FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
BP Energy & Conference Center
| 8:30am |
Check-in Opens for Optional Morning Intensives (All Friday options must be registered for in addition to Main Saturday Conference) |
| 9:00 - 11:00 |
Submissions 101: synopses to pitches and everything in between with authors Dante Medema & Brooke Hartman |
| 9:00 - 12:00 | Moving Characters with author Damon Suede |
| 9:00 - 12:00 | Revision Without Tears with Bestselling Author Laurie Halse-Anderson |
| 9:00 - 12:00 | Illustrator Intensive: "Let's Lay it Out," Comic and Kidlit Page Design with Lucas Elliott |
| 12:00pm | Check-in Opens for Optional Roundtable Critiques |
| 12:30 - 2:30 | First Pages Roundtable Critiques with Agents Eddie Gamarra, Rachel Orr, Katie Grimm, and editor Kat Brzozowski |
| 2:30pm | Check-in Opens for Optional Afternoon Intensives |
| 3:00 - 6:00 | Breaking Into the Indie Market with Kimberly Killion, Tamsin Ley & Boone Brux |
| 3:00 - 6:00 | Plotting with author Damon Suede |
| 3:00 - 6:00 | Your Crash Course in Screenwriting with Film Writer Douglass Bourne |
| 3:00 - 6:00 | Picture Book Intensive: "Bad Writing" with Literary Agent Rachel Orr |
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
BP Energy & Conference Center
| 8:00am | Check-In & Coffee in BP Energy Center Foyer |
| 8:20 - 8:40 | Birch Room: Welcome, Opening Remarks, and Awards |
| 8:40 - 9:20 | Birch Room: Opening Keynote with Bestselling Author Laurie Halse-Anderson: "Creativity is a Wild Mind and a Disciplined Eye" |
| 9:20 - 9:30 | Break |
| ROOM |
BIRCH ROOM | COTTONWOOD / ALDER | FIR ROOM | WILLOW / SPRUCE |
| 9:30 - 10:30 |
Eddie Gamarra: Adapting Your Book to a Screenplay. This session will be dedicated to guiding those interested in the art and craft and business of screenwriting broadly, as well as those interested in adapting their own work. We will discuss practical and personal pros and cons for each type of writing process. |
Lynn Lovegreen: Nuts and Bolts for KidLit Newbies! Maybe you want to write a book, or you have one started. But questions are swirling in your mind. Can this idea really be a whole book? What sort of book is it? Picture Book? Middle Grade? YA?? What about finding a critique group? Where do I even start?? You're not alone--we've all been there at one point. With the help of this session, hopefully you'll gain the tools you need to guide you in the right direction. |
Geoff Symon:
Scene of the Crime, perpetrating & investigating your fictional felonies. This course gives you the basic tools to investigate your own fictional scenes through law, evidence concepts and real life people who process crime scenes. We'll visit the most common forensic flubs and fallacies while discussing true primary forensic methods and fundamental terminology to breathe life into the scene of your crime. |
Katie Grimm: Agent 101. To sell your book to a major publishing house, you need an agent. But what goes on in their office? Agent 101 is a nitty gritty survey of the of the agent's role, from being on the receiving end of query letters to submission lists and deals. Write down your burning questions for an anonymous Q&A! |
| 10:30 - 10:40 | Break |
| 10:40 - 11:40 |
Laurie Halse-Anderson: Historical Fiction; Blood, Bones, and History. A fast-paced, fact-heavy look at the special demands of researching and writing historical fiction. Bring your questions and the log jams holding back your research! |
Rachel Orr: Picture Books; Get on the Write Page! (for authors and illustrators) Look at your story through the eyes of an agent and editor by learning to how to pace your story, or illustrations, with page turns. We will study the art of pagination by making dummies of our works-in-progress. |
Douglass Bourne: Plot Your Novel Like a Movie. This talk will discuss how to use the techniques of screenwriting to hone the craft of writing, from short stories to novels and memoirs. We'll study the qualities of a dynamic scene, including good dialogue and action, employing these techniques to strengthen your prose. |
Damon Suede: Game Face; Build a Winning Author Platform. As an author you're your own best advertisement for your work. In this session we’ll take a look at your professional presence and platform, as well as ways to attract allies, shape your message, expand your audience, and find the fun in your promo process to earn the right kinds of attention on- and offline. |
| 11:40 | Lunch Available in Foyer |
| 12:00 - 12:30 | Diversity Author Panel: Writing for, by, to, and about gender and LGBTQ+ with authors Kellie Doherty, Kristen Ritter, Lindsay Pierce, Mercy Zephyr, Damon Suede, and Geoff Symon |
| 12:30 - 12:40 | Break |
| 12:40 - 1:40 |
Eddie Gamarra: Book-to-Screen: The Roller Coaster of Film Adaptations. In this session, we will examine a variety of examples of book adaptations for screens big and small, and discuss creative, financial, legal, marketing, and other considerations involved in the process. | Lucas Elliott: Ink and Snow, Being a KidLit Illustrator in Alaska. Whether you’re creating your first picture book dummy or scripting your first graphic novel, determining how your story flows from one page to another is important. With this intensive, we’ll go through the anatomy of what it takes to develop a strong sense of story through panel design, composition, and framing. |
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AKRWA Panel with Authors Mercy Zephyr, Cheryl Burghart, D.R. Slaten, Elizabeth Allyn-Dean, and Karen Kiely: Diversity in Romance and Beyond. AKRWA members discuss how diversity enhances your romance novel--or any novel. We'll talk about recent trends, and point out common stereotypes and errors to avoid in writing ethnicity and gender. Then we'll give examples of #ownvoices and inclusive authors, and how to write diversity in our own work. |
| 1:40 - 1:50 | Break |
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* Times, speakers and topics subject to change
For more information on our annual writers conference, click HERE to email the conference chair