Summer Conference Faculty
Christopher Buckley
Poetry
Christopher Buckley has received a Fulbright Award in Creative Writing to the former Yugoslavia, four Pushcart Prizes, two awards from the Poetry Society of America, and is the recipient of NEA grants in poetry for 2001 and 1984. His most recent book is And the Sea, from The Sheep Meadow Press, 2006. Sheep Meadow Press also published his 13th book of poetry, Sky, in 2004. Over the past 25 years his poetry has appeared in such literary journals as APR, Poetry, Field, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The New Yorker, The Nation, The Hudson Review, The Gettysburg Review, Quarterly West, Prairie Schooner, and New Letters among others. His first book of creative nonfiction, Cruising State: Growing Up In Southern California, was published in 1994, and a new book of nonfiction, Sleep Walk, is just out from Eastern Washington University Press. He teaches in the creative writing program at the University of California Riverside.
About This Workshop Read & Critique. Participants should bring 15 copies of one of their poems to each workshop. Poems will distributed, read by author. Workshop spent responding to each poem in its current draft with an eye to what can be improved for the next draft. Writing as process. As always. Direct, rigorous, but supportive responses and critiquing encouraged. Hand-out each day of a current poem or two for inspiration and ideas on strategies.
Barnaby and Mary Conrad
Founders
Barnaby and Mary Conrad founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 1972, shortly after moving to Santa Barbara from San Francisco, where Barnaby owned the famed Matador Restaurant, which was named after his best-selling novel, Matador. The author of more than 30 books, Barnaby’s latest is The Last Boat to Cadiz. Mary has been the behind-the-scenes engine who has made everything work so smoothly all these years. If you needed anything, Mary could take care of it. In 2004, the Conrads "retired" and Executive Director Marcia Meier took over. Barnaby and Mary will continue to be involved, however, and Barnaby especially will continue to inspire writers with his stories and helpful advice as he roves among the workshops.
Walter Dallenbach
Screenwriting
With a background in TV journalism, Walter has spent the last 30 years writing movies and television shows. His credits include television dramatic series ranging from "Rockford Files" to "Law and Order" and "Movies of the Week" for all major networks. He also teaches a screenwriting course for Adult Education in Santa Barbara.
About This Workshop The screenwriter is the architect of the film, creating the blueprint for the other artists (director, actors, cinematographer, etc) to build on. The creative depth and professionalism you bring to your pages will determine how well your concept is realized. This workshop will emphasize how to make your script more dramatic, entertaining, and, most important, more visual. What you’re writing, after all, is a “motion” picture. In addition to class dramatization and analysis of your script scenes, film clips from various movies will help to demonstrate character development, scene structure, dialogue techniques and story momentum.
John Daniel
Pirate Workshop
John M. Daniel is the author of eight published books (three mystery novels, two story collections, a cat book, a memoir about small-press publishing, and a writing instruction book) and over seventy-five published articles and short stories. He has taught creative writing at UCLA Extension, UC Irvine Extension, UC Santa Barbara Extension, Santa Barbara Adult Education, and Northern Humboldt County Adult Education; and he is on the faculty of the annual Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference. Daniel and his wife, Susan, are the founders and proprietors of Daniel & Daniel, Publishers, Inc., a small literary press that publishes several high-quality books each year.
About This Workshop You’ve attended workshops and presentations all day long. Exhausted? Maybe, but maybe you’re also wired and high on the magic of words at play. It’s time to spend half the night at a Pirate Workshop. What do you get from a Pirate Workshop? An energy charge. A chance to perform. Honest, constructive, supportive critique from your peers. Fine entertainment hearing good writers read good work. Witty and wise conversation about the craft of writing. Laughs. Friendships that will last beyond the conference. Join us.
http://www.danielpublishing.com
Susan Miles Gulbransen
Creative Nonfiction
Susan Miles Gulbransen wrote a column (InPrint), book reviews, profiles and essays for the Santa Barbara News-Press for 21 years. Her articles appear in several regional magazines and her poetry in obscure publications. She teaches writing workshops through the Santa Barbara Adult Education program and is co-founder of the Annual Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival. She and Susan Chiavelli co-edited More Letters From the Heart (Advocacy Press, 2008) and her short story My Mother’s Man was read by Speaking of Stories in the Spring of 2008.
About This Workshop Ever wonder why a good novel or short story makes you want to turn the pages and read on? Those same techniques and craft can work for nonfiction, too. Our workshop focuses on these tools and how to incorporate them into your writing. We begin each day with a brief discussion on a particular feature of writing: characterization, voice, structure, etc. You are then asked to do a short writing assignment followed by voluntary readings and critiquing. This evens the playing field, gives you a chance to be creative and stretch your writing skills. The last hour we read works-in-progress determined by an ongoing sign-up sheet.
http://www.sbbookfestival.org
Mary Hershey
Humor
Mary is a former marathon runner and Army veteran, is a celebrated children's author and her first book, My Big Sister is so Bossy She Says You Can’t Read This Book, was published by Random House in 2005. The One Where The Kid Nealy Jumps to His Death and Lands in California, was released in March 2007 and 10 Lucky Things That Have Happened to Me Since I Nearly Got Hit by Lightning is coming out this summer. Mary works full-time for the Department of Veteran Affairs as the Lead Administrator for several outpatient medical clinics. But, before you fall sound asleep on that, Mary would like you to know that she also has worked as a teen model and a giant cartoon rat. And she considers chocolate chip cookie baking a serious spiritual practice.
About This Workshop You have to be funny to write funny, don't you? Or, can one really learn how to write humor? In this workshop, Mary Hershey will take students on a fast-paced, laugh out loud journey to locate and examine their own funny bone. You'll learn how to synthesize your life experiences, temperament, personal style and obsessions to create a brand of humor that is as unique as your own fingerprint. The developmental stages of humor for all ages will be examined. What are the components of humor? How can one's skills be sharpened? Humor techniques used by today's most successful authors will be autopsied, and in class writing exercises will help students find and release their inner comedian.
http://www.maryhershey.com/
Fred Hunter
Screenwriting
After stints as The Christian Science Monitor's Africa Correspondent and, earlier, as a US Information Service officer in Belgium and the Congo, Fred Hunter has written screenplays for Twentieth Century-Fox and Universal as well as television movies produced by PBS, ABC, CBS and Disney. Cune Press published his AFRICA, AFRICA! Fifteen Stories in 2000. Fred returned to the Monitor as an editor for a year while on sabbatical from scriptwriting and has taught screenwriting at UCSB, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and Principia College. He holds a Master's Degree in African Studies from UCLA.
About This Workshop A seminar for writers interested in exploring beginning steps in writing screenplays. We'll talk about their basic ingredients —conflict, character, plot, theme, audience connections —and have fun working with them in writing exercises. A good idea to arrive at the Conference with a notion you'd like to work with —and with a computer you can work on. Even better: have some sense of its theme and a structure that will reveal that theme. The seminar will also appeal to non-screenwriters who'd like to understand better the role that stories play in our lives and how they're are set up and structured.
Davida Wills Hurwin
Fiction/Young Adult
Davida Wills Hurwin is the author of three acclaimed novels for young adults: A Time for Dancing (Little, Brown), The Farther You Run (Viking) and Circle the Soul Softly (Harper Collins). A Time For Dancing was made into a film which most recently could be seen on HBO. Davida teaches theater at Crossroads School in Santa Monica and LOVES the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. She incorporates movement and theater exercises into her work with writers, and advises you to dress comfortably if you are taking her workshop.
About This Workshop Much of an actor’s training is geared to developing tools to discover the truths contained in the self, through exercises designed to help unlock physical and emotional realities, take risks in character development, and investigate areas of understanding that the intellect alone might not access. This forms the basis of my workshop. We begin with physical games to warm-up and ready ourselves for work and help create an arena of safety. An exercise will be presented (geared to each specific group) which can be utilized by writers on their own, including (but not limited to) work on sub-text, sense memory, emotional recall, relationship, and how physicality defines character. Those who wish to read their work will have the opportunity to do so.
Melodie Johnson Howe
Fiction/Nonfiction
After a career in acting, Melodie Johnson Howe turned to writing. Her first novel, The Mother Shadow, was nominated for an Edgar, Anthony, and Agatha Awards. Howe’s second novel, Beauty Dies, soon followed. Her numerous short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Magazine and The Best Short Fiction of the Year, and other anthologies. In 2005 her short story, "Facing Up," was nominated for the Barry Award. Her work has been published worldwide. Before moving to Santa Barbara she taught fiction in the writers program at UCLA.
About This Workshop All fiction and non fiction writers are welcomed. We will sit around a large oval table and thrash out what makes good work thrill us. The writing of novels and non fiction rely on the same techniques; developing character, using dialogue as action, and creating human tension. We will explore through the process of editing how the writer can develop his/her own critical monitor. Raymond Chandler once said, “…when in doubt (as a writer) have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” Join my class and find out how to make that man, that gun real.
http://www.melodiejohnsonhowe.com
R. L. La Fevers
Children’s Fiction
R. L. La Fevers (Robin Lorraine when she’s in really big trouble) is the author of six books for young readers. Her most recent book, Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) received starred reviews and was a Junior Library Guild selection, a Booksense Summer Pick, and nominated for the Malice Domestic’s Agatha Award. The sequel, Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris will be released in November, 2008. Her earlier book, The Forging of the Blade was nominated to the Texas Library Association’s Bluebonnet Award Master List 2006-2007 and was a 2007 Utah CLAU Beehive Award Nominee.
About This Workshop With an emphasis on plot and character, R.L. LaFevers will use hands-on exercises and interactive analysis in a hands-on opportunity for writers to apply deep characterization work and plotting structure to their own manuscripts. The week will be spent plumbing the depths of character in order to create a plot and identify the story’s turning points, rising action, and climax. We will also discuss voice, point of view, and setting and how to use those to make your work stand out. A portion of the class will be spent reading and critiquing student’s work.
Lisa Lenard-Cook
Fiction: The Mind of Your Story
Lisa Lenard-Cook is the fiction columnist for Author Link and the author of two novels, Dissonance and Coyote Morning. Dissonance won the Jim Sagel Award and was a finalist for the 2005 Southwest Book Award in fiction, given by PEN New Mexico and PEN Texas to honor excellence in writing by PEN members of the Southwest. Dissonance also was selected for Durango-La Plata Reads! and NPR Performance Today’s Summer Reading Series, and was chosen as one of the best novels of 2003 by libraries across the country. Coyote Morning, published in 2004, was, like Dissonance, a Tucson-Pima County Library Southwest Book of the Year. Lisa taught at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, throughout the 1990s. In addition to fiction writing and teaching, she is author/co-author of 10 trade nonfiction books, including Guide to Dreams (DK, 2003) and Complete Idiots Guide to Numerology (Alpha, 2e, 2004). The Mind of Your Story, which explores Lisa’s unique approach to writing (and rewriting) fiction, will be published by Writer’s Digest Books in April 2008.
About This Workshop How do you create a story that captures readers from its first page and doesn’t let them go until the final page is turned? The secret is a delicate balancing act between allowing your story a mind of its own and holding tightly to its reins. In this workshop, you’ll read your work aloud (without copies, which helps us develop that most important writerly skill, listening), and then, working together, I’ll help you see some of the things you might do to make what’s on the page match the vision in your head.
http://www.lisalenardcook.com
Perie J. Longo
Poetry
Teacher and lecturer, she is also a therapist, actress, and area coordinator for California-Poets-in-the-Schools. She has published articles and poems in various journals as well as two books of poetry, Milk the Earth, and most recently, The Privacy of Wind (John Daniel Publishers, 1997). In 2002 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.About This Workshop Perie Longo’s morning poetry workshop focuses on craft, commentary, and writing exercises. Please bring 10 copies of each poem you would like work-shopped. Each poem will be addressed considering structure, strategy, poetic language, strengths and how to ready it for submission. Various poetic elements are addressed in the body of the critique. Each day a poem or two from a well known poet will be studied for its merits. This is a great opportunity to gather with others who have knowledge and experience to share. Come prepared to share your favorite poets, books, questions and open hearts. http://www.perielongo.com
Anne Lowenkopf
Fiction
Anne has taught writing, editing and literature-for-writers courses for more than 20 years. In 1990 a permanent plaque in appreciation of her skills was installed at the Santa Barbara Schott Center. Her editorial skills, honed as a researcher and copy editor/indexer for a trade book publisher in Los Angeles, expanded to include content editing and ghost writing. Frequently retained by established authors as a copy editor and content consultant, her own publishing record includes articles on popular culture, anthropology, history and mysticism, and books on journal keeping for writers, American Indian religions, Hebrew mysticism, witchcraft and anthropology.
About This Workshop My workshops welcome long and short form fiction, memoirs, and essays. I invite questions, give short lectures on some aspect of writing, welcome discussion, and provide considerable time for the reading of manuscripts and workshop critiquing.
Shelly Lowenkopf
Pirate Workshop
Shelly has seen hundreds of fiction and non-fiction projects from manuscript to bound book as executive editor for scholarly, general trade, literary, and mass-market publishers. Active now as a consultant to literary agents, publishers and authors, he has taught for 30 years in the Masters in Professional Writing Program at USC. He also co-hosts private writing seminars with Leonard Tourney. A revised edition of his Secrets of Successful Fiction is in the works.
About This Workshop This Pirate Workshop provides an opportunity to investigate works of fiction. It begins with a five-to-ten-minute presentation of an aspect of dramatic craft such as the scene, tempo, blocking, pace, dialogue. Then individuals who have signed up to read may present approximately eight to ten pages of text for editorial commentary, followed by questions, and suggestions, all presented with the goal of best enhancing the author's intent. Not a venue for literary criticism or theory, The Pirate Workshop is an editorial enhancement to fiction in progress. http://www.lowenkopf.com/
Marla Miller
Marketing the Muse
Marla Miller’s first book, All American Girls: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, published by Simon & Schuster, enjoyed three print runs. She has freelanced for many publications including Oxygen.com, LA Times and the Orange County Register where she penned three columns until 2006. At that time, Miller became editor-in-chief of Location 3 Magazine, a lifestyle publication that circulates along O.C.’s coastal communities. From 2005 to 2007, she was assistant director of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Among her duties, Miller helped create and manage the Young Writers Program. Miller’s Marketing the Muse workshops are taught at several writing conferences throughout the country. Marketing the Muse website will debut June 1, 2008.
About This Workshop Salability is emphasized in Miller’s Marketing the Muse workshop which is divided into two sections. Fiction and non fiction writers should bring the first few pages of work —proposals, synopses and query letters included -for critiquing. The second half of each workshop is devoted to the Pros: literary agents, booksellers, editors, (including The Writer Magazine’s publisher, Elfrieda Abbe), first book authors and best selling authors share their POV. It takes one author to write a book but a village to sell it in today’s marketplace. A blue workshop handout detailing specifics will be available opening night. http://marketingthemuse.com/
Cork Millner
Creative Nonfiction -- Memoir
His more than 500 articles have appeared in Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, L.A. Times, Seventeen, and Travel. He is the author of 14 books, including Hollywood Be Thy Name, The Warner Brothers Story (which was recently optioned for a Broadway musical), Write from the Start, and The Q’s & A’s of Interviewing - For Writers. Portraits is a collection of 20 celebrity interviews with portrait drawings by Barnaby Conrad. His first novel, Polo Wives, was published in 2002, followed by I Love You in 2005 and The Christmas Ornament in 2006.
About This Workshop Creative Nonfiction sells! It means creating scenes, characters, action, dialogue, all the techniques used by fiction writers. Creative nonfiction is entertaining. Cork lectures for the first hour of the workshop. Second half: Writers read manuscripts. Daily Workshop Schedule: Sunday: Selling Your Book or Magazine Article – Writing Great Leads. Monday: Writing Creative Nonfiction – Fiction Techniques in Nonfiction. Tuesday: Writing the Memoir. Titles that Tantalize. Wednesday: Nonfiction Book Proposals (with agent Michael Larson). On-Line Book Publishing – Print-On-Demand (POD) Books. Thursday: Query Letters – Professional way to Sell the Manuscript.
Matthew J. Pallamary
Phantastic Fiction
His workshop covers all aspects of dramatic writing, including short stories, novels, memoirs, and screenplays, and specializes in literature of the fantastic--including new age, visionary, horror, sci-fi, and works containing the supernatural and/or meta-physical themes. His first book, The Small Dark Room of the Soul, was cited in The Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy. His historical novel set in 18th-century South America, Land Without Evil, received rave reviews along with a San Diego Book Award for mainstream fiction. A Short Walk to the Other Side, a collection of Matt’s short stories, and Dreamland, his latest work co-authored with Ken Reeth, were published as e-books by Mystic-Ink Publishing. Dreamland was the winner in the Horror/Thriller genre for the 2002 Independent e-Book Awards. Matt is presently under contract to write a screenplay for a feature film that is a sequel to an original theatrical release.
About This Workshop Phantastic Fiction. A fiction read and critique workshop, specializing in works considered new age, visionary, supernatural, metaphysical, horror, fantasy, and science fiction. All forms of dramatic writing will be read and discussed, with an emphasis on novels, short stories, screenplays and memoirs. http://mattpallamary.com/
Yvonne Nelson Perry
Fiction
Author of The Other Side of the Island, short stories of timeless Hawaii, her work has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. As the recipient of many literary awards, Kirkus Reviews calls her "a combination of Jorge Luis Borges and Joseph Campbell." A San Diego Writers/Editors Guild and San Diego Book Awards Association board member, she judges literary competitions and is the director of an annual writers conference. Besides private workshops in her home, she conducts seminars throughout the West. Her latest project: two novels set in the Pacific Rim and another collection of ethnic short stories.
About This Workshop Want to read in a fiction workshop? You'll do something dangerous in this one. Like step out of your safety zone, dive into your imagination and only surface to catch your breath. Story is all. This workshop is for writers seeking honest feedback. We'll race through a crash course on creative writing after critiques. Sometimes all you need is a directive to get your story running. Wildly. Bring your openings; one copy for me. Everyone will be heard. Remember, you're rewriting the world. Can't promise you a rose garden but I can show you how to pull the weeds.
Gary Phillips
Fiction/Detective/Graphic Novel
Gary is the author of many novels including Only the Wicked (hardback 2000), High Hand (hardcover 2000, paperback September 2001), The Perpetrators (paperback 2002) Among his pursuits, having been a security guard, printer, taught incarcerated youth, labor organizer, nonprofit executive director and worked in electoral campaigns, Gary Phillips currently writes a regular column for Mystery Scene magazine. He has short stories in the recent Los Angeles Noir and Hollywood and Crime, as well as the upcoming Full House, an anthology of stories about poker. His op-eds and articles on race, politics and pop culture have run in venues such as the then Los Angeles Times magazine, Baltimore Sun, American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly. Phillips dabbles in screenwriting like every other valet and pilates instructor in Tinseltown, and is working on his next Ivan Monk private eye novel, following 2004's collection of the investigator's short stories, Monkology. He was co-editor of the well-received jaw graining short story collection of aberrant behavior, the Cocaine Chronicles, and is now editing a collection to be published by Verso in ’08 called Politics Noir. Phillips has been nominated for a Shamus, and won a Chester Himes and Brody awards.
About This Workshop The grift, the grab, murder, larceny, high crimes and low lifes; hard-boiled writer and editor Gary Phillips (Politics Noir, High Rollers and Bangers ) will explore plotting, structure, research – at the poker table and the dimly lit bar, building your characters, the verisimilitude of dialogue, and constructing your tale of sordid deeds in prose, screenplays, serializations and graphic novels in his series of afternoon workshops. Sessions will begin with an opening talk/discussion, then on to in-class assignments, as well as read & critiques as time permits.
http://www.gdphillips.com
Abe Polsky
Story Structure
Author of “Devour the Snow,” produced on Broadway, in London, Belgium, and nationally for the past 10 years, his screenwriting credits include “The Baby”, which he also co-produced. Script consultant for both screen and stage, he teaches dramatic writing. His play, “Custer’s Last Band”, recently won the $5,000 First Prize in the South Coast Repertory Playwriting Competition and the $5,000 Samuel Goldwyn First Prize.
About This Workshop As the title implies, this workshop concentrates on structure and on story. In other words, in both fiction and nonfiction, we look to help writers strengthen those all-important story elements without which the novel, short story, memoir, or play will fall apart, no matter how beautifully worded. We will ask you to bring in scenes (often from the middle of your work) and seek to understand them in the framework of your whole story. You can also bring in ideas for new work. They call us the structure doctors!
Diana Raab
Nonfiction/Memoir
Diana Raab is a memoirist, essayist and poet who teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and to high-risk children. She frequently writes and lectures on journaling. Her latest memoir, Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal is a finalist for the 2007 ForeWord Book of the Year and was nominated for the Sophie Brody Award. She has two poetry collections, My Muse Undresses Me (2007) and Dear Anais: My Life in Poems for You (2008). Her writing has appeared in national publications including Writers’ Journal, Rosebud, The Tonopah Review, The Louisville Review, Palo Alto Review, The Rambler, and Red River Review, and has been anthologized in numerous collections. Her article, “Use Journaling to Spark Your Writing” was featured in the October 2007 issue of The Writer. She is also a monthly columnist for Inkbyte.com. She’s the recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Book award for Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant: Overcoming Infertility and High Risk Pregnancy which has been translated into French and Spanish. In 2009 the book will be released in its 20th anniversary edition. Her book Writers and Their Notebooks, is forthcoming from the University of South Carolina Press (Spring/Summer 2009).
About This Workshop You want to write a memoir, but where do you begin? This workshop will help you decide how and where to start your journey. We will consider topics such as: the importance of keeping a notebook, key elements of memoir, structure, memory and imagination and tips on crafting a compelling personal narrative. Whether you want to leave a written legacy for family and friends, or craft a book for publication, through discussion and exercises, this workshop will provide the tools to jumpstart the process. Don¹t forget your notebooks!
http://www.dianaraab.com
John Reed
Pirate Workshop
John is the author of two novels, Thirteen Mountain and The Kingfisher’s Call, as well as numerous shorter non-fiction works. He has conducted writing workshops, classes and seminars around the country for the past 20 years; his sensitive and insightful critiques have inspired hundreds of writers. His classes on the novel, short stories, essays and magazine writing have given many students a stepping stone to publication.br>
About This Workshop Captain Reed's Pirate Workshop is a writer-friendly read-and-critique group whose motto is: First, do no harm. Through the long, steamy Santa Barbara nights, participants read their work out loud (time limit,15 minutes). The setting is friendly, relaxed, informal. Each reader receives the instructor's critique and peer comments. You will be gently discouraged, however, from mounting a vigorous defense of your work. The more you learn how to critique others' work, the better you'll be able to critique your own. We encourage you to join us. Fun. http://www.writerswelcome.com
John H. Ritter
Fiction / Young Adult
John H. Ritter is one of today’s preeminent fiction writers for young adults. His debut novel, about a fundamentalist family, Choosing Up Sides, won the 1999 IRA Young Adult Book Award and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. His subsequent novels, Over the Wall and The Boy Who Saved Baseball, also received several prestigious awards, including the 2004 Paterson Prize for Fiction. Known for their humor, high drama, and real-life predicament, John’s novels also weave in metaphorical perspectives and commentary on the outside world. His latest, Under The Baseball Moon (Penguin, 2006), about a young trumpeter in funky Ocean Beach, CA, has garnered multiple starred reviews. Kirkus called it, “...far beyond the ordinary...a truly remarkable work”.
While playing shortstop for the University of California, San Diego, John began infusing his fiction with the rhythms of the street, the ballfield, and the backcountry of his youth, pioneering a unique style of storytelling and prose. A full-time writer of Irish and Blackfoot Indian descent, John continues to explore the elements of evocative, provocative, and humorous fiction in his work and in his workshops.
About This Workshop All fiction is welcome in this Read and Critique workshop. Sign the Reading List before class. Most days will begin with a talk followed by timed readings and critiques from attendees. Topics include: The power of the blues progression in story momentum; Confronting the dinner table taboos: Politics and religion; What they want: Five Golden Rules of getting published; Setting up your life to be a full-time writer asap.
http://www.JohnHRitter.com
Barbara Samuel
Women’s Fiction/Romance
Barbara is an award-winning author with more than 30 books to her credit, both historical and contemporary romances and women’s fiction, including her most recent, Lady Luck’s Map of Vegas (2005) and The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue (2004). Under the name of Ruth Wind, she has written 20 romance novels. Her work has captured a plethora of awards, including four RITAs; the Colorado Center for the Book Award (twice); Favorite Book of the Year from Romance Writers of America, and the Library Journal’s list of Best Genre Fiction of the year, among many others. She writes women’s fiction for Ballantine, romances for Silhouette, and columns for her Web site and Novelist’s Ink.
About This Workshop Mastering commercial fiction doesn't mean selling your soul to the evil masters of commerce – it just means learning what drives the market and how to use that to your advantage. Explore the connection between your unique voice and the market in this workshop hosted by an award-winning and highly successful commercial fiction writer with more than 30 books in three genres, including upcoming The Lost Recipe for Happiness, out in April 2009 from Bantam Books.
Monte Schulz
Fiction and Nonfiction/Creating Style
Monte Schulz, a conference member since 1975, is the author of Down by the River and This Side of Jordan. Besides fiction, he is an avid reader of history and theology, and is working on a novel of true crime and a third literary novel. He divides his time between Nevada City and Santa Barbara. He edited Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life with Barnaby Conrad.
About This Workshop Believing that how you tell a story, be in fiction or non-fiction, is at least as important as the story you have to tell, my workshop concerns voice and style, that elusive art of language that really divides one writer from another. Think of the best-known writers of the last century, and you’ll easily see how it was style that made one different from another (think Faulkner to Hemingway, Joyce to Mailer). In my workshop, I read examples of many different writers to highlight how setting is best evoked, how artful language brings a scene to life, and how creating your own voice will make your own writing distinct and unusual, ideally catching the eye of an agent or editor in the process. We read from your own work and discuss books and how each of us can better our use of language. My workshop is about the artistic side of writing.
Dale Griffiths Stamos
Story Structure
Dale Griffiths Stamos co-leads the Story Structure workshop with Abe Polsky. Her full-length drama: Dialectics of the Heart (recipient of the Jewel Box Theatre award) opened in January 2006 at Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, and starred television actors Sharon Lawrence and Nicholas Gonzalez. Her one-act and short plays have been produced in Los Angeles, New York City and at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she was named co-recipient of the prestigious Heideman Award. Her winning play: The Unintended Video appears in the Samuel French Publication: Ten Minute Plays: Volume 4 from Actors Theatre of Louisville, and has been performed worldwide. Her newest full length drama, One White Crow has received staged readings at Syzygy Theatre and Edgemar Center for the Arts. She was also Emmy nominated for her shared story credit on the afterschool special: Words Up! A poet as well, her poetry has been published in numerous literary journals across the nation, including Calyx, Rattle, and OntheBus.
About This Workshop As the title implies, this workshop concentrates on structure and on story. In other words, in both fiction and nonfiction, we look to help writers strengthen those all-important story elements without which the novel, short story, memoir, or play will fall apart, no matter how beautifully worded. We will ask you to bring in scenes (often from the middle of your work) and seek to understand them in the framework of your whole story. You can also bring in ideas for new work. They call us the structure doctors!
David Starkey
Playwriting
David Starkey’s first full-length play, "Soccer Moms", was produced in November 2002 in North Hollywood at the Secret Rose Theatre, and in February 2004 at Theater Schmeater in Seattle and Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara. "Julianne Caesar" premiered in June 2004 at Teatro La Tea in New York and was subsequently featured in the Midtown International Theatre Festival; the play had a third production in 2005 at Center Stage in Santa Barbara. Lovecreek Productions staged "The Recovery Room" in New York last spring. Starkey’s play "Jesusland" has received staged readings in Dallas, Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin. Another full-length play, "Last Semester," was one of two plays chosen in 2006 by the Firehouse Theatre Project in Richmond, Virginia, for its annual Festival of New American Plays Competition. "How Red the Fire" received a staged reading at North Coast Repertory Theatre in San Diego in 2005, is currently being produced in New Hampshire schools by Yellow Taxi Productions and will receive a production at Santa Barbara City College in 2007. Starkey also has had one-acts produced at the First Chance Festival in Orange County, The Circle Theater New Play Festival in Chicago, Theatre Limina in Minneapolis, and The Renaissance Guild in San Antonio. In addition to being a playwright, Starkey is the author of several collections of poems and more than 400 poems in literary magazines. He teaches at Santa Barbara City College and hosts a local TV program called The Creative Community.
About This Workshop This playwriting workshop is open both to those who plan to attend every day and to those who just want to drop in for the afternoon. The focus will be on playscripts—no matter how rough—that have already been written; unless there is strong participant demand, don’t plan to actually write in this workshop. You will, however, have plenty of opportunities to see and hear others read your work aloud. So, whether you’re working on a full-length play, or you’ve simply written a scene that you’d like workshopped, stop on by.
S.L. Stebel
Fiction/Finding the Secret Story
His film credits include "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and his stage work includes a successful one-man show for Henry Fonda, and an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Next in Line into a full-length play. He followed the acclaimed thriller Spring Thaw with The Boss’s Wife. His newest work: Double Your Creative Power: How to Make Your Subconscious a Partner in the Writing Process.
About This Workshop No piece of writing can fulfill its true potential – making a meaningful connection between author and reader —until the author frees the story hidden within its skein of words. In a secure Read and Critique environment, participants are instructed to comment as listeners, not collaborators. They then tell readers only what they’ve heard, not how they’d tell the story if they’d thought of it first. Stebel, a practing writer, published author and renowned story ‘dowser’ sums up with his own comments. Opening pages are preferred, or bring a favorite section of your novel, play, screenplay or short story.
Laura Taylor
Fiction
Published in both romance and mainstream fiction, her acclaimed novel, Honorbound, received endorsements from authors Pat Conroy, W.E.B. Griffin and Stephen King. The recipient of two Maggie Awards, a Career Achievement Award, a Reviewers Choice Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award and Best Contemporary Mainstream Award from Romantic Times, she has written 22 books, works as a free-lance editor and is writing a true crime book.
About This Workshop Laura Taylor, award-winning author, writing coach, and freelance editor, leads daily Fiction Workshops. Her workshops cover the gamut from contemporary mainstream novels to military fiction, and every genre in between. Non-fiction and screenplay writers often showcase their writing in her workshop. Laura's primary focus is on Read and Critique of student works in progress, interspersed with instructional and informational segments on the craft of writing and the business of writing. As the author of 22 published novels, she possesses a unique understanding of the publishing industry, which she willingly shares with her workshop students.
http://www.authorandeditor.com/
Leonard Tourney
Fiction (emphasis on mystery)
He has taught writing at the university level for more than 30 years (UCSB, USC and the University of Tulsa), and is the author of eight critically acclaimed mystery novels set in Shakespeare’s England: The Player’s Boy is Dead, Low Treason, Familiar Spirits, The Bartholomew Fair Murders, Old Saxon Blood, Knaves Templar, Witness of Bones, and Frobisher’s Savage. His new book is Time’s Fool, a novel about Shakespeare.
About This Workshop Workshop focuses on some of the major issues facing writers of mystery fiction such as plot structure, character development, scene construction, narrative point of view, along with more specialized topics such as forensic details, clues, herrings (of various hues), and common mistakes made by first novelists with good story ideas but bad execution. The premise of the workshop is that the best mystery fiction, like any good story, is character driven and literary, worthy of careful study and the author's best efforts.
Ernie Witham
Humor
His column, "Ernie’s World," appears regularly in the Montecito Journal and Santa Ynez Valley Journal and is nationally syndicated by Senior Wire News Service. His humor has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Barbara News-Press. He is a contributing editor for Chicken Soup Magazine and a contributing writer for seven Chicken Soup books. His collection of stories, Ernie’s World, the Book, was published by Fithian Press.
About This Workshop Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you end up in poetry. In this workshop we will discuss finding humor in everyday situations; developing humorous ideas into columns, short stories and scenes; the importance of rewriting; and finding markets for humor. We will have some fun assignments, but mainly we will read and critique each other¹s work with two goals in mind: making it funnier and making it more saleable. Traditionally, this is the loudest workshop at SBWC. Prepare to laugh! Please bring two copies of your writing so that I can make written comments as you read. http://www.erniesworld.com
Dallas Woodburn
Young Writers Program
USC freshman Dallas Woodburn is an SBWC alumna who has written two collections of stories and essays (There’s A Huge Pimple on My Nose! and the recently published 3 a.m.) and has been widely published in national magazines, including Writer’s Digest, Justine, Listen, Writing, Encounter, and The Hudson Valley Literary Magazine. She was featured in the nationally released book, So You Wanna Be A Writer? and was chosen Cosmo Girl! magazine’s "Girl of the Month." Her Web site and Write On! Foundation to increase literacy awareness have also garnered national attention and honors. She has taught her own summer writing camp class the past two summers, and has spoken at the Jack London Writer’s Camp. Dallas’ essays have also been published in the books Good Friends Come Along Once in a Lifetime and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul IV.