Thursday night, April 17, 2008
A special night for writers at the Bowling Green Public Library*

In this workshop we will explore ways to dive into memory and extend it by imaging details from what we DO remember. We will consider memory itself, personal and ever-changing, and the differences between memoir and autobiography. Memory has many doors: revolving, swinging, dutch, screen, cellar and trap, to name just a few. Come prepared to write, laugh, cry and take home lots more writing to do.

George Ella Lyon has published 35 books for children and adults including Come a Tide and Borrowed Children. Her poems are collected in Mountain, Catalpa, and Where I’m From, Where Poems Come From. Her most recent titles include Don’t You Remember (a memoir), No Dessert Forever!, and Trucks Roll (picture books), Sonny’s House of Spies (novel for young readers) and a reprint of an adult novel, With a Hammer for My Heart. George Ella grew up in the mountains of Kentucky and now makes her living as a freelance writer and teacher, working in thirty to forty schools a year.
 
Moderator: Portia Pennington

Tips and Tricks You’re Not Likely to Find in the Classroom*

Through the experience of writing, a seasoned writer discovers expertise that isn’t taught in traditional writing programs. The hard way to learn this insider knowledge of the craft is to trip over it through your own luck and sweat—the easier way is from someone who has come by it the hard way. Here’s your chance to gather some tips and tricks straight from award-winning novelist Terry Kay. Topics will include the importance of rhythm in prose, how to recognize intrusions that don’t belong in the story, the power of dialogue when used as character description, and how the reader helps the writer. Attend this workshop and your writing will never be the same.

A 2006 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Terry Kay is the author of a book of essays, a children’s book, and ten published novels, including the recently released The Book of Marie. Three novels, The Runaway, The Valley of Light, and the classic To Dance with the White Dog, have been made into Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. Terry has won the Georgia Author of the Year Award (twice!), Georgia’s coveted Townsend Prize, the prestigious Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award, the Brooke Baker Award, and his work was recognized with two honorary doctorate degrees.

*Pre-registration and payment of a $15 fee is required for Thursday’s sessions. For more, please see the “What You Need to Know” section of this program.

Friday, April 18, 2008
Bowling Green Community College
Western Kentucky University’s South Campus

John Guzlowski, the author of four books about his parents and their experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany, shares his strategies for using both conversations with family members and memories from childhood in your writing. He will talk about his own writing, the forces that motivate it, and give suggestions for how to listen to your own parents and your own memories. The workshop will include exercises that will help you listen and write.

John Guzlowski’s poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in the Ontario Review, Spoon River Poetry review, Vocabula Review, and other journals. His poems about his parents’ experience in Nazi-occupied Germany appear in his books Lightning and Ashes and Third Winter of the War: Buchenwald. Third Winter was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
 
Moderator: Tom Hunley

Plot Versus Historical Accuracy

You've done your research—now you're drowning in details. What to leave in, what to leave out?  The decision could be maddening. In this session, Beverle Graves Myers will discuss the potential pitfalls of focusing your fiction on specific historical characters or events. Writers will also receive tips on making the past come alive without stifling the plot.

Beverle Graves Myers is the author of the Tito Amato Mysteries, a historical series set in the musical world of 18th-century Venice. The latest title, The Iron Tongue of Midnight, was recently released. Her award winning short stories, set in a variety of times and places, have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock, Futures, Woman's World, and numerous anthologies. Bev lives in Louisville.

Moderator: Sandra Wales

Is there a polarizing subject you’re interested in investigating and writing about?  What questions do you ask?  How do you choose which information to use and which to discard?  Where do you start the story?  An award-winning journalist shares how she followed a topic and a group of people for nine years, trying to get a full and fair view of what happened to a small coal-mine town. She’ll also discuss the difficulty of writing honestly when there are many sides to an issue.

After earning a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, Penny Loeb joined an investigative team at Newsday in 1987 and later at U. S. News & World Report in 1993. In her years as a journalist, she has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has won the Scripps Howard Public Service Award and the SPJ public service award twice. In 1997, Penny published the first national investigative piece on mountaintop removal coal mining. Her mining article, recognized as a finalist for the public service award of the National Magazine Awards, led to her book, Moving Mountains. Penny has worked on two documentaries about mining and flooding in West Virginia, as well as written a prize-winning screenplay based on her book.

From Farmer’s Daughter to Highwayman’s Wife or, How One Poet Found Her Voice and Vocation Somewhere Between Her First and Second Book

There’s more to the poetry-biz than writing a good poem, although that’s important too. Lynnell Major Edwards will reveal how her experiences while completing a second manuscript and giving readings from her first book contributed to her growth as a writer and professional. The talk will be both personally reflective and craft-focused, examining the varied dimensions of the craft of making poems and the business of being a poet. You will be invited to reflect (in writing) on your own ambitions and growth as a poet and be given practical advice about fostering a public identity as a writer.

Lynnell Major Edwards, a teacher at the University of Louisville, is the author of two collections of poetry: The Highwayman’s Wife and The Farmer’s Daughter, both from Red Hen Press. Her work has been featured in anthologies Letters to the World, Poets Against the War, and Verse Daily, and she has published short fiction in Pearl. She is a regular book reviewer for Georgia Review, Pleiades, and Review Revue. Lynnell is the recipient of a 2007 Al Smith Fellowship for poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council.

Moderator: Dale Rigby

Characters:  The Good, the Bad, and the Unforgettable

Do you have a book that you love because the characters in it were people you’d like to have met?  Is there a novel whose characters you’ve remembered long after reading the closing paragraphs?  Memorable characters come to life for the reader. The writer who created them imagined the characters, first as real people with real traits, they then presented them in a skillful way, translating that imagination to the page. Learn how to create characters whose actions, motivations, and dialogue ring true.

Award-winning author Deborah LeBlanc is a business owner, a licensed death-scene investigator, and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams. She is the president of the Horror Writers Association and the Writers' Guild of Acadiana and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the National Association of Women Writers, and International Thriller Writers, Inc. Because of Deborah’s passion for literacy, she speaks in high schools and created the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, a national campaign designed to encourage more people to read.  Her most recent novels include Family Inheritance, Grave Intent, A House Divided, Morbid Curiosity, and the forthcoming Water Witch. Deborah lives in Lafayette, Louisiana.
 
Moderator: Jean Nehm

The Measure of a Story:  What Makes a Short Story Great?

The editor of an anthology seems like a mysterious person who picks and chooses at random. But there’s a method to what appears to be madness; there are certain essential traits that separate a good short story from a great one. Get the insider’s scoop on what that editor is looking for, what elements place a story in the rejected stack, and what tweaks can get the writer an acceptance letter.

Morris A. Grubbs is editor of Home and Beyond: An Anthology of Kentucky Short Stories and Conversations with Wendell Berry. He has written and presented on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Bobbie Ann Mason, among many other short story writers, and is a frequent panelist at the International Conference on the Short Story in English. He was an associate professor at Lindsey Wilson College for ten years before serving in his current position as Director of Graduate Student Professional Development at the University of Kentucky. A native of Burkesville, Kentucky, he earned his M.A. at Western Kentucky University and his Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky. 
 
Moderator: Fabian Alvarez

Celebrating Your Life through Songwriting

Robbing Kentucky Courthouses: Writing Historical Fiction

Much of the writing that is set in Kentucky—novels, short stories and even some poetry—have their origins in the fertile ground of real events recorded in Kentucky courthouses. Richard Taylor will talk about the process of writing Sue Mundy and the issues of historical fact in historical novels and the need to alter those facts in the interest of fiction-making. Taking one portion of his novel, he will give the facts, and discuss how those were altered, reading parts of chapters as examples.

Richard Taylor is a Professor of English at Kentucky State University in Frankfort. His most recent book, Sue Mundy: A Novel of the Civil War, about Kentucky’s most notorious Confederate guerrilla, joins a long list of books he has authored or co-authored including a novel, five collections of poetry, and several historical nonfiction books. He served as the Kentucky Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2001 and recently the Kentucky Historical Society announced that he will share the Collins Award for Best Article for a study of Daniel Boone as American Icon.
 
Moderator: Megan Thompson

The Next Step:  Revision, Re-Visioning

Finishing a novel or short story draft is reason to celebrate!  But what comes next?  Join Kathleen Ernst for a discussion that will de-mystify the revision process. She’ll provide concrete tips for approaching revision, explain the “Revision Pyramid,” and reveal the very last step to take before submitting your manuscript to publishers.

Kathleen Ernst is a writer, social historian, and educator. She has written fourteen novels for young readers (including four American Girl mysteries and five novels set during the American Civil War), as well as an adult nonfiction book, articles and essays for magazines, poetry, and instructional video programs for public television. Her fiction titles have earned Juvenile Literature Awards from the Council of Wisconsin Writers and the Society for Midland Authors, the Flora MacDonald Award from St. Andrews Presbyterian College, a WILLA Finalist Award from Women Writing the West, an Edgar Award nomination from Mystery Writers of America, and three Agatha Award nominations from Malice Domestic. Kathleen lives in Wisconsin.

Writing and Singing About Place

Come ready to brainstorm on a song and a place, to compose with the workshop group a song right on the spot. Karren Pell will discuss inspiration and structure, rhyme schemes and melody instructions to help get you started. You’ll even get to sing with the group the new song just created!

Karren Pell, a modern troubadour, has published and recorded internationally. Her musical compositions range from commercial songs. to theatrical works, to the historical ballads. She authored a book Alabama Troubadour, which presents eleven historical essays about unique places in Alabama, paired with song lyrics inspired from the site. In addition to writing and performing, Karren has taught a variety of classes on writing at Auburn University, Montgomery. She recently won an advertising award, a Silver Addy, for her freelance writing.
 
Moderator: Paul Bush

Have a great idea for a novel? A terrific character?  Sparkling dialogue?  Fabulous!
But along the way can come a plodding plot, a sagging middle, poky pacing, flaccid action, and—oh, my—anti-climatic climax. Not so fabulous. In this workshop, Candie Moonshower will discuss how to make sense of your story using the time-tested Aristotelian three-act structure. She’ll include writing scenes, recognizing the difference between incidents and significant events, and outlining using the three-act structure. There will be writing exercises and time for Q&A, so bring your pens and paper!

Candie Moonshower taught herself to type the summer she turned eight because on TV she’d seen writers type. Since that long ago summer, Candie has polished her words-per-minute skills while writing and publishing her debut novel, The Legend of Zoey, which won the SCBWI Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award. When not rushing to meet deadlines as a regional business writer, Candie is busy plotting—her novels, that is!  She has several works in progress, for both children and adults, and her biography of young adult author Vivian Vande Velde will be published in 2008.

Moderator:  Toni McIntyre

Is It Real, or Is It Memowreck?  Writing Inspirational Anything

The road to publishing is bumpy, challenging, and exhilarating, all at the same time—in other words, a paradox requiring trust and skill. Charlene Ann Baumbich will share her amazing and unique publishing journey and explain why her writing successes are more about listening than writing. If you’re a faith writer seeking inspiration, this workshop is for you.

Charlene Ann Baumbich finds that writing her thoughts down—whether they’re bad or good, dubious or certain, burned or published—helps to get them out of her head, keeping it from blowing off due to the overflow. Her productive method recently produced the sixth book in Charlene’s Dearest Dorothy series, as well as seven nonfiction books (including the forthcoming Don’t Miss Your Life!), magazine articles, TwinkleGrams, and a humorous travel blog.
 
Moderator: Polly Moore

What You Need to Know!

• About Thursday night’s sessions:  Held at the Bowling Green Public Library Main Branch. A $15 registration fee and pre-registration is required for these sessions. The registration form may be found online or please call (270) 745-6977. Seating is limited.
• About  Friday’s sessions:  Held at Bowling Green Community College (BGCC), WKU’s South Campus. Free and open to the public. Seating is limited and on a first-come basis. No pre-registration is required, but groups of five or more are asked to call (270) 745-6977 prior to the Friday conference. All attendees:  please stop by the registration desk located near the entrance of BGCC upon arrival.
• About the Kentucky Writers Conference, both days:  High school students and beginning writers welcome!  Free parking available. Sessions are subject to change without notice.

For more information visit:
www.sokybookfest.org
or contact:
 Diana McQuady: diana.mcquady@wku.edu or call (270)745-6977