Morning Class Instructors

Lee Martin—Keynoter and Morning Fiction Instructor

Lee Martin is the Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of The Bright Forever, and three other novels, including Break the Skin. His other books are the novels, River of Heaven and Quakertown; the memoirs, Such a Life, From Our House, and Turning Bones; and the short story collection, The Least You Need to Know. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper's, Ms., Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and Glimmer Train. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. He teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University, where he was the winner of the 2006 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. www.leemartinauthor.com

Morning Poetry Instructor—Cathy Smith Bowers

Cathy, who was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina in 2010, is the author of four books: The Love that Ended Yesterday in Texas (inaugural winner of the Texas Tech University Press First Book Competition, 1992); Traveling in Time of Danger (Iris Press, 1999), A Book of Minutes (Iris Press, 2004), and The Candle I Hold Up to See You (Iris Press, 2009). Her powerful poems about family and loss have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review and The Kenyon Review. She is currently on the faculty for Queens' M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program, UNC Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program and at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C.

Morning Creative Nonfiction/Memoir Instructor—Dinty W. Moore

Dinty is author of numerous books, including The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life, Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, and the memoir Between Panic & Desire, winner of the Grub Street Nonfiction Book Prize. Having failed as a zookeeper, modern dancer, Greenwich Village waiter, filmmaker, and wire service journalist, he now writes essays and stories. He has been published in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, and Crazyhorse, among numerous other venues. Dinty lives in Athens, Ohio, which he calls "the funkadelicious, hillbilly-hippie Appalachian epicenter of the locally-grown, locally-consumed, goats-are-for-cheese, paw-paws-are-for-eatin’, artisanal-salsa, our-farmers-market-rocks-the-hills sub-culture," where he grows his own heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions, and teaches in and serves as director of Ohio University’s BA, MA, and PhD in Creative Writing program.

Visiting Agent(s) and Editor(s):

Suzie Townsend--New Leaf Literary & Media

After teaching high school English for several years, Suzie Townsend started in publishing at FinePrint Literary Management in January 2009 and worked her way up from intern to agent. Now an agent at New Leaf Literary & Media, she represents adult and children's fiction. She is actively looking to build her list. In adult, she's specifically looking for romance (historical and paranormal), and fantasy (urban fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, epic fantasy). In Childrens' she loves YA (all subgenres) and is dying to find great Middle Grade projects (especially something akin to the recent movie SUPER 8). She's an active member of AAR, RWA, and SCBWI.
She’s interested in strong characters and voice driven stories: she’s particularly keen on strong female protagonists, complex plot lines with underlying political, moral, or philosophical issues, and stories which break out of the typical tropes of their genre. Some of her favorite novels (that she doesn't represent) are Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, Jellicoe Road and Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Jeaniene Frost's Vampire Huntress series, Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series, and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. She drinks too much diet orange soda, has a Starbucks problem (those soy chai lattes are addictive), and lives in New York with two dogs who know that chewing on shoes is okay but chewing on books is not.

Hannah Brown Gordon--Foundry Literary + Media

Hannah represents absorbing and compelling writing, both fiction and nonfiction, and is seeking to represent authors across many genres. She is especially interested in stories and narratives that blend genres, including thriller, suspense, historical, literary, speculative, memoir, pop-science, psychology, humor, and pop culture. She enjoys the creative process of working with writers and collaborating closely with them throughout all stages of their careers.

Hannah graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Creative Writing and English Literature and then began her publishing career at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. She now represents authors at Foundry Literary + Media.

Other Guest Speakers for "Professional Skills for Writers" Morning Classes:

Jen Violi--First Book Talk

Jen is an AWW alumni, a book coach, and author of Putting Makeup on Dead People, published by Hyperion. Her YA novel has won awards as well as critical acclaim. Learn more about Jen at www.jenvioli.com.

Christina Dendy--Editor's Panel

Christina is a freelance writer and editor in educational publishing, a creative writer, and the Founding Editor of Mock Turtle Zine, www.mockturtlezine.com

Matthew Birdsall--Editor's Panel

Matt works in educational publishing, is a poet, and is Managing Editor of Mock Turtle Zine, www.mockturtlezine.com

Nathan Floom--Editor's Panel

Nathan is a creative writer, an Individual Master of Arts in Creative Writing student at Antioch University Midwest, and co-founder of Heavy Feather Review, www.heavyfeatherreview.com.

Jason Teal--Editor's Panel

Jason is a creative writer, a recent graduate from the creative writing program at Bowling Green State University, and co-founder of Heavy Feather Review, www.heavyfeatherreview.com.

Tobin Terry--Editor's Panel and "How to Give a Reading"

Tobin is a professor of creative writing and English at Lakeland Community College in northeastern Ohio, a creative writer, Communications Coordinator for the Antioch Writers' Workshop, and founding editor of Chagrin River Review, www.chagrinrivereview.com.

Rebecca Kuder and Becky Morean--Grammar Boot Camp/Self-Editing for Writers

Rebecca is a writer, is Faculty Chair of Antioch University Midwest's Individual Master of Arts in Creative Writing program, has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, serves on the Antioch Writers' Workshop Board of Directors, and actively blogs at www.rebeccakuder.com. Becky Morean is a published novelist and essayist, a Professor of English at Sinclair Community College, and President of the Antioch Writers' Workshop Board of Directors, and actively blogs at Salon, open.salon.com/blog/rmorean

Sharon Short--"How to Give a Pitch"

Sharon is the Executive Director of the Antioch Writers' Workshop, author of My One Square Inch of Alaska (published by Penguin Plume, 2013), Literary Life columnist for the Dayton Daily News, and adjunct instructor of composition and creative writing at Antioch University Midwest. www.sharonshort.com

Afternoon Seminar Faculty

Afternoon Fiction Seminar—Sherri Wood Emmons

Sherri Wood Emmons is a freelance writer and editor. She is a graduate of Earlham College and the University of Denver Publishing Institute. A mother of three, she lives in Indiana with her husband, two fat beagles, and four spoiled cats. Her novels include Prayers and Lies and The Sometimes Daughter, both published by Kensington. www.sherriwoodemmons.com

Afternoon Fiction Seminar--Short Fiction Focus—Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay's writing appears or is forthcoming in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, New Stories From the Midwest 2011 and 2012, Salon, Oxford American, NOON, American Short Fiction, Indiana Review, Brevity, The Rumpus, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK, the essays editor for The Rumpus, and teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University. She is also the author of Ayiti, a collection of writing about the Haitian diaspora experience and has other books on the horizon.

Afternoon Fiction Seminar—Jeffrey Ford

Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels, The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, and The Shadow Year. His story collections are The Fantasy Writer's Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, and Crackpot Palace. His short fiction has appeared in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies, from MAD Magazine to The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (2nd edition), edited by Joyce Carol Oates. His work has been translated into nearly 20 languages and is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award, and the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire

Afternoon Fiction Seminar—Casey Daniels

Casey Daniels is the author of the popular Pepper Martin mystery series, in which Pepper works at a historic cemetery and solves mysteries for the ghosts there. In addition, Casey has a new series, the Button Box mysteries, written as Kylie Logan. Casey has also written both historical and contemporary romances as well as books for young adults and one children’s book. She lives in the Cleveland area and teaches fiction writing classes at the Brecksville Center for the Arts. She is a frequent presenter at workshops nationwide. Learn more about Casey at www.caseydaniels.com

Afternoon Poetry Seminar Instructor—Cathryn Essinger

Cathryn Essinger is the author of three books of poetry--A Desk In The Elephant House, which won the Walt McDonald First Book Award from Texas Tech University Press, and My Dog Does Not Read Plato, which was the runner up in the Main Street Rag book competition in 2004. Her third book, What I Know About Innocence, was published in 2009, also from Main Street Rag press, and includes a video poem produced by her son, David, a fiction writer and professor at the University of Findlay. Essinger’s poems have been anthologized in The Poetry Anthology: 1912-2002, Poetry Daily: 366 Poems, and in O Taste and See: Food Poems. Her work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. Her new work has appeared in such places as The Southern Review, New England Review, and Quarterly West. She received an Ohio Arts Council grant and was Ohio’s Poet of the Year in 2005. She is a member of The Greenville Poets, a small but well-published poetry group that does workshop presentations and supports the work of younger writers. She is a retired Professor of English from Edison Community College, in Piqua, Ohio.

Afternoon Creative Nonfiction/Memoir Seminar Instructor—Matthew Goodman

Matthew Goodman is the author of three books of non-fiction. His latest, the narrative history Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World, will be published in 2013 by Ballantine Books. It has been translated into seven languages and was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Spring 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection. His previous book, The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York, was a Borders Books Original Voices selection and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by The Economist magazine. Matthew's essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Bon Appetit, the Forward, and the Utne Reader, and he has taught writing in many colleges and writing conferences, among them the Antioch Writers' Workshop and the Chautauqua Writers Institute. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two children.

Getting Started with Fiction or Creative Nonfiction (No Manuscript Required) Instructor—Greg Belliveau

Greg Belliveau is a 2008 Christopher Isherwood Grant Recipient, an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s January 2012 Short-Short Fiction Contest, as well as the 2002 Christy Award finalist for Best First Novel, Go Down To Silence (Multnomah: a Division of Random House, 2001). He has been published in The Atticus Review, The Cleveland Review, Vine Leaves of which his vignette “LG Don’t Want To Fly” was selected for their 2012 Best Of Anthology to be published by eMergent Publishing, December 2012. He received his MFA from Pacific University, Oregon, and he currently resides with his wife and two daughters in Ohio.

Afternoon Young Writers Instructor Seminar—Trudy Krisher

Trudy Krisher has a reputation as a talented writer who does not hesitate to explore sensitive issues. She grew up in the South like her heroines Maggie, in her young adult novels Spite Fences, and Pert, in Kinship. Born in Macon, Georgia in 1946, she was raised in South Florida. Trudy has won many awards for her writing. They include Best Book for Young Adults selection of the American Library Association, 1994, 1997, 2004; International Reading Association Award; The Jefferson Cup Honor Book of the Virginia Library Association; Parents' Choice Honor Book/ Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award; Amelia Bloomer Project Recommended Books. Her other books include the children's picture book Kathy's Hats: A Story of Hope, and the young adult novels Uncommon Faith and Fallout.

Saturday Seminar Instructors

Mike Mullin

Mike is the author of the acclaimed Young Adult novel Ashfall, named as a top Y.A. novel of 2011 by NPR and Kirkus reviews and Ashen Winter. Learn more about his novels at www.ashfallbook.com. During high school, Mike Mullin served as a Congressional Page for the Honorable Andy Jacobs, Jr. and later spent a year in Brazil as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. He paid his way through college working full-time for Kids Ink Children’s Bookstore, graduating in three and a half years with a degree in Political Science and minors in Latin American Studies and Economics. He spent two years computerizing Kids Ink’s operations and opening a new store, then returned to school to earn a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University. While studying for his Masters, Mike worked as a reference assistant for the IU library.

After graduation, Mike worked in brand management for Procter and Gamble, marketing Pampers diapers. Later, he moved to Spectrum Brands, where he founded the Terminate brand. After Spectrum, Mike launched his own remodeling company. In addition, he has continued to work for Kids Ink as a consultant and part-time helper during his various other careers.

Mike wrote his first novel in elementary school and has been writing more or less non-stop ever since. Ashfall is his first published novel. Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats.

Jaime Adoff

Jaime Adoff is an award winning poet and fiction writer; see www.jaimeadoff.com. He was born in New York City but grew up in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from Central State University in Ohio, where he studied drums and percussion. Moving to New York City in 1990, he attended the Manhattan School of Music and studied drums and voice. Jaime then went on to pursue a career in songwriting and fronted his own rock band for eight years. He released two CD’s of his own material and performed extensively in New York City and throughout the US.

He is the author of the "all ages" original poetry collection "The Song Shoots Out of My Mouth": A Celebration of Music,(2002)(Downloadable at audible.com 08') which was a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor book,(2003) an IRA Notable book (2003), A NY Public Library book for the teenage(2003), a VOYA poetry pick (2002) and a CCB Best Book for 2002.

The critically acclaimed "Names Will Never Hurt Me" (2004) was his first young-adult novel and almost instantly became a MUST HAVE for teens around the country. In 2005 it was named a NY Public Library book for the teenage, and was nominated as a Best Book for Young Adults.

"Jimi & Me" (2005) was the recipient of the 2006 CORETTA SCOTT KING/​JOHN STEPTOE NEW TALENT AUTHOR AWARD.
It was named as a 2006 YALSA QUICK PICK FOR RELUCTANT READERS, A 2006 NY PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK FOR THE TEENAGE and was selected to the VOYA TOP SHELF FICTION LIST FOR 2005.
It received a *starred* review from LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION and was cited as "an exceptional story" and "a tremendous addition to any collection" by VOYA magazine.

Jaime's latest young adult novel "The Death of Jayson Porter" received the 2010 BuckeyeTeen Book Award. It received *Starred Reviews from *Booklist*, *Library Media Connection*, and *VOYA* magazine,(5Q). It was also selected for the 09' "Choose to read Ohio program." A project of the State Library of Ohio, to promote reading across Ohio. As well as an Ohioana Book Award finalist in the Juvenile category.

His first picture book "Small Fry"(NOV 08) was cited as "Cathartic and Encouraging fun" by Kirkus Review.

Jaime is a highly sought after speaker, presenting across the country on teen issues, diversity, YA literature and Poetry. His Rock n Roll school visits have been knocking the socks off students and teachers alike, for years. Jaime has worked with students from Kindergarten through High School and even college and graduate students as well. Giving them all a "backstage- all access- pass" into the life, creative process, and works of one of the most groundbreaking, unique and innovative voices writing for children and teens today.

Jaime is currently a M.Ed./​Teacher's licensure candidate (Language Arts, grades 7-12) at Antioch University Midwest, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He will be graduating in the Spring of 2013.

Jaime Adoff is the son of the late Newbery Award-winning author Virginia Hamilton and renowned poet Arnold Adoff.

Jaime lives in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio, with his family.

Rebecca Kuder

Rebecca is a writer, is Faculty Chair of Antioch University Midwest's Individual Master of Arts in Creative Writing program, has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, serves on the Antioch Writers' Workshop Board of Directors, and actively blogs at www.rebeccakuder.com.

Kate Geiselman

Kate is a creative writer, a Professor of English at Sinclair Community College, and Chair, Programming Committee, Antioch Writers' Workshop.