SATURDAY, April 12th

8:00 – 9:00am

9:00 – 10:15am

Buzzbuilders: Marketing and Publicity

• Johanna Ingalls BIO, Akashic Books
  Johanna Ingalls graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Theatre. After seven long years working in the music industry with bands such as the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Beck, and most importantly, the noise rock band Girls Against Boys, she was rescued from the world of rock by one of the bass players from Girls Against Boys -- Johnny Temple. She has basically worked at Akashic Books since its inception and is currently the managing editor.
• Anne Watters BIO, Broadway
  Anne Watters is Associate Director of Marketing for Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. A nine-year veteran of Random House, she has also held various positions in Marketing and Advertising and Promotion capacities for the Crown Publishing Group. She has worked on campaigns for a wide-ranging list of bestselling titles, including the current New York Times bestseller Tell Me Where It Hurts by Dr. Nick Trout, The Universe in a Single Atom by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, La Bella Figura by Beppe Severgnini, Mosaic by Amy Grant, The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D., and The Fast Track Detox Diet by Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S.
• Chris Knopf BIO, author, moderator
  Chris Knopf writes the Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery series published by Permanent Press. Two Time (06) was listed in Marilyn Stasio's NYT "Recommended Summer Reading". Publishers Weekly chose it as one of the “Best 100 Books for 2006.” Head Wounds, number three in the series, earned a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, March ’08. Chris is a principal of Mintz & Hoke, a marketing communications agency in Avon, CT. The agency’s clients include Pratt & Whitney, AIG, Aetna, Rockwell Collins, Embraer Aircraft, Prudential and the Connecticut Department of Social Services.
• Jenny Leff BIO, Random House
  Jenny Leff is a Creative Marketing Manager at Random House. She oversees cross-promotional and advertising campaigns as well as collaborates on brand-development objectives for Fodor's Travel, The Princeton Review, Random House Reference, and more. Prior to that, she was a Marketing Manager at HarperCollins Hardcovers, where she implemented marketing campaigns and collaborated on national advertising for bestselling authors including Michael Chabon, Michael Crichton, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Jenny began her career in the marketing department for the Morrow Cookbooks line, where she worked on creative campaigns and online initiatives with brand-name authors like Emeril Lagasse. Dating back to internships at the Howard Stern Show and Conde Nast Magazines, and continuing with speaking engagements to audiences of publishing interns, Jenny has developed a passion for grassroots marketing, and its applications in the ever-changing world of publishing.
• Janet Goldstein BIO, Publishing Consultant
Janet Goldstein is the founder of Janet Goldstein Enterprises, a boutique publishing and strategy firm based in New York City. She works with authors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and nonprofits at all stages to take their ideas, platforms and brands to the next level. Since January 2005 she has worked with clients on concept and proposal development, constituency-building strategies, launch plans and a select number of fiction and nonfiction editorial projects. She directs the book section of the annual NYU Summer Publishing Institute. Her first book, coauthored with Howard Behar, titled It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principals from a Life at Starbucks, was published by Portfolio/Penguin Group USA in January 2008. Previously she rose up the editorial ranks at HarperCollins Publishers, was part of the original start-up team at Broadway Books, and was an executive editor and director of Viking Penguin’s spirituality imprint. She has published many influential and best-selling books in the fields of business, psychology, women’s issues, parenting, health, social history, spirituality and fiction by authors too numerous to mention including Barbara Kingsolver, Wayne Dyer, Harriet Lerner, David Allen and the Dalai Lama.

Querial Killers: How Not to Get an Agent

• Katharine Sands BIO, Sarah Jayne Freymann Agency
Katharine Sands, a literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books. Highlights include XTC: SongStories; Make Up, Don't Break Up with Oprah guest Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil; The Complete Book on International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child; Writers on Directors; Ford model Helen Lee's The Tao of Beauty; Elvis and You, to name a few. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers' lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. For faction, memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed; for fiction, she wants to be compelled and propelled.

11:00 am – 12:15pm

Demystifying Lit Mags

• Maribeth Batcha, One Story
• Charles Flowers BIO, Bloom
  Charles Flowers is the Executive Director of Lambda Literary Foundation, the country’s leading organization for LGBT literature. He is also the co-author of Golden Men: The Power of Gay Midlife (with Harold Kooden, Ph.D.), and his poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, Indiana Review, and Puerto del Sol. Flowers is also the founding editor of BLOOM, a journal for lesbian and gay writing that Edmund White has called “the most exciting new queer literary publication to emerge in years" (www.bloommagazine.org).
• Brigid Hughes BIO, A Public Space
  Brigid Hughes is the founding editor of A Public Space. Previously, she was editor of The Paris Review.
• Peter Selgin BIO, Alimentum
  Peter Selgin’s first book of short stories, “Drowning Lessons” won the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award and will be published by the University of Georgia Press in the Fall of 2008. His autobiographical novel, Life Goes to the Movies, was a two-finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and Second Place Winner of the AWP Award, and will be published in April of 209 by Dzanc Books. His book on fiction writing, By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers, was published by Writer’s Digest Books, 2007. His short works have garnered six Pushcart Nominations and appeared in over 50 publications, including Salon.com, The Sun, Glimmer Train, The Literary Review, Salon. Com, Poets & Writers, Colorado Review, Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Best American Essays 2006. He edits the journal Alimentum: The Literature of Food.
• Alex Steele BIO, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, moderator
Alex Steele is the dean of faculty at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, the largest private creative writing school in the country. He has edited the books Writing Fiction, Writing Movies, and Fiction Gallery.

From Frustration to Publication: Writers’ Life Q&A

• Gayle Feldman BIO, author
  Gayle Feldman was born in Philadelphia and educated at Penn and Cambridge. She began her career in book publishing in England, working primarily as an editor of academic and educational books. She returned to America at the end of 1985 and in 1986 became a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly. From 1989 through 1995 she was Book News Editor at PW, then went freelance and has written many articles for PW as well as the New York Times, The Nation, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, Self magazine, etc. Since 1999 she has been the New York correspondent for The Bookseller of London, writing a regular column, news articles and features on the book business. Her first book, a family memoir of breast cancer, You Don't Have to Be Your Mother, was published by W.W. Norton in 1994. In 2001-2 she was a National Arts Journalism Program research fellow at Columbia University and in 2003 published a 100-page monograph, Best and Worst of Times: The Changing Business of Trade Books, as part of the fellowship. Since September 2002, she has been under contract to Random House for a biography of its co-founder Bennett Cerf.
• Marshall Karp BIO, author
  Marshall Karp, after writing hundreds of commercials, dozens of TV shows, a play (Squabbles), and a feature film (Just Looking), fulfilled a lifelong fantasy by killing the people he used to work with. His first novel, The Rabbit Factory, set in a Disneyesque studio introduces LAPD Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. In Bloodthirsty, they returned when some of the most powerful and hated men in Hollywood began turning up dead. Flipping Out, the next in the series, will be published by St. Martins/Minotaur. Janet Maslin in The New York Times Book Review said Karp “brings to mind Robert B. Parker, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, Stuart Woods and a lot of other fast-paced authors.” But what the hell does she know?
• Paul McComas BIO, author
  Paul McComas has written short fiction that has appeared in numerous literary magazines, and he is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Planet of the Dates (2008, The Permanent Press) and Unplugged (2002, John Daniel & Co.), plus a short story collection, Twenty Questions (1998, Daniel & Daniel), now in its third printing. He also edited and contributed work to the fiction anthologies First Person Imperfect (2003, iUniverse) and Further Persons Imperfect (2007, iUniverse) and wrote the Foreword for Ships in the Night (2005, Capra Press), a short story collection by Logan’s Run author William F. Nolan, with whom Paul is currently co-authoring the novel Logan’s Quest. He teaches writing in the adult continuing-education program at Northwestern University and at the graduate level as an adjunct faculty member of National-Louis University.
• Michael Paul Mason BIO, author
  Michael Paul Mason, a professional writer, has served as an editor for two literary publications, and has appeared on several national media outlets, including the Lehrer Newshour, CBS News, and NPR's Morning Edition. Mason remains active as a lecturer and speaker. Mason has also built a reputation for noteworthy journalism. When Mason's article in Discover Magazine, "Dead Men Walking" appeared in mid-February of 2007, it ignited a national debate about the treatment of brain injured soldiers. Mason has since traveled to Iraq to report on healthcare and humanitarian issues. Mason's first book, Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath (Farrar Straus & Giroux, April 2008), is an exploration into the harsh realities endured by brain injury survivors.
• Patricia Smith BIO, poet
  Patricia Smith, a Chicago native, is the author of four books of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection, winner of the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Teahouse was also voted the Best Poetry Book of 2006 by About.com. Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, will be published by Coffee House Press in 2008. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals. She is also the author of the groundbreaking history Africans in America and the children’s book Janna and the Kings, winner of a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award. In addition, she is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. In 2006, during a ceremony at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, she was voted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.
• Philip Schultz BIO, The Writers Studio, moderator
Philip Schultz is the founder/director of The Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry writing based in New York City. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including his most recent Failure (2007), Living in the Past (2004), and The Holy Worm of Praise (2002), all published by Harcourt, Deep Within the Ravine (Viking 1984), a recipient of The Academy of American Poets Lamont Prize, and Like Wings (Viking 1978) winner of an American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters Award as well as a National Book Award nomination. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Partisan Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Slate, and he’s the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry. He has also received a NEA Fellowship in Poetry (1981), a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry (1985), and the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine. 

12:30 – 2:00pm

Lunch

• Keynote speaker: Alice Hoffman BIO, Introduction by Audrey B. Pass BIO
Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952 and grew up on Long Island. She attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 1974, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives in Boston and New York. Hoffman’s first novel, Property Of, was written when she was twenty-one and studying at Stanford, and was published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. She credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard, and his wife, the writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine Fiction. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become Property Of, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff’s magazine, American Review. Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists. She has published a total of eighteen novels, two books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Her novel, Here on Earth, was an Oprah Book Club selection. Practical Magic and Aquamarine, a novel for young adults, were both bestsellers and Hollywood movies. Other New York Times bestselling novels are The River King, Blue Diary, The Probable Future, The Ice Queen and Skylight Confessions. Her novel, At Risk, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools. Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her new novel, The Third Angel, will be published by Shaye Areheart Books/Crown this month.
Audrey B. Pass has enjoyed a 20-year career as a corporate communications and public relations specialist and media strategist. Pass is currently the Senior Director of Communications and Public Affairs for WNYW-TV/ FOX5 and WWOR-TV/ My9, the Fox-owned flagship stations in New York. In this capacity, she oversees media and talent relations, as well as public and community affairs. Pass serves as executive producer for three weekly public affairs programs, “Good Day Street Talk,” New Jersey Bow,” and “Real Talk.” She has also executive produced the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, the Hispanic Day Parade, and Gospelfest 2008. Previously, Pass was Director of Communications for WCBS-TV, where she oversaw media relations and corporate communications for WCBS, including news, local programming, talent relations, community relations and public affairs. Pass joined CBS from Harpo Productions in Chicago, where she served as Senior Publicist for Oprah Winfrey, Oprah’s Angel Network, Oprah’s Book Club and Harpo, Inc

2:00 – 3:15pm

All About MEmoir

• Phoebe Damrosch BIO, memoirist
  Phoebe Damrosch is the author of the memoir  Service Included(William Morrow), chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2007. She teaches creative writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop. Phoebe holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.
• Stephanie Elizondo Griest BIO, memoirist
  Stephanie Elizondo Griest has mingled with the Russian Mafiya, polished Chinese propaganda, and belly danced with Cuban rumba queens. These adventures inspired her award-winning memoir Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana (Villard/Random House, 2004) and guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go (Travelers’ Tales, 2007). Atria/Simon & Schuster will publish her memoir Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines in 2008. She has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Latina Magazine, and the Associated Press. A 2005-2006 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, she lectures and performs nationwide, and recently won the Richard J. Margolis Award for social justice reporting. Visit her website at www.aroundthebloc.com.
• Janice Erlbaum BIO, memoirist
  Janice Erlbaum is the author of the memoirs Girlbomb (Villard), and Have You Found Her (Villard). She is a columnist for Bust magazine, and her essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in New York Press, Interview, PAPER, and McSweeneys Internet Tendency. She teaches memoir writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop.
• Stephen O’Connor BIO, memoirist
  Stephen O’Connor is the author of Rescue, short fiction and poetry; Will My Name Be Shouted Out?, memoir and social analysis; Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed, narrative history. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Conjunctions, TriQuarterly, Threepenny Review, Poetry Magazine, The Missouri Review, The Quarterly, Partisan Review, The Massachusetts Review, Fiction International, and many other places. His essays and journalism have been published in The New York Times, DoubleTake, The Nation, AGNI, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The New Labor Forum, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Cornell Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing from Columbia University; the Visiting Fellowship for Historical Research by Artists and Writers from the American Antiquarian Society; and the DeWitt Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. He teaches fiction and nonfiction writing in the MFA programs of Columbia and Sarah Lawrence.
• John Sellers BIO, memoirist
  John Sellers is the author of Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life (Simon & Schuster). In addition to writing and editing the back-page Q+A at Time Out New York every week, he contributes regularly to GQ and The Believer, among other publications. He's currently at work on The Old Man and the Swamp (Simon & Schuster), a memoir about his eccentric father.
• Catherine Texier BIO, memoirist
  Catherine Texier is the author of four novels, Chloé l'Atlantique, Panic Blood, Love Me Tender, and Victorine, and a memoir, Breakup. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Award and two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. Her latest novel Victorine won ELLE Magazine’s 2004 Readers’ Prize for Fiction.
• Richard Goodman BIO, Gotham Writers’ Workshop instructor/author, moderator
Richard Goodman is the author of the memoir French Dirt (Algonquin) and the craft book The Soul of Creative Writing (Transaction). He has written for the New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Commonweal, Vanity Fair, Garden Design, Grand Tour, Writer's Chronicle, salon, Saveur, Ascent and the Michigan Quarterly Review. He teaches memoir writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop.

DIY: Self-Publishing Roundtable

• Robert W. Cabell BIO, author
  Robert W. Cabell has spent the past two decades working in the entertainment industry with giants like Time Warner, HBO, Spelling International, Columbia Pictures, and the New York Post. He has written a book on humor with Joey Adams, numerous plays, and musicals and served as entertainment editor for Shout Magazine. His first novel, The Hair-Raising Adventures Of Jayms Blonde – Project Popcorn, has received unanimous rave reviews across the United States and Canada. Three of his plays produced in the United States, two musicals “Pretty Faces” and “Z The Masked Musical of Zorro” (both NY Cast CD’s are available on iTunes) and his play “I Sarah, The Divine” (about the life and times of the legendary French actress, Sarah Bernhardt) are currently being translated into German for productions in Germany and Scandinavia in 2009. In addition to his work as an author and playwright Mr. Cabell is noted videographer and producer of documentaries, as well as theatrical multimedia designer.
• Carol Hoenig BIO, publishing consultant
  Carol Hoenig’s novel, Without Grace, has been awarded the Silver Medal for Book of the Year 2005 by ForeWord Magazine and given First Place for Fiction by the DIY Book Festival. Jada Press also gave her novel honorable mention. Carol's essays, articles, book reviews and short stories appear in a wide number of publications. Her essay “I'm with the Band” won the Face of Writing Edge Magazine essay competition. Carol blogs for The Huffington Post at www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-hoenig and Where I Stand at www.whereistand.com/CarolHoenig. Carol also contributed to Putting Your Passion Into Print, written by Arielle Eckstudt & David Henry Sterry. Carol's new book, An Author's Guide to Planning Book Events has been nominated for Book of the Year by ForeWord Magazine in the category of writing and named finalist in the How-To category by Reader Views. 
• Perry Brass BIO, Belhue Press, author
Perry Brass, a poet and novelist, has published 14 books through his small press, Belhue Press; his newest is Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future—“one of the most unusual novels I’ve read in years,” said Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco. He has been a finalist 6 times for national Lambda Literary Awards, and was given an IPPY Award from Independent Publisher for Warlock, A Novel of Possession. He is currently working on a new novel, The Membrane of Doubt, about the nature of God in the search for love. He has been featured in 25 anthologies, and his numerous poetry collaborations with composers have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Tokyo. He lives in the cultural and literary epicenter of New York, the Bronx, where he reads, writes, and watches the Hudson River. He can be reached through his website, www.perrybrass.com, or at MySpace/PerryBrassbooks.

Open Master Class with Sol Stein

• The Actors Studio Method for Generating Conflict
• Foolproof Dialogue

4:00 – 5:15pm

Getting Past the Gatekeeper

• Jessica Sinsheimer BIO, Sarah Jane Freymann Agency
  Jessica Sinsheimer has been reading and campaigning for her favorite queries since 2004. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she went east for Sarah Lawrence College and stayed for the opportunity to read soon-to-be books for a living. Now an assistant at the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, she's developed a reputation for fighting office members to see incoming manuscripts first—and for drinking far too much tea. Her favorite slushpile finds include Wisdom 2.0 (Harper Collins, 2010), How to Say It With New Media (Perigee, 2009) and Birth: The Wonders and Oddities of Life's First Day (Ballantine, 2008). Always on the lookout for new writers, she is most excited about finding memoirs, psychology, parenting, literary fiction and works that speak to life in the twenty-first century
• Laura Walsh BIO, Wiley & Sons
  Laura A. Walsh is an Assistant Editor at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. where she works in the finance, trading and general business fields. She has acquired a number of books in these areas for Wiley, including The ETF Book: All You Need to Know About Exchanged-Traded Funds (December 2007), The Market Guys' Five Points for Trading Success: Identify, Pinpoint, Strike, Protect, and Act! (January 2008), and most recently, Portable Alpha Theory and Practice: What Investors Really Need to Know (April 2008). Walsh was promoted to Assistant Editor after spending two years as an Editorial Assistant for two editors. Prior to her time at Wiley, Walsh worked for the Associated Press at a Hartford, Conn.-based bureau. She received her bachelors degree from Fairfield University in 2003 and is working toward receiving her MBA from NYU Stern School of Business with a completion date of May 2009.
• Marcela Landres BIO, Editorial Consultant
  Marcela Landres is an Editorial Consultant who edits manuscripts, critiques proposals, and advises on how to launch and manage a writing career. She was formerly an editor at Simon & Schuster and is the creator of Latinidad, one of Writer’s Digest magazine’s 101 Best Web Sites for Writers. A member of the Women’s Media Group, she has acted as a judge for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and speaks frequently for organizations such as The Learning Annex. For more information, please visit http://www.marcelalandres.com.
• Marissa Walsh BIO, Gotham Writers’ Workshop instructor/author, moderator
Marissa Walsh is the author of the comic memoir Girl with Glasses: My Optic History (Simon Spotlight Entertainment,) and the YA novel A Field Guide to High School (Delacorte); coauthor of the cult classic Tipsy in Madras: A Complete Guide to 80s Preppy Drinking (Perigee); and editor of the YA anthologies Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything (Delacorte) and the forthcoming Does This Book Make Me Look Fat? (Clarion). A former children's book editor at Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books, she teaches Children’s Writing at Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

What’s Next? A Round Table Writers’ Conference Wrap Up

• Susan Breen BIO, author
  Susan Breen is the author of the novel The Fiction Class (Plume and Headline Review UK). She has published short fiction in American Literary Review, Chattahoochee Review, Nebraska Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, and anderbo. She teaches fiction writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop. 
• Henry Grinberg BIO, author
  Henry Grinberg was born and educated in England, where he spent World War II as a schoolboy in London, sometimes subjected to severe bombing by the Nazi enemy, sometimes evacuated to the country. His novel Variations on the Beast (The Dragon Press, New York, 2006), written from the viewpoint of his corrupt protagonist, reflects his interest in music, the giant egos to be found there, and the contradictions that arise when moral corruption and genius exist in the same person. Now a United States citizen, he holds a Ph.D. in medieval studies and has taught literature and writing at the City University of New York. He is the author of scholarly and popular articles and reviews. He has recorded selections from The Canterbury Tales in Middle English, released on his own Medieval Sounds label. He is also a certified psychoanalyst with a practice in New York City. He is married to prize-winning poet and playwright Suzanne Noguere.
• Sandra Newman BIO, author
  Sandra Newman is the author of the novels The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done (HarperCollins) and Cake  (Random House UK), and co-author (with Howard Mittelmark) of How Not to Write a Novel (HarperCollins). Her work has been published in Harper's, Granta, Conjunctions, and in the UK's Observer, Express, and Mail on Sunday newspapers. She has taught writing at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, Temple University, the University of Colorado, and Chapman University.
• Mark Kohut BIO, publishing consultant, moderator
Mark Kohut has spent a lifetime in book sales and marketing. He has worked in bookstores, for wholesalers and as a salesman and executive with a number of publishers including Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin and the Macmillan Companies. In recent years Mark Kohut has been a consultant, free-lance writer and the Publisher of a small POD Press, Redburn.

Open Master Class with Sharon Mesmer

• When Words Won't Come: Generating New Work When You Think You Can't

5:30 – 6:30pm

FRIDAY, April 11th

8:00 – 9:00am

9:00 – 10:15am

Small but Mighty: Indie Publishing

• Michael Braziller BIO, Persea Books
  Michael Braziller is the publisher of Persea Books which he co-founded in 1975. He is also Director of the Poetry Program at the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination.
• Richard DeBold BIO, Higganum Hill
  Richard DeBold has taught psychology at Wesleyan, Harvard, Hobart, and Long Island University. He is the publisher of Higganum Hill Books.
• Jim Fleming, Autonomedia
• Richard Nash BIO, Soft Skull/Counterpoint
  Richard Nash is currently Editorial Director of Soft Skull Press, having been Publisher of Soft Skull up until its sale to Counterpoint in July 2007. In 2005 Nash appeared on Publishers Weekly list of ten editors to watch out for in the coming decade; and in 2006 was awarded the AAP’s Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Born and raised in Ireland, he graduated from Harvard College in 1993.
• Sarah Reidy BIO, Soho Press
  Sarah Reidy started her career in the Marketing & Publicity departments of Dutton & Gotham. In January 2007, she joined Soho Press as the Publicity Director. She has worked with authors such as Lynne Truss, John Lescroart, Diablo Cody, Susan Richards, Peter Lovesey, and Cara Black.
• Tina Jordan BIO, AAP, moderator
Tina Jordan has held the position of Vice President of the Association of American Publishers since 2006 and resides in the New York office. Among her responsibilities are the activities of the Trade Executive Committee, the Smaller and Independent Publishers Group, the Get Caught Reading campaign, AAP’s industry statistics program, diversity recruit and retain efforts, and the Association’s educational programs. Prior to her position at the AAP, she held the position of Director of Public Relations and Special Events for BookExpo America from 1997-2006. A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Cornell University, Ms. Jordan is also an avid skiier and rock climber.

Birth of a Book: Then We Came to the End

• Joshua Ferris BIO, author
  Joshua Ferris’s first novel, Then We Came to the End, has sold in 20 countries and was shortlisted for the National Book Award, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and the winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers Award. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta, Tin House, New Stories From the South, Best New American Voices, The Guardian, The Iowa Review and Prairie Schooner. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife where he is at work on his second novel.
• Reagan Arthur BIO, editor, Little, Brown
  Reagan Arthur grew up in Southern California and moved to New York to work in publishing. She worked at St. Martin's Press and helped launch the Picador imprint, before joining Little, Brown in 2001. Writers she has worked with include Kate Atkinson, Kate Braestrup, Judy Budnitz, Tony Earley, Joshua Ferris, Tim Gautreaux, Naomi Klein, Elizabeth Kostova, George Pelecanos, and Ian Rankin.
• Julie Barer BIO, agent, Barer Literary
  Julie Barer started her own agency, Barer Literary, in 2004 after working for six years at the prestigious New York literary agency Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Julie represents a wide range of fiction writers, including National Book Award Finalist Joshua Ferris, author of the bestselling novel Then We Came to the End and award-winning short story writer Gina Ochsner, author of People I Wanted To Be. Her clients’ work has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Non-Required Reading, New Stories From the South, Best New American Voices, Granta, Tin House, O Magazine and numerous other publications, and has been honored by The National Endowment of the Arts, PEN/Hemingway, Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers, Book Sense and Border's Original Voices. Before becoming an agent, Julie worked at Shakespeare & Company Booksellers in New York.
• Marlena Bittner, publicist, Little, Brown
• Mark Kohut BIO, publishing consultant, moderator
Mark Kohut has spent a lifetime in book sales and marketing. He has worked in bookstores, for wholesalers and as a salesman and executive with a number of publishers including Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin and the Macmillan Companies. In recent years Mark Kohut has been a consultant, free-lance writer and the Publisher of a small POD Press, Redburn.

11:00 – 12:15pm

Novel Approaches: Fiction Agents

• Tina Dubois Wexler BIO, ICM
  Tina Dubois Wexler has worked as an agent at ICM since 2003. She represents writers in both the children's and adult marketplace. On the adult side, she is looking to acquire literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. On the children's side, she's interested in edgy young adult fiction, humorous middle grade fiction and the occasional quirky picture book. Of particular interest: pop culture, multicultural/ multigenerational stories, what it means to be a woman in today's world, and modernized retellings of popular myths and legends. Clients include Helen Brenna, Jeannine Garsee, Donna Gephart, Sanjay Patel, Susan Runholt, Laurel Snyder, and Anne Ursu (children's market only). She is from southern Maine, has an MFA in poetry, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.
• Daniel Lazar BIO, Writers House
  Dan Lazar is a senior agent at Writers House, one of the industry's oldest and largest agencies. Recent books sold include the novel Promise Not to Tell, the memoir Practically Perfect in Every Way, the nonfiction book How to Tell if Your Boyfriend is the Antichrist, and the middle-grade novel The Chicken Dance. He teaches the How to Get Published class at Gotham Writers' Workshop.
• Jean Naggar BIO, Jean Naggar Literary Agency
  Jean Naggar established the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. in 1978 in New York City, where she had previously worked as an editor, writer and translator. Prior to founding her agency, Jean Naggar worked as a freelance editor. A former president of the AAR, she served on its board for many years and continues to be active in various committees. Her eclectic, broad-ranging taste in fiction and nonfiction has led to many award-winning titles and to 20 best-selling hardcover books in the past few years. She is considered an ace strategist by her clients, and has sold a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including work by Jean M. Auel, Mary McGarry Morris, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Sarah Waters, Nancy Willard, Lily Prior, Ellis Avery, Phillip Margolin, Ingrid Parker, Christopher Sansom, Gillian Roberts, Morag Joss, Karleen Koen, Jay Schauer, Donna Cross, David Ball, Judith Merkle Riley, Carl Safina, Robert Pollack, Ed Regis, Linda Pastan, Nancy Willard Carol Lindquist and Joe Luciani. Jean looks for writers with an arresting unusual "voice," who work with subject matter that has not been “mined to death.” Her article in the 2000 Guide to Literary Agents has been reprinted many times. Her website is www.jvnla.com
• Amy Tipton BIO, FinePrint Literary Management
  Amy Tipton joined FinePrint Literary Management (formerly the Peter Rubie Literary Agency) in the Summer of 2006. She graduated from Naropa University with a B.A. in Writing and Literature and received her MFA from New College of California in Writing. She comes to the agency after working as a literary assistant and office manager at several literary agencies including JCA Literary Agency, Diana Finch Literary Agency, Gina Maccoby Literary Agency, and Liza Dawson Associates. Amy has also worked as a book scout for Aram Fox, Inc. dealing with foreign rights. In addition to her agenting experience, Amy also worked as a freelance editor to Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada. Her work is published in the anthology, Controlled Burn, and pieces of her first and second novel can be found in a variety of literary journals. Amy is looking for literary fiction, women's fiction, nonfiction/memoir, and YA.
• Renee Zuckerbrot BIO, Renee Zuckerbrot Literary Agency
  Renee Zuckerbrot began her career as an editorial assistant at G.P. Putnam's, then moved on to Doubleday where she became an editor. She also worked at Franklin Square press, the book division of Harper's Magazine. Before opening her own agency, she was an associate of Marly Rusoff & Associates. Her list of clients includes Kelly Link, Pauls Toutonghi, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson, Matthew Derby, Keith Lee Morris, and Harley Jane Kozak.
• Anne Reid Garrett BIO, James Fitzgerald Agency, moderator
Anne Reid Garrett has been with the James Fitzgerald Agency since 2005. Prior to becoming an agent, she was the Assistant Director of the Small Press Center. She has held positions at Cambridge University Press and Seven Stories Press. She is interested in non-fiction and fiction writing with incisive observations and an insider’s voice conversant in the highs and lows of the modern world. Her recent sales include Sarah Brown’s Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems and Abandoned Rock Operas (Crown), Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide (Penguin Classics), Trevor Kelley and Leslie Simon’s Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture (HarperCollins), and Michael Mason’s Damaged: The Injured Brain (Farrrar, Strauss & Giroux). She manages the agency’s subsidiary rights and recently conquered an addiction to solitaire.

Reality Books: Non-Fiction Agents

• Michael Bourret BIO, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management
  Michael Bourret joined Dystel & Goderich Literary Management after studying film and television production at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. An internship at the agency led to an unexpected career in publishing. Michael’s authors include Sara Zarr, whose first novel Story of a Girl (Little, Brown, 2007), was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature; Lisa McMann, whose debut novel is the New York Times bestseller Wake (Simon Pulse, 2008);Ellen Klages, whose The Green Glass Sea (Viking, 2006) won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction; Bernadette Shustak, whose I Love You Through and Through (Scholastic, 2005) has nearly 1,000,000 copies in print throughout the world; and Anne Rockwell, the critically-acclaimed author of more than 100 picture books. His other books include How America Lost Iraq by Aaron Glantz, China: The Gathering Threat by Constantine Menges, Stealing Democracy by Spencer Overton, Postcards from Mars by Jim Bell, Tea Party by Tracy Stern, and Good Spirits by A.J. Rathbun, among many others.
• Anna Ghosh BIO, Scovil Chichak Galen
  Anna Ghosh considers nonfiction proposals on all subjects as well as adult commercial and literary fiction by both unpublished and published authors. She looks for careful writing and compelling storytelling as well as intelligent and provocative books that illuminate some aspect of the world we live in. She has a strong track record of working with journalists, scholars and experts from a variety of professions interested in reaching a general readership. Anna started her career with Scovil Chichak Galen in 1995. Her educational background is in Cultural Anthropology, Intellectual history and Literature. Other special interests include literary nonfiction, history, science, social and cultural issues, memoir, food, art, adventure and travel.
• Jeremy Katz BIO, Sanford J. Greenburger
  Jeremy Katz was an editor for 15 years, first at St. Martin's Press, where he published the #1 New York Times bestseller The Arthritis Cure. He then joined Putnam, publishing breakout health, fitness, and narrative titles. Katz was recruited by Rodale to lead its nascent Men's Health and Sports Book Group, publishing more than 30 titles a year and helping to define the modern notion of men's book publishing. While there, he published two New York Times bestsellers: Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars (#1) and million-copy franchise The Abs Diet by Men’s Health Editor-in-Chief, Dave Zinczenko. In 2005, Katz began a new career as a literary agent with the firm Sanford J Greenburger and Associates. He focuses on health, fitness, narrative non-fiction, and business. His clients include Bethenny Frankel, John Basedow, Jerry Oppenheimer, David Howard, Stewart Mandel, Craig Pierce, Farnoosh Torabi, and Mike Zimmerman. In addition to his agency work, Katz contributes to Men’s Health, Bicycling, and Spirit. Katz graduated from Yale University.
• Anna Olswanger BIO, Liza Dawson Associates
  Anna Olswanger has been a literary agent at Liza Dawson Associates since 2005. Anna specializes in illustrated work, both fiction and nonfiction, for young readers and adults. Her most recent nonfiction project is Devorah Goldman's Jewish Woman's Weekly Planner calendar series for Pomegranate. In addition to being a literary agent, Anna is the author of the children's book Shlemiel Crooks, a Sydney Taylor Honor Book and a Koret International Jewish Book Award Finalist. She coordinates the Jewish Children's Book Writers' Conference each fall at the 92nd Street Y, and recently launched the website www.Host-a-Jewish-Book-Author.com. A frequent traveler on Amtrak, she teaches business writing at the Center for Training and Education at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and writing for physicians at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and Hospital. Anna's website is www.olswanger.com.
• Marilyn Allen BIO, Allen O’Shea Literary Partners, moderator
Marilyn Allen is a literary agent and partner in the Allen O'Shea Literary Agency. Prior to that, she spent 25 years doing sales and marketing for various publishing houses. Her responsibility culminated in Associate Publisher and Senior Vice President of Marketing for Harper Collins. Prior to that, she had directed sales and marketing teams for Penguin Books, Simon & Schuster, and Avon Books. Ms. Allen currently represents many authors including New York Times bestseller Regina Leeds, the work-from-home gurus Paul and Sarah Edwards, Julie Fast, Karon Karter, Liz Palika, Julie Jason and Kevin Boyd. She focuses in the areas of practical nonfiction; health, self-help, parenting, sports and business. She has taught publishing courses at NYU and for Gotham University. She frequently conducts publishing seminars and gives speeches at writing conferences. She is an impassioned advocate for innovation in the marketing and selling of books.

12:30 – 2:00pm

Lunch

• Speaker: Lincoln Child BIO, Introduction by Tim W. Brown, Author and Writers' Conference Programming Committee member
Lincoln Child was born in Westport, Connecticut, which he still calls his hometown. As an editor at St. Martin's, he was associated with the work of many authors, including that of James Herriot and M. M. Kaye. He also assembled several collections of ghost and horror stories, beginning with the hardcover collections Dark Company (1984) and Dark Banquet (1985). Later, when he founded the company's mass-market horror division, he edited three more collections of ghost stories, Tales of the Dark 1-3. In 1987, Lincoln left trade publishing to work at MetLife. In a rather sudden transition, he went from editing manuscripts, speaking at sales conferences, and wining/dining agents to doing highly technical programming and systems analysis. Away from the world of publishing, Lincoln's own nascent interests in writing returned. While at MetLife, Relic was published, and within a few years Lincoln had left the company to write full time. His other books include Utopia, Death Match and Deep Storm. He now lives in New Jersey (under protest--just kidding) with his wife and daughter.
Lloyd Jassin is an attorney whose special focus is on publishing, entertainment and intellectual property law. Before forming his own firm, he was a copyright and trademark associate with Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, a nationally prominent intellectual property firm. Prior to that, he was an attorney with Viacom International, the world's largest independent distributor of feature films and off‑network television programming. Before becoming an attorney, he held high-ranking publicity positions with companies such as Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s Press. He earned his J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and is admitted to the New York and New Jersey bars. His pro bono activities include serving as Chair of the Executive Committee of the New York Center for Independent Publishing, and as First Amendment counsel to PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association. He is a member of the Copyright and Literary Property Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and coauthor of The Copyright Permission & Libel Handbook (John Wiley & Sons). For more information please visit: www.copylaw.com or write jassin@copylaw.com.

2:00 – 3:15pm

Champions of the Story: Fiction Editors

• Marjorie Braman BIO, HarperCollins
  Marjorie Braman is a V.P. & Executive Editor with HarperCollins where she’s been for eleven years. Some of the authors she works with there include Michael Crichton, Elmore Leonard, Michael Gruber (The Book of Air and Shadows, his recent NYT bestseller) and Sena Jeter Naslund (author of Ahab’s Wife and Abundance). She edits a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with a concentration on fiction. Before coming to HarperCollins, she worked at Delacorte, Atlantic Monthly and Random House. And she’s married to a novelist, god help her.
• Rachel Kramer Bussel BIO, anthologist
  Rachel Kramer Bussel (rachelkramerbussel.com) is host and curator of In The Flesh Reading Series, Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and has edited over 20 erotic anthologies, most recently Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women; Yes, Sir; and Yes, Ma'am. Her own fiction has been published in over 100 anthologies, and she has written for Bust, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, Time Out New York, Zink, and other publications.
• Amy Einhorn BIO, Amy Einhorn Books
  Amy Einhorn started Amy Einhorn Books in the summer of 2007. The new imprint will publish fiction, narrative nonfiction and commercial nonfiction. The overarching tenet of Amy Einhorn Books will be intelligent writing with a strong narrative, always with great storytelling at its core. The imprint will seek that perfect blend of literary and commercial. Amy’s New York Times bestsellers include a wide-ranging list of books, such as I Like You by Amy Sedaris, The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks, Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston, Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman, and the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Red Hat Society by Sue Ellen Cooper. Amy was the editor of the #1 Book Sense pick and national bestseller, Min Jin Lee’s novel, Free Food for Millionaires, which was picked as one of the year’s best books by NPR’s Fresh Air, The Chicago Tribune and The Bloomsbury Review. Amy has worked in publishing for 19 years. Her most recent position was as Hardcover Editor-in-Chief of Grand Central Publishing (formerly Warner Books). In addition she has worked at Washington Square Press, Poseidon Press, Villard, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Lindsey Moore BIO, Crown
  Lindsey Moore came to Crown from HarperCollins in 2004 and acquires nonfiction in the areas of pop culture, memoir, relationships, and sex, as well as upmarket commercial fiction, especially women's fiction. Some current projects include The Manual by Steve Santagati, Great Reservations by Abigail Hart and Nancy Callahan, and The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg by Geoff Herbach.
• Martin Shepard, The Permanent Press
• Art Winslow BIO, National Book Critics Circle, moderator
Art Winslow is former literary editor and executive editor of The Nation magazine, where he spent sixteen years. A frequent contributor to the literary sections of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, BookForum, and other publications, including the current Columbia Journalism Review, he has also evaluated the country's literary magazines as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, is a past president of the National Book Critics Circle and a present board member, and has taught writing in workshops and as a visiting professor at Western Michigan University.

Champions of the Truth: Non-Fiction Editors

• Debra Englander BIO, Wiley
  Debra Englander is executive editor at John Wiley & Sons. She acquires personal finance, investing, narrative and general business topics. She has edited a number of bestselling books including Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs and Empire of Debt by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin. Prior to Wiley, Ms. Englander worked at Money Magazine, freelanced for magazines and newspapers and is the author of Money 101. She holds a BA from University of Pennsylvania and a MA from American University.
• Herb Shaffner, McGraw-Hill
• Stephanie Staal BIO, Cyan
  Stephanie Staal is an editorial consultant for the London-based non-fiction publisher Cyan Books (distributed by IPG in the United States). Prior to joining Cyan, Stephanie spent several years as a literary scout for foreign publishers and American film production companies. She currently teaches a class on how to write a non-fiction book proposal for Gotham Writers Workshop and is also the author of a "journalistic memoir" titled The Love They Lost (Bantam Dell, 2001).
• Bruce Tracy BIO, Random House
  Bruce Tracy is Executive Editor and Editorial Director/Villard for the Random House Publishing Group. Before that he worked at Doubleday. Works of nonfiction he has edited include In the Wilderness (Pulitzer finalist) by Kim Barnes, the national bestseller Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, Girlbomb and Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum, Lads by Dave Itzkoff, Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough, Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and his Cosmic American Music by David N. Meyer; as well as several books each by New York Times bestselling authors Jon Katz and Laurie Notaro. Fiction writers with whom he currently works include Joe Dunthorne, Bret Lott, Merrill Markoe, and Alan Zweibel.
• Janet Reid BIO, FinePrint Literary Management, moderator
Janet Reid specializes in crime fiction. She began her career as a literary agent after 15 years in book publicity with clients famous and infamous. She is with FinePrint Literary in New York City ( fineprintlit.com). She keeps a blog at jetreidliterary.blogspot.com.

4:00 – 5:15pm

The Digerati: Online Writing and Blogging

• Levi Asher BIO, Literary Kicks
  Levi Asher founded Literary Kicks, the longest-running popular literary destination on the internet, in 1994 and co-edited the first anthology of online fiction and poetry, Coffeehouse: Writings From the Web, in 1997. A poet, software developer and father of three, he has written about literature, politics and pop culture for the Huffington Post, the Guardian and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
• Ed Champion BIO, Ed Champion's Filthy Habits
  Ed Champion (www.edrants.com) is a Brooklyn-based writer, podcaster, blogger, critic, and a pretty nifty croquet player.
• Mary Delli Santi, bookblog.net
• Carol Fitzgerald BIO, bookreporter.com
  Carol Fitzgerald is co-Founder and President of TheBookReportNetwork.com --- seven Internet sites about books that have become the gathering places for a community of more than 1.6 million booklovers. With programming for adults at Bookreporter.com, reading groups at ReadingGroupGuides.com, Christian readers at FaithfulReader.com, teens at Teenreads.com and children at Kidsreads.com, TBRN is recognized as an online leader of informed, contemporary book news, reviews, and author interviews. The company's Authors on the Web division provides web development and Internet marketing for authors and publishers. To date the Company has built websites for more than 172 authors and publishers and implemented Internet marketing programs for more than 130 titles. Prior to founding TBRN in 1996, Fitzgerald spent 17 years at Conde Nast Publications, where she developed broad-based marketing, promotion and publicity programs.
• M. A. Orthofer BIO, The Complete Review
  Michael Orthofer is the founder and managing editor of the Complete Review (www.complete-review.com) and its Literary Saloon weblog. The Complete Review is a leading Internet book review site that has been online since 1999 and now has over 2000 titles under review. The New York Times Book Review has called it "one of the best literary destinations on the Web," and it was named one of Time's 50 Coolest Websites 2005.
• James Marcus BIO, Amazonia, moderator
James Marcus is currently Editor at Large at the Columbia Journalism Review and Senior Editor at a social news site, Propeller.com. He is the author of Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot-Com Juggernaut and six translations from the Italian (the most recent being Carlo Bonini's Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror). He has contributed to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Newsday, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Book Review, Raritan, and many other publications. He also written about jazz, pop, and classical music for Salon, The Oregonian, and WBUR Online Arts, and is the proprietor of a blog, House of Mirth.

Writing and Publishing Beautiful Children

• Charles Bock BIO, author
  Charles Bock was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has an MFA from Bennington College and has received fellowships from Yaddo, UCross, and the Vermont Studio Center. He lives in New York City. Visit the author’s website at www.beautifulchildren.net.
• David Ebershoff BIO, editor, Random House
  David Ebershoff is an editor-at-large at Random House. He has edited a wide range of writers including Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, David Mitchell, Jane Jacobs, Gary Shteyngart, Billy Collins, and Charles Bock. He is the author of two novels, Pasadena, and The Danish Girl, which is being made into a feature film. His new novel, The 19th Wife, will be published in August. He also teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University.
• Jynne Martin BIO, publicist, Random House
  Jynne Dilling Martin is the Assistant Director of Publicity at Random House; previously she also has done publicity at Simon & Schuster and St. Martin's Press. She specializes in literary fiction campaigns, and has worked with established literary stars Charles Frazier, Salman Rushdie, Billy Collins, Norman Mailer, and E.L. Doctorow, as well as breakout novelists such as Curtis Sittenfeld, Ben Kunkel, Zadie Smith, Gary Shteyngart, and Charles Bock.
• Alex Steele BIO, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, moderator
Alex Steele is the dean of faculty at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, the largest private creative writing school in the country. He has edited the books Writing Fiction, Writing Movies, and Fiction Gallery.

5:30 – 7:00 pm

• Interview with John Berendt BIO by Nora Rawlinson BIO of Publisher's Weekly - 5:30 to 6:30
John Berendt grew up in Syracuse, New York the son of two writers. He earned a B.A. in English from Harvard University, where he worked on the staff of The Harvard Lampoon. After graduating, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in publishing. Berendt has written for David Frost and Dick Cavett, was editor of New York magazine from 1977 to 1979, and wrote a monthly column for Esquire from 1982 to 1994. He is the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Falling Angels.
Nora Rawlinson, throughout her career, as a public librarian, editor of Library Journal and Editor-in-Chief of Publishers Weekly, has always been interested in what draws people to books. Recently, she launched a website to help public librarians stay on top of new books and reading trends, called Early Word (www.earlyword.com).
• Cocktail Reception - 6:30 to 7:30