GUEST SPEAKERS

Notice: Literary agent Susan Schulman will not be able to attend this summer, but will be joining us at a future workshop. We are pleased to welcome Stephany Evans and Elise Capron as our guest literary agents in 2008.

Elise Capron

Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

Elise Capron is an agent with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, an agency known for establishing and guiding the careers of critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction authors, including Amy Tan, Lisa See, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chitra Divakaruni, Kate White, Diane Mott Davidson, Luis Urrea, Janell Cannon, and many others. The Los Angeles Times dubbed the Dijkstra Agency "the most powerful literary agency on the West Coast" and, in its 25+ years, the agency has developed a reputation for discovering new talent and representing quality work with commercial potential.

      Elise has been with the Dijkstra Agency since 2003. In addition to her own agenting, she assists Sandra Dijkstra and handles first serial sales. She specializes in debut fiction, character-driven literary and offbeat fiction, and short story collections. She is also interested in selected nonfiction if it has a literary edge. She hopes to find fiction with unforgettable writing, terrific narrative voice/tone, and great characters. Elise loves novels with an unusual or eccentric edge, and is drawn to stories she has never heard before. She hopes to work with writers who are professional, have a realistic sense of the market, and who are getting their work published regularly in literary magazines.

      Some of Elise's recent and soon-to-be-published books include Jonathon Keats' The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six (Random House), Ali Liebegott's The IHOP Papers (Carroll & Graf), Peter Plate's Soon the Rest Will Fall (Seven Stories Press), and Whitney Lyles' Party Games (Simon Pulse) and First Comes Love (Berkley).

Stephany Evans

President, Fine Print Literary Management

With a background in theatre, film and painting, Stephany Evans began agenting in 1990 with Sandra Martin/Paraview. In 1992, she formed her own agency while serving as editor for alternative health, healing, and personal growth magazine, Free Spirit. Stephany is the ghost author of five published books, the identities of which are a loosely held secret.

      For seventeen years, Stephany has represented nonfiction writers in the areas of health and wellness (especially women's health), spirituality, lifestyle (including home renovating/decorating, entertaining, food and wine), popular reference, and narrative nonfiction. In fiction, her core interest is in stories with a strong and interesting female protagonist, both literary and upmarket commercial — including chick lit, romance, mystery, and light suspense. Stephany loves to run and is interested in sports, especially women's sports (her NYC 2006 marathon time is 4:22:10). She likes to laugh and has a somewhat dark sense of humor. And she loves dogs — especially Afghan hounds. Her greatest pleasure comes from discovering a formidable new writing talent, or helping an author shape and take to market her or his potentially world-altering idea.

      Stephany is a member of the Association of Author's Representatives, the Author's Guild, and Romance Writers of America; she is a member of the Women's National Book Association, and a member and former co-chair of New York Women in Publishing. She splits her time between her offices in New York City and Marfa, Texas.

Lawson Wulsin, MD

First Book Talk

Lawson R. Wulsin, MD, is a professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, where he has taught for the past 20 years in his subspecialty areas of psychosomatic medicine and primary care psychiatry. In 1989, he established a Mood Disorders Center for the treatment and study of depression and related disorders. In 1995, he created a training program that qualifies graduates to practice both family medicine and psychiatry. From 2006 to 2007, he published a weekly column, “Mind Matters,” in The Cincinnati Enquirer . An AWW alum, Lawson's first nonfiction book, Treating the Aching Heart: A Guide to Depression, Stress, and Heart Disease, was published in 2007 by Vanderbilt University Press . Recently, he finished his first novel, Small Wonders from the Department of Human Behavior .

Linda Keller

Community Relations Manager, Barnes & Noble

Linda Keller is Community Relations Manager and Field Trainer for Barnes & Noble, training new Community Relations Managers from the East Coast to the Midwest. As 2006 Central Ohio Fiction Writers Bookseller of the Year and 2007 RWA Steffie Walker Bookseller of the Year, she uses her 15-year knowledge of the industry, love of the romance genre, and her regular workshop, The Other Side of the Bookshelf, to help published and unpublished authors understand the publishing process. She shares information designed to guide writers to finding a publisher, submitting their manuscript, the consequences on their career of publishing choices, the process of publishing and more. In addition to coaching the craft/industry side, she breaks down in easy to understand language the retail side of the book culture offering best practices for signings based on over 100 book-signings in 8 years, including at least three yearly multi-author signings hosting over 25 authors each time. She sponsors over 70 fiction-writing workshops presented by published authors and industry professionals and continues to encourage writers and actively assist in their education.

Bill Brohaugh
The Writing Life: How to “Pitch” to an Agent
Currently the managing editor of COLLOQUY (it means “conversation”), Brohaugh served as editor of Writer's Digest from 1982 to 1990, and as editorial director of Writer's Digest Books from 1990 to 1998. He is the author of the "Writing the Nonfiction Book Proposal" course of WritersOnlineWorkshops.com. His books include, Everything You Know About English Is Wrong (Sourcebooks May 2008), Unfortunate English, and Write Tight: Say Exactly What You Mean With Precision and Power. He has written several hundred published or produced magazine articles and short radio pieces.

Sharon Short
The Writing Life: How to “Pitch” to an Agent
Sharon Short delights in mixing humor with mystery in her Josie Toadfern mystery series (Avon Books} The sixth book in the series, Tie Dyed and Dead, was published in February 2008. She is also a humor columnist; her column, Sanity Check appears every Monday in the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) and covers everything from shredding pantyhose for stress relief, to talking refrigerators. Sharon’s fiction credits include short mysteries published in Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine.