freelance writing has become ever more challenging as a profession.  This panel raises previous discussions of business operations and marketing to a whole new level as it looks at economic background, rate-setting ideas, legal details, and business operations.

Moderator: Alan C. Portner

Robert Stowe England is an author and financial journalist who has specialized in writing about financial institutions, financial markets, retirement income issues, and aging. He writes regularly for Mortgage Banking and Banking Strategies and occasionally for Institutional Investor. From 1999 to 2003 he has served as director of research for the Global Aging Initiative (GAI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. CSIS published three books authored by Mr. England on the impact of global aging on government spending on the elderly, the global economy, and financial markets. He has also authored a book on the impact of aging on China. England was the Washington correspondent for Plan Sponsor Magazine from 1993 to 2003. Other subject areas of concentration as a journalist include business strategy, banking, corporate finance, and the economy, as well as foreign affairs. Mr. England is a graduate of Duke University. He can be reached at rengland@us.net. He has a web site at http://robertstoweengland.com and a blog at http://www.mindovermarket.blogspot.com.

John Mason is a Washington DC/Maryland based art, entertainment, and intellectual property attorney. His practice focuses on copyright and trademark matters, litigation, contracts, and commercial matters. He works with writers, artists, and creative people and companies to protect and exploit their work and is also a literary agent. The website for his new firm, The Intellectual Property Group, PLLC, is www.artlaws.com and his e-mail is artlaws2@aol.com.

Ken Norkin is an ADDY and ASPC Colonial Award-winning copywriter and full-time freelancer specializing in business-to-business marketing communications for technology-based products and services. Since establishing his own business—KN Creative—in 1991, he has written ads, brochures, annual reports and Web content for Sprint, Nextel, Time-Warner Cable, IBM, Citrix, Carl Zeiss, Road Runner, MCI, Savin, Sharp and the American Gas Association. Beyond the tech market, Norkin has written for T. Rowe Price, Arlington and Prince William Counties, The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Holy Cross Hospital, the Vince Lombardi Cancer Research Center, The Washington Post, PBS, the Discovery Channel and many other companies. His ability to share what he’s learned in 30 years of writing for a living makes Norkin a frequent and sought-after speaker on the business of freelancing and creative self-employment.

GENRE FICTION, Room 310
Literary fiction has often been thought to be written for small presses and academic readers, while genre fiction was “pulp” fiction intended to entertain the masses. But recently there are signs of a genre/literary melding. Books like Girl with a Pearl Earring, Water for Elephants, and March are written in a literary style, yet they’ve attracted a wide audience of “crossover” readers, and been particularly popular with reading groups. More often, literary writers seem to be “borrowing” popular fiction techniques such as use of quicker pacing, increased dialogue, active scenes, perhaps even a mystery or a romance. And genre writers are looking to the literary world for inspiration and a means of gauging the quality of their writing, which in some cases verges on high art. As publishers gear up following the recent economic fiasco, fiction writers will want to pay attention to the way the market follows readers’ current tastes. There’s probably room for both the genre writer and the literary writer, as well as any combination of the two, to sell well and share space on best-seller lists.

Moderator: Clyde Linsley, former president of WIW and a member of the AIW Board, is a freelance journalist and writer, whose four mystery novels were published by Avalon and Berkley Prime Crime.  A 1964 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, he has worked in all media.  He became a full-time freelancer in 1986.

John Betancourt is a best-selling science fiction author who has worked on such series as Star Trek, Batman, Superman, and many others. Recently, he won the Black Orchid Novella Award for his story "Horse Pit" in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. He owns Wildside Press, an independent publishing company located in Rockville, Maryland.

Ellen Byerrum is the author of the Crime of Fashion mystery series featuring Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington, D.C., “the city that fashion forgot.” Drawing inspiration for her books from her days as news reporter in a crazy Western town as well as in the nation’s capitol, Byerrum has used everything from crawling through a massage parlor window to covering Congress. She also holds a private investigator's registration in the state of Virginia, and she is a playwright (under her pen name Eliot Byerrum). Byerrum’s fictitious heroine’s qualifications include a nose for nuance, a knack for unraveling mysteries, and a wardrobe full of fabulous Forties suits and killer heels. The Crime of Fashion series debuted in August 2003 with Killer Hair, followed by Designer Knockoff, Hostile Makeover, Raiders of the Lost Corset, Grave Apparel, and Armed and Glamorous in July 2008. Now, fans of the series will be able to see Lacey’s great vintage fashions in two television movies—Killer Hair and Hostile Makeover—premiering on the Lifetime Movie Network in June 2009.

Kathryn Johnson has authored more than 40 published novels, is an Agatha Award finalist and honoree of the American Library Association. She serves on the Board for the Mystery Writers of America/Mid-Atlantic Region. Founder in 2006 of Write by You (www.writebyyou.com), an author’s mentoring service, she also teaches at the renowned Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland and speaks at regional and national writers’ conferences. Her professional memberships include the Author’s Guild, Ninc, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America. Having lived in Italy and traveled throughout Europe, and most recently to Egypt, she enjoys weaving rich historical details and settings into her novels. Kathryn and her husband Roger enjoy cultural events in the Washington metro-area and spend most of their summers sailing the Chesapeake Bay.

BACK TO BASICS: PROFESSIONAL SKILLS THAT MAKE WRITER’S BLOCK GO AWAY, Room 307
For many professional writers facing a drop deadline, the overwhelming temptation is to throw some words and phrases at the project. At such times it’s difficult to remember that the fear of deadline can obscure the benefits of writing it right the first time. No patented formulas exist that guarantee you will whip out the copy in a printable form on demand, but Robert Knight offers some pointers that can help you work your way through the dilemma.

Join Knight, a longtime journalist and professor who writes about writing, as he shares his experience and helps hone your communication skills, talents and abilities.  Enjoy this fascinating review of effective English and explore how these pillars of good writing can help you take your copy from the mundane to the magical:

  • A strong and enticing introduction that involves the reader and helps you organize the remainder of your project.
  • The essentials of word economy.
  • The importance of word precision.
  • The energy of action verbs.
  • The effective use of active voice.
  • An emphasis on strong nouns and verbs and a reduction of adjective and adverbs.
  • Avoiding clichés.
  • An appreciation of the Anglo-Saxon core of the English language.

This session includes discussion and exercises that emphasize the beauty and history of English. For seasoned professionals, it provides a welcome back to basics. For aspiring writers, it provides a structure that allows them to meet project requirements as it frees up the creativity that lends itself to excellence. For both, it provides a refreshing antidote for the disease known as writer’s block.

Knight’s career has taken him from United Press International to newspapers and broadcast, to freelancing for more than 40 publications and news services. He has been a frequent contributor to The Chicago Tribune and its Sunday magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters and The Washington Post.

He taught journalism in the Evening Division of Northwestern University and journalism and English composition at Gettysburg College. In addition, Knight was an editor at the late, greatly lamented City News Bureau of Chicago. He is author of The Journalistic Writer: Building the Skill, Honing the Craft, to be published next spring by the Marion Street Press.

BREAK
5:15—5:30 p.m.

RECEPTION, Morton Langstaff, piano and Chris Carrino, guitar;
Cash bar and complementary appetizers, Grand Ballroom
5:30—7:30 p.m.

PRICES AND REGISTRATION FORM

Member cost is $235 (By May 11), $275 (After May 11), $295 (at the door).
Nonmember cost is $340 (By May 11), $380 (After May 11), $400 (at the door).
Conference with New Membership is $375 (By May 11), $415 (After May 11), $435 (at the door).
Senior/Student and Membership $335 (By May 11), $375 (After May 11), $395 (at the door).
Other prices may apply.

Click here to register for the conference online.

Click here to print out the conference form to mail.

For more information about the conference, email us at info@awriters.org or call 202-775-5150.

Click here for directions and more information on the Cafritz Conference Center.

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