“Rewriting separates the grownups from those who prefer wandering in the wilderness.”
- S.L. (Sid) Stebel
From Our Blog
Thursday June 6, 2013 [+]Sid Stebel’s Morning Workshop Challenge: Stump the Savant! |
Friday May 31, 2013 [+]Marla Miller’s 2013 Daily Workshop Schedule with Special Guests |
Friday May 24, 2013 [+]2013 Best Opening Thanks & Congratulations |
Panels and Panelist Bios
June 9 • First Book Panel
June 10 • Agent/Editor Panel
June 11 • Working With An Editor Panel
June 12 • Noir Memoir Panel: What to Include, What to Leave Out
June 13 • Building Your Author Platform Panel
First Book Panel
Sunday, June 9th at 4pm
Moderated by Lorelei Armstrong
This panel focuses on the excitement, the investment, and the trials and tribulations of a first time novelist. What would you have done differently had you only known? Panelists, whether working with a major publishing house or small press, will discuss their experiences throughout the publishing process: agents, editors, publicity, book signings, and reviews. Panelists include:
Patricia Bracewell
Patricia Bracewell’s debut novel, Shadow on the Crown, was published by Viking/Penguin in the U.S. and Canada, and by HarperCollins U.K. in Britain and the Commonwealth. The first book of a trilogy set in eleventh century England, the novel is also slated for publication in Italy and Brazil.
Born and raised in California, Patricia taught high school literature and composition before embarking upon her writing career. She holds a Masters Degree in English Literature and has studied Anglo-Saxon History both as an undergrad in the U.S. and as an independent scholar, including a brief summer course at the University of Cambridge. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the S.F. Bay Area writers’ organization, Left Coast Writers©. She has travelled extensively in Europe, Asia and South America, both for research and for pleasure. She enjoys gardening, tennis, and, of course, reading, and she is still a decent guitarist and folksinger, although her writing leaves her little time for practice. She has two sons and lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay area.
Karen Keskinen
Karen Keskinen is the author of Blood Orange, first book in the Jaymie Zarlin mystery series. Set in Santa Barbara, character-driven with a twisting plot, Blood Orange explores the fault lines between privileged and poor and exposes a vein of corruption in a heavenly little city. In Blood Orange, Santa Barbara itself is a character. Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books is the publisher, and the release date is June 4, 2013.
Born and raised in Salinas, California, Keskinen has also lived in Wellington, New Zealand, and in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. She now resides in Santa Barbara, in a house perched halfway up a steep hill known to geologists as the Mesa Fault.
Melanie Thorne
Melanie Thorne is the author of Hand Me Down, a debut novel in the tradition of Dorothy Allison and Janet Fitch. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 and a 2013 YALSA Alex Award nominee, Hand Me Down has been highly praised by media, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Candy, and People. Melanie earned her MA in Creative Writing from the University of CA, Davis, and has been awarded the Alva Englund Fellowship, the Maurice Prize in Fiction, and a residency at the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat on Whidbey Island. She lives in Northern California. Find her online at www.melaniethorne.com.
Robin Winter
Robin Winter started writing with a fully illustrated manuscript 'Chickens and their Diseases' when in second grade in Nigeria. Some years later she and her family were evacuated as the Nigerian Civil War began in 1967. It is from her memories of Nigeria that her novel Night Must Wait, released in 2012 by Imajin Books, evolved. Her first science fiction novel, Future Past is due for release in mid 2013 from Damnation Books. She has published science fiction and horror stories, won awards for writing, and in 2011 had a collection of her short stories performed in Los Angeles' New Short Fiction Series.
As a child Robin lived in a number of places beginning with 'N'; Nebraska, Nigeria, New Hampshire and New York. Now living in California, she has no intention of going back to any of the preceding.
Her other career centers on oil painting, both landscape and figure. Her husband, a paleocarpologist, corrects the science in both her paintings and her writings, and has acquired considerable skill in ducking flying objects. They have a teenage daughter who also loves to write, and three cats who don't.
Agent/Editor Panels
Monday, June 10th at 4pm
Moderated by Fred Klein and Marla Miller
Agents and Editors will discuss querying etiquette, finding the right agent/editor, tips on attracting an agent, also, what should the writer know before becoming a client, or “writer bewares”. They will also touch on trends and changes in the marketplace, the future of publishing as they see it, and how the role of the agent/editor has evolved.
Look for Agent/Editor bios on the Advance Submissions & Agents page
Working with an Editor Panel
Tuesday, June 11th at 4pm
Moderated by Barnaby Conrad III
Writing a book is a solitary effort for most us, but at a certain point in the publishing process we will need or be required an editor. What questions should a writer ask before agreeing to work with an editor? What should the editor know about the writer? Also, when and how do you disagree respectfully? Panelists will share their experiences working together on everything from copyediting to plotting. Panelists include:
Kat Brzozowski
Kat Brzozowski is an associate editor at Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press, after interning at top literary agencies including Writers House, and Foundry Literary + Media. Her forthcoming acquisitions include Blood Orange, a P.I. mystery set in Santa Barbara, California; Blonde Ops, pitched as The Devil Wears Prada meets James Bond for teens; and The Evidence Room, a police procedural set in the Florida bayou. She is eager to acquire young adult fiction, especially contemporary fiction with a strong female protagonist; light, contemporary YA with a great hook; mysteries, suspense, and thrillers; horror; and sci-fi. She is especially interested in YA with crossover appeal (in the vein of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me).In adult fiction, Kat loves literary mysteries (Tana French and Kate Atkinson are two of her favorites) as well as suspense, thrillers, and smart, commercial women's fiction. She is also interested in narrative nonfiction and pop culture books with wide appeal.
Karen Keskinen
Karen Keskinen is the author of Blood Orange, first book in the Jaymie Zarlin mystery series. Set in Santa Barbara, character-driven with a twisting plot, Blood Orange explores the fault lines between privileged and poor and exposes a vein of corruption in a heavenly little city. In Blood Orange, Santa Barbara itself is a character. Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books is the publisher, and the release date is June 4, 2013.
Born and raised in Salinas, California, Keskinen has also lived in Wellington, New Zealand, and in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. She now resides in Santa Barbara, in a house perched halfway up a steep hill known to geologists as the Mesa Fault.
Erin L. Cox
Erin L. Cox develops and represents writers for the company, provides publicity expertise to company clients, offers individualized publicity and promotion services for outside clients, and works with corporate clients including Conde Nast Digital and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Erin was most recently Book Publishing Director at The New Yorker where she oversaw book advertising and developed support for books on the business and editorial sides of the magazine. Erin began her career in book publishing in 1999 in the publicity department at Scribner, where she worked with New York Times bestselling authors Frank McCourt, Linda Fairstein, Kathy Reichs, and Al Roker, and critically-acclaimed writers Colm Toibin, Meg Wolitzer, Maile Meloy, and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. In addition to creating and implementing traditional book campaigns, Erin also worked on the publicity team responsible for innovative e-book initiatives for Stephen King and Robert Jordan. In 2005, Erin was named Associate Director of Publicity at HarperCollins, where she worked on bestsellers by Lisa Scottoline, Janet Evanovich, and Tony Hillerman, among others.
Sameer Pandya
Sameer Pandya is a fiction and non-fiction writer whose work has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Other Voices, Epiphany, Ozone Park Journal, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Spin, and The New York Daily News. He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Noir Memoir Panel: What to Include, What to Leave Out
Wednesday, June 12th at 4pm
Moderated by Susan Miles Gulbransen
Karin Finell
Karin Finell emigrated from Berlin to California, and majored in English at UCLA, leaving with an M.A. Barnaby Conrad advised, "Write what you know." And she did.Good-bye to the Mermaids: a Childhood Lost in Hitler's Berlin, was published by the University of Missouri Press in 2006. The press also published, Broken Butterfly; My Daughter's Struggle With Brain Injury, in October 2012. She taught; "Writing Your Pain: Grief and Transformation," at Adult Ed SBCC from 2000 to 2005.
Karin has been published in German and U.S. newspapers and several anthologies. She has spoken at Book festivals, and in numerous schools and universities regarding her WWII book.
Nora Gallagher
Nora Gallagher is the author of five books in the tradition of Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton: the daily living out of faith and doubt rather than abstract "belief." She is also the author of the acclaimed novel Changing Light. In her new memoir, The Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic, Nora draws on her experience as a patient, telling of her departure from ordinary life and her travels to Oz, the land of the sick.
Along with her books, Nora Gallagher also assigns and edits environmental essays for Patagonia, Inc. Nora is the editor of the award-winning Notes from the Field, published by Chronicle Books, 1999. She was educated at St. John’s College and sits on the advisory board of the Yale Divinity School.
Jane Heller
Jane Heller became a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author after nearly a decade of promoting such bestselling authors as Stephen King, Judy Blume and Erica Jong. Her 13 breezy, witty novels of romantic comedy, 9 of which have been sold to Hollywood for film and television, are now entertaining readers around the world. In 2007, she took a detour from her work as a novelist to write an article about her passion for baseball and the New York Yankees that ran in the New York Times sports section; the article was the Times' number one emailed story the week it ran and generated more fan mail than Jane had ever received. It led to her first nonfiction book, Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees, which was published by Rodale in 2009 and which she affectionately refers to as her "Eat Pray Love of Baseball" because she followed the team to every city for every game in search of the meaning of true fandom. Her latest book of nonfiction tackles a subject closer to home. It's called You'd Better Not Die or I'll Kill You: A Caregiver's Survival Guide to Keeping You in Good Health and Good Spirits. Recently published by Chronicle, it features Jane's trademark humor and irreverence as she reaches out to the over 65 million caregivers in this country. Both inspirational prescriptive, the book includes her own essays on caring for her husband Michael, who suffers from severe Crohn's disease, extraordinarily candid contributions from other caregivers, some of whom are famous names in film, television and publishing but all of whom have had responsibility for a child, spouse or elderly relative with a chronic or progressive illness, and valuable advice from nurses, doctors, meditation teachers, therapists, nutritionists and many other experts in self-care. Jane has just joined the likes of Deepak Chopra, Dr. Oz and Jane Brody and signed with the premier speakers bureau on healthcare, and will be traveling around the country talking to groups about caregiving. She's also at work here in Santa Barbara on a new novel.
Starshine Roshell
Starshine Roshell is a journalism professor, magazine writer, award-winning columnist and overwhelmed mother of two. Named for a song in the 1960s musical "Hair," in which her father starred, Starshine grew up in Los Angeles on the soap opera sets and in the Sunset Strip nightclubs where her parents worked. She graduated UCLA cum laude and wrote for The Hollywood Reporter before joining the Santa Barbara News-Press as news reporter, theater and rock music critic, Sunday columnist and deputy features editor. She resigned with dozens of colleagues in 2006 over the publisher's breaches of journalistic ethics.
Her syndicated column won a first-place award from the California Newspaper Publisher's Association, and she has a second-place CNPA award for Business/Financial reporting.
Building Your Author Platform
Thursday, June 13th at 4pm
Moderated by Marla Miller
Whether you are published or unpublished, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the waterfall of opportunity and possibility in today’s world of online media. Panelists will discuss the multimedia tools available for promoting your writing and yourself as an author, tips on building an audience, and how to find a balance between writing and your online presence.
Lisa Angle
Lisa Angle of Ninety Degrees Media is the ‘right Angle’ for all your media needs, including websites, video, and social media. She earned a master’s degree in Computer Based Education from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. While in SLO she served two terms as President of NightWriters and taught creative writing at Cuesta College. Lisa won First Prize in a CWC short story contest and Honorable Mention in Byline magazine’s First Chapter of Novel Contest. Writers Digest choose her website Angle on Writing as one of the 101 Best Sites for Writers in 2005. Currently she co-produces the talk show Literary Gumbo with host Fred Klein and acts as President of the Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara.
http://www.ninetydegreesmedia.com
Jason Matthews
Jason Matthews is an author of novels and how-to guides. He specializes in digital self-publishing methods outlined in his book, How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free. He hosts a weekly Google Plus show called Indie Authorsthat covers publishing essentials and also features new writers. He's an avid blogger, creator of YouTube tutorials and active on social media. Jason lives in Pismo Beach, CA and can be contacted through his websites.
http://ebooksuccess4free.wordpress.com
http://www.thelittleuniverse.com
Kit Steinkellner
Kit Steinkellner is a nationally-produced and award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been produced Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon's Peter Jay Sharp Theater, at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, and the San Diego Old Globe. Her work has been praised by the New York Times, LA Times, Backstage, and LA Weekly. Her screenplay Jungle LA LA is being produced by Resolution and shoots summer 2013. Online Steinkellner is a contributing editor for the sites Book Riot and Food Riot, and writes the book blog "Books are my Boyfriends" and the webcomic "Aces" which her sister Emma illustrates.
http://booksaremyboyfriends.wordpress.com