Presenters

Steve Almond (creative nonfiction) 

Steve Almond is the author the story collections My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction books Candyfreak and (Not That You Asked). His memoir Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life was published in Spring 2010. He also, crazily, self-published three books: This Won't Take But a Minute, Honey, which is composed of 30 very brief stories, and 30 very brief essays on the psychology and practice of writing; Letters From People Who Hate Me, a collection of letters and responses between Steve and his indignant readers; and Bad Poetry, a collection of previously unpublished verse and accompanying self-criticism.  Lookout Books is publishing Almond’s story collection God Bless America in October 2011. He lives outside Boston with his wife, two children, and mounting debt.  For more on Steve Almond, including music recommendations, visit www.stevenalmond.com

Lynne Barrett (fiction/editor) 

Lynne Barrett’s story collection Magpies has won the 2011 Gold Medal in General Fiction in the Florida Book Awards. She is also the author of The Secret Names of Women, and The Land of Go, and co-editor of Birth: A Literary Companion. Her recent fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in The Written Wardrobe, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Night Train, The Southern Women’s Review, Delta Blues, One Year to a Writing Life, and Blue Christmas. Her essay “What Editors Want” was featured in the L.A. Times and Glimmer Train’s digest, and she is edited of Tigertail: Florida Flash. A recipient of the Edgar Award for best mystery story, she teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University and is editor of The Florida Book Review (http://www.floridabookreview.com). Learn more about Lynne here: www.lynnebarrett.com

Lisa Borders (fiction)

Lisa Borders' first novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, was chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel and was published in 2002. Cloud Cuckoo Land also received fiction honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards. Her essay "Enchanted Night" was published in Don't You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Lisa has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short stories have appeared in Kalliope, Washington Square, Black Warrior Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Newport Review and other journals. She has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Somerville Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and fellowships at the Millay Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. More information on Lisa and her work is available at lisaborders.com.

Andre Dubus III (memoir) 

Andre Dubus III is the author of five books: The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie, published in February 2011 with W.W. Norton & Co. and now available in paperback. A #4 New York Times bestseller, it is a New York Times "Editors Choice", and is named on many "Top Non-fiction Books of 2011" lists, including The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Library journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Esquire magazine. His work has been included in The Best American Essays of 1994, The Best Spiritual Writing of 1999, and The Best of Hope Magazine. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for fiction, The Pushcart Prize, and was a Finalist for the National Book Award and the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

John Dufresne (fiction) 

John Dufresne grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wasted his youth playing baseball and going to movies. He attended Worcester State College and spent seven years as a social worker before attending the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Arkansas. Dufresne is the author of the story collections The Way That Water Enters Stone (1991) and Johnny Too Bad (2006). His novel Louisiana Power & Light (1994) was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. It was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, as was his second novel, Love Warps the Mind a Little (1997). In describing Deep in the Shade of Paradise (2002), Publishers Weekly wrote, "Imagining John Irving, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor or Max Shulman (or all of the above at once) on peyote juice only begins to evoke the dimension and energy of the seriocomic fantasies of Dufresne at his freewheeling, frenetic best." In July 2008, W.W. Norton, Dufresne's longtime publisher, will release his most recent novel, Requiem, Mass. In addition to his works of fiction, he has a book on fiction writing titled The Lie That Tells a Truth.  Carl Hiassen chose Dufresne's story "The Timing of Unfelt Smiles" for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2007.   In April 2008, Grand Valley Productions filmed To Live and Die in Dixie, based on a screenplay Dufresne co-wrote with Donald Papy. Since 1989 he has been teaching in the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University (http://w3.fiu.edu/crwriting/). He lives in Dania Beach, Florida, with his wife and son.  For more information on John Dufresne, visit www.johndufresne.com.

Camille Dungy (poetry)

Camille T. Dungy is the author of Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. She is the editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great, and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade. Her honors include the 2011 American Book Award, a silver medal in the 2011 California Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Cave Canem, and Bread Loaf. Dungy is currently a professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Her poems and essays have been published widely in anthologies and print and online journals. www.camilledungy.com

Janice Eidus (fiction)

Janice Eidus is a novelist, essayist, short story writer,and writing coach. Her new novel is The Last Jewish Virgin. Twice winner of the O.Henry Prize and a Pushcart Prize,she’s published five other books, including the novel, The War Of The Rosens, and the story collection, The Celibacy Club. Her work appears insuch magazines as The New York Times, Arts & Letters, Lilith, and Jewish Currents, as well as such anthologies as Desire: Women Write About Wanting and Dirt: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House. She lives in New York City. www.janiceeidus.com

Beth Ann Fennelly (poetry)

Beth Ann Fennelly directs the MFA Program at Ole Miss where she was named the 2011 Outstanding Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year. She’s won grants from the N.E.A., the MS Arts Commission, and United States Artists. Her work has three times been included in The Best American Poetry Series. Fennelly has published three full-length poetry books. Her first, Open House, won The 2001 Kenyon Review Prize, the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, and was a Book Sense Top Ten Poetry Pick. It was reissued by W. W. Norton in 2009. Her second book, Tender Hooks, and her third, Unmentionables, were published by W. W. Norton in 2004 and 2008. She has also published a book of nonfiction, Great with Child, in 2006, with Norton, and is co-authoring a novel with her husband, Tom Franklin. They live in Oxford with their three children.

Tom Franklin (fiction)

Tom Franklin is the author of Poachers: Stories, Hell at the Breech, and Smonk. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, he teaches in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children.

Lisa Gallagher (literary agent)

Lisa Gallagher is a literary agent at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates in New York. She is actively seeking new clients both in fiction and non-fiction, who are great storytellers, delivering both narrative urgency and dramatic tension, combined with multi-faceted characters and a transporting sense of place. The first novel she represented as an agent THE SISTERS by Nancy Jensen, was just published and was a #1 Indie Next Pick for December.

Formerly SVP & Publisher, William Morrow, Gallagher published many New York Times bestselling authors including Brunonia Barry, Tom Franklin, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Sena Jeter Naslund, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman and Neal Stephenson. Prior to joining William Morrow in 2000, Gallagher was Associate Publisher at Bloomsbury USA, following a move to New York from Bloomsbury's London office in 1998. Gallagher was educated at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, UK.

Gallagher can be reached at lisagallagheragent.com  

Taylor Goldsmith (songwriting)

Taylor Goldsmith began crafting songs at the young age of 12. While at first the musings of this talented songwriter were, as he described them, “very terrible songs that weren’t really about anything because I’d never even spoken to a girl, let alone had enough experience dealing with one to have a song written about it,” he grew up, gained some life experience, and developed his songwriting skills over the next 9 years writing with childhood friend Blake Mills. At the age of 21, Taylor began writing independently when the two realized that they had developed separate, singular voices, which no longer depended on the other person to round out the idea. As Goldsmith began writing songs for his band, Dawes, at the age of 21, he noticed a huge shift in his style and approach. Now, as the sole songwriter in Dawes, Taylor’s work has been widely recognized for his excellent story-telling and honest lyrics. Esquire Magazine called Goldsmith “The best young songwriter in America” and says of his songs “these are songs that don’t just speak for themselves but accomplish something far rarer – they speak for us.” Goldsmith draws influence from Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Warren Zevon, and Jackson Browne, who Dawes have had the pleasure of playing with and who has called Taylor a “brilliant songwriter”. The Band’s Robbie Robertson has also endorsed Dawes, bringing them along to Europe as his backing band. Dawes has released two albums, 2009’s North Hills and 2011’s Nothing Is Wrong. Rolling Stone calls Dawes “The most promising purveyors of new-school country folk… so authentically vintage.” Ultimately, Taylor hopes to one day have an extensive body of work he can stand behind, and he’s made a good start so far; 2011’s Nothing is Wrong placed admirably on end of year ‘best of’ lists – including a spot at #5 on American Songwriter’s Best Albums list. 

Doug Harrison (blogging)

Douglas Harrison is Associate Professor of English at Florida Gulf Coast University. He teaches courses on American Literature and Culture and created the University’s first creative writing course focused on blogs: Styles and Ways of Blogging. His primary research focuses on American religious culture, and his book on the cultural function of southern gospel music, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music, was published earlier this year by the University of Illinois Press in its Music in American Life Series. Since 2004, he has written about southern gospel culture at the blog www.averyfineline.com, and his scholarship on blogging and the professoriate has won the National Education Association Award for Excellence in the Academy. His work has appeared in Thought and Action, the Journal of Religion and American Culture, Religion and Popular Culture, the Journal of Popular Culture, and the Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spirituality. Harrison is also a regular contributor to Religion Dispatches.

Dorianne Laux (poetry)

Dorianne Laux’s most recent collections are The Book of Men and Facts about the Moon. She is co-author of a handbook on writing, The Poet’s Companion, all from W.W. Norton. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, winner of the Oregon Book Award and The Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry, Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, and Smoke from BOA Editions, as well as three fine press editions, Superman: The Chapbook, Dark Charms and The Book of Women, all from Red Dragonfly Press. Laux teaches poetry in the MFA Program at North Carolina State University and is founding faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program. www.doriannelaux.com

Ron Maclean (fiction)

Ron MacLean is author of the story collection Why the Long Face? (2008) and the novel Blue Winnetka Skies (2004). His fiction has appeared recently in Drunken Boat, Fiction International, Best Online Fiction 2010, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Frederick Exley Award for Short Fiction and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. He holds a Doctor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY, and teaches at Grub Street in Boston.

Joe Meno (fiction)

Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize, he is the author of several novels and short story collections including The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Demons in the Spring, and Hairstyles of the Damned. His short fiction has been published in McSweeney's, One Story, Swink, LIT, TriQuarterly, Other Voices, Gulf Coast, and broadcast on NPR. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times and Chicago Magazine. He was a contributing editor to Punk Planet, the seminal underground arts and politics magazine, before its demise in 2007. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. His latest novel, Office Girl, will be published in July 2012.

Joseph Millar (poetry)

Joseph Millar's three collections are Overtime, Fortune, and Blue Rust (2012 Carnegie-Mellon). Millar grew up in Pennsylvania, attended the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and spent 30 years inthe San Francisco Bay area working at a variety of jobs, from telephonerepairman to commercial fisherman. It would be two decades before he returned to poetry. His poems record the narrative of a life fully lived among fathers, sons, brothers, daughters, weddings and divorces, men and women. His work has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2008 Pushcart Prize and has appeared in such magazines as DoubleTake, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, American Poetry Review, and Ploughshares. In1997 he gave up his job as telephone installation foreman to try his hand at teaching. Millar is now core faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA and lives in Raleigh, NC, with his wife, the poet Dorianne Laux. www.josephmillar.com

Dito Montiel (screenwriting)

Dito Montiel is an American author, screenwriter, director and musician. Born and raised in New York City, he was first brought to the public eye after the demise of his hardcore punk band Major Conflict. In 2003, he published A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, a memoir that gained much acclaim. Montiel developed SAINTS into a screenplay and made his directorial debut with the film version of SAINTS starring Robert Downey Jr., Dianne Wiest and Shia LeBeouf. Montiel went on to direct FIGHTING starring Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard and Luis Guzman. His most recent project is SON OF NO ONE, starring Channing Tatum, Ray Liotta, Al Pacino and Katie Holmes which was chosen to close at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Currently, Dito is starting production on his new film EMPIRE STATE starring Dwayne Johnson, Liam Hemsworth and Emma Roberts.

Jeff Parker (fiction)

Jeff Parker is the author of the novel Ovenman and the story collection The Taste of Penny. His work has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Ploughshares, The Walrus, Tin House, and others. His nonfiction book Igor in Crisis will be published in 2012.

Bobbie Pyron (children's lit)

Bobbie Pyron is that rare bird: she’s a native Floridian. Bobbie was born in Hollywood, Florida and spent her growing up years up in the panhandle, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and dreaming of being a mermaid. After receiving her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Anthropology, and a Masters degree in Library Science, Bobbie moved west to Utah. Bobbie has worked as a librarian for over twenty-five years. Her first book, a novel for teens titled The Ring (WestSide Books), was published in October of 2009. Her second book, A Dog’s Way Home (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books), was published to starred reviews in March of 2011. The Dog Writers Association of America recently awarded Bobbie the Maxwell Medal of Excellence and the Merial Human-Animal Bond Award. Her next book, The Dogs of Winter (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic), comes out October of 2012. Bobbie lives in Park City, Utah with her husband, three dogs, and two cats.

Deborah Reed (fiction)

Deborah Reed comes from a long line of storytellers and musicians and finds creative inspiration in the composition of alt-country, folk, and homespun goods. Carry Yourself Back to Me, her first literary novel, was chosen as a Best Book of 2011 Amazon Editors' Pick. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, where she also writes thriller/suspense novels under the name of Audrey Braun. Fortune's Deadly Descent, the second in her Audrey Braun series, will be published in September, 2012. 

Christopher Schelling (literary agent) 

Christopher Schelling represents a wide-ranging list of fiction and nonfiction authors, including #1 New York Times bestselling writers Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors, This Is How) and Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy), as well as highly respected literary fiction (Louis Bayard's The Black Tower) and upscale nonfiction (Hanne Blank's Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality). His specialty in memoir has also brought writers like Robert Wilder (Daddy Needs a Drink) and John Elder Robison (Look Me in the Eye) to his list. In addition, he represents a number of young adult authors, including Cinda Williams Chima (The Gray Wolf Throne) and Kathe Koja (Buddha Boy). Schelling has been representing writers since 1997, and started his own agency, Selectric Artists, in 2011. Prior to being an agent, he held Executive Editor positions at both Dutton and HarperCollins.   

Darin Strauss (memoir)

Darin Strauss is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a winner of the American Library Association's Alix Award and The National Book Critics Circle Award.  Strauss is the internationally-bestselling author of the novels Chang & Eng, The Real McCoy, and More Than It Hurts You, and the NBCC-winning memoir Half a Life. These have been New York Times Notable Books, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and NPR Best Books of the Year, among others. Darin has been translated into fourteen languages and published in nineteen countries, and he is a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU's creative writing program. For more info, visit www.darinstrauss.com

Cheryl Strayed (creative nonfiction)

Cheryl Strayed is the author of three books: WILD, a memoir, TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS, a selection of her "Dear Sugar" columns from TheRumpus.net, and TORCH, a novel. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Allure, Self, The Missouri Review, Brain, Child, Creative Nonfiction, Water~Stone Review, The Sun and elsewhere. The winner of a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, her essays and stories have been published in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, THE BEST NEW AMERICAN VOICES, and other anthologies. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She's a founding member of VIDA: Women In Literary Arts, and serves on their board of directors. Raised in Minnesota, Strayed now lives in Portland, Oregon. www.cherylstrayed.com

Johnny Temple (editor/publisher)

Johnny Temple is thepublisher and editor-in-chief of Akashic Books, an award-winning Brooklyn-basedindependent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction. He is also the cofounder, with Akashic senior editor Ibrahim Ahmad, of Brooklyn Wordsmiths, an editorial and consulting company. Temple won the American Association of Publishers’ 2005 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing; and the 2010 Jay and Dean Kogan Award for Excellence in Noir Literature. Temple plays bass guitar in the band Girls Against Boys,which has toured extensively across the globe and released numerous albums on independent and major record companies. He has contributed articles and political essays to various publications, including The Nation, Publishers Weekly, AlterNet, Poets & Writers, and BookForum. He is also the Chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, whichworks with Brooklyn’s borough president to plan the annual Brooklyn Book Festival in September. www.akashicbooks.com

Toure' (journalism)

Touré is the author of “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means To Be Black Now,” which was named one of the Most Notable Books of 2011 by the New York Times and the Washington Post and nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work of Non-Fiction. He has published three previous books and is currently at work on a book about Prince. He is also co-writing the autobiography of the legendary rapper Nas. He is an NBC contributor and a regular on MSNBC’s the Dylan Ratigan Show and the Lawrence O’Donnell Show. He is also a columnist for Time.com. He lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his wife and two children.