2022 PRESENTERS & SESSIONS

We will continue to add presenters and sessions into April, so keep checking back!

 

 

Spotlighted Presenter
Kristen Arnett
Author
Person smiling and sitting with their hands folded, long dark hair and glasses, wearing a black shirt, surrounded by the greenery of a Florida backyard.
How I Made This: The Natural Mother of the Child, in conversation with Krys Malcolm Belc
Spotlighted Presenter
Krys Malcolm Belc
Author
A white transmasculine person with a close-shaved buzz cut, large plastic-framed glasses, and reddish beard.
How I Made This: The Natural Mother of the Child
Spotlighted Presenter
Matt Bell
Author
Matt Bell
Refuse to Be Done: Writing and Rewriting the Novel
Spotlighted Presenter
adrienne maree brown
Author
Black mixed race woman with curly hair in pink tank top that says Black is Beautiful and a Kenyan skirt in pink and yellow, outdoors in Detroit nature.
How I Made This: Grievers
Spotlighted Presenter
Lan Samantha Chang
Author
Lan Samantha Chang
How to Finish a Novel
Spotlighted Presenter
Chen Chen
Poet
A portrait of queer Chinese American poet Chen Chen, standing in front of a large beige apartment building. His hair is dyed an orangey-blonde. He wears clear-framed glasses, a dark purple button-down with gray polka dot pattern, and a gray blazer. His facial expression is gently joyful.
On Beginning (Again)
Spotlighted Presenter
Anjali Enjeti
Author
Brown-skinned woman in late forties with dark brown and white layered straight hair that falls past shoulders. Brown long sleeve v-neck shirt, brown pearls. In the background, a woods with bare trees.
Writing with a Social Justice Lens
Spotlighted Presenter
Madhushree Ghosh
Author
A brown woman, early fifties, long wavy black hair, facing direct, left hand to face, in a white dress with black zig-zag print, and a maroon Indian fabric scarf.
How to Use The Braided Form to Talk About Things That Matter
Spotlighted Presenter
Annie Hartnett
Author
A white woman in her thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing hoop earrings and a pink coat with a fake fur collar.
Plot Engine Tricks: Getting and Keeping It Moving
Spotlighted Presenter
Ann Hood
Author
Ann Hood
The Art of Revision: Welcome to the Party
Spotlighted Presenter
Tim Horvath
Writer & Educator
A white cis man, aged 50, with square glasses, against the backdrop of a tree with deeply grooved bark.
See-Saws, Tiny Boats, and Distorted Mirrors: Creating Dynamic Characters in Relation to One Another
Spotlighted Presenter
Gish Jen
Author
A middle-aged Asian American woman in Venice.
Must We Be So Western?
Spotlighted Presenter
Crystal Maldonado
Author
A fat, Puerto Rican woman in her mid-thirties with long, dark, curly hair, black cateye glasses, and wearing a small smile and a star-speckled navy and gold dress.
Be the Main Character: How to Use Your Own Life to Inspire Your Craft
Spotlighted Presenter
William Martin
Author
William Martin
Finding the Fiction in History and the History in Fiction
Spotlighted Presenter
Lindsay Merbaum
Author and High Priestess of Home Mixology
A white woman in her late 30's with short dark curly hair and a black top regards the camera while holding a champagne flute filled with pink liquid to her lips.
Mixology 101 for Writers
Spotlighted Presenter
Dina Nayeri
Author
A middle-eastern woman, forty-ish with long brown hair and a beauty mark above her lip that's lately begun asserting itself as a mole.
Truth and Storytelling: On Vulnerability, Privilege, and Who Gets Believed
Spotlighted Presenter
Denne Michele Norris
Writer and Editor-in-Chief of Electric Literature
A Black trans writer and editor in her mid thirties, who looks in her mid twenties, wearing a tank top and a dark red lipstick. Her hair is a cropped short natural.
How To Use Lit Mags & Other Media Outlets to Publicize Your Book
Spotlighted Presenter
A.E. Osworth
Author
A white nonbinary person, smiling big and wearing a ball cap with a galaxy-print brim. They are clearly having a rad time.
Writing Collective “We” Narrators
Spotlighted Presenter
Annalisa Parent
Author
A white woman with short brown hair, one hand on her chin, one hand on a book.
Neuroscience: A Writer’s Secret Weapon to FINISH that Novel
Spotlighted Presenter
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Author
A white woman in her 60s with streaked straight blond hair in a shoulder length pageboy, wearing red lipstick and a black suit and pearls, sitting in an upholstered armchair with a bouquet of orange and yellow flowers behind her.
Great Beginnings: Perfecting Page One
Spotlighted Presenter
Rebecca Rolland
Author
A white woman in her forties, with brown hair and eyes.
On Writing About Children
Spotlighted Presenter
Maurice Ruffin
Author
Maurice Ruffin
Fiction Writing Generative Jumpstarter
Spotlighted Presenter
Sofia Samatar
Author
A smiling, middle-aged, mixed Somali American woman with large glasses.
How I Made This: Grievers, in conversation with adrienne maree brown
Spotlighted Presenter
Sanjena Sathian
Author
Indian American cisgender woman, black hair, green sweater, leaning against a tree.
Locating Strangeness in Realist and Unreal Fiction
Spotlighted Presenter
B.A. Shapiro
Author
BA Shapiro.
Classical Story Structure: You Don't Need to Use It But You Have to Understand It
Spotlighted Presenter
SJ Sindu
Author
A light-skinned South Asian queer femme with short curly hair and red lipstick, in her early-thirties, wearing a black blouse.
Manipulating Time in Narrative
Spotlighted Presenter
Kathleen Stone
Author
A woman in her sixties.
How to Act Your Age and Still Get Published
Spotlighted Presenter
Val Wang
Author & Filmmaker
An East Asian woman with shoulder length black hair and thick black glasses.
Place as Character, Place as Politics
Autumn Allen
Writer, Editor, & Educator
A Black woman, smiling, with a turquoise Islamic headscarf
Pacing, Pattern, and Plot: Polishing Your Picture Book Manuscript
Erin Almond
Author
A white woman in her mid-forties, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a green scarf around her neck.
Desires, Fears, Urges & Inhibitions: Narrating Your Characters’ Fantasy Lives
Joy Baglio
Writer
Joy Baglio
Funding Your Writing: What Every Writer Should Know Before Applying for Project-Specific Grants
Katie Bannon
Writer, Editor, & Educator
A white woman in her early 30s, with a buzz cut, hoop earrings, and a black top.
Writing about Mental Health
Amy Elizabeth Bishop
Literary Agent
A cisgender East Asian woman smiling in her late 20s, with large tortoiseshell glasses and mid-length, wavy, dark hair.
On Reading Submissions
Rebecca Bratten Weiss
Journalist & Editor
A white cis woman of Ashkenazi descent in her mid forties, with mid-length blond hair.
When Science Is Your Main Character
Colwill Brown
Writer
A white cis-woman in her thirties with red hair and large cat-eye glasses.
Writing Sentences that Sing
S.K. Brownell
Writer & Educator
A white nonbinary person in their thirties, with shoulder-length wavy blonde hair, wearing burgundy.
The Otherworld Without the Othering
Christine Carron
Writer & Founder of Goodjelly
Christine Carron
Muse Daily Gather
Michelle Chikaonda
Writer
A Black cis woman, in her mid-30s, with short black hair and rectangular glasses.
A Glitch in Time: Time Loop Films as Narrative Vehicles for the Pandemic Essay
Lucy Cleland
Literary Agent
Lucy Cleland
The Art of the NonFiction Book Proposal
Kim Coleman Foote
Writer
Kim Coleman Foote
Funding Your Writing Getaway and More: Residencies and Merit Fellowships
Maggie Cooper
Literary Agent
A white cis woman in her early thirties with freckles and long brown hair over one shoulder, wearing a black and white collared shirt.
"I Hate My Cover!" and Other Tribulations: An Agent-Led Session on How to Navigate the Not-So-Good, the Really-Quite-Bad, and the Ugly of Publishing a Book
Paige Curtis
Writer
Brown-skinned woman, wearing a striped dress with leaves in the background
Black to the Future: Afrofuturism and the New World
Leah DeCesare
Author
A white blonde woman in her early fifties.
Rejection Doesn’t Have to Suck: Turning it into a Positive
Sara DiVello
Author
A tall, dark-haired white woman wearing a t-shirt that says "Feminist" sits on a beach, smiling at the camera.
Interview Hacks: How to Give Author Interviews that Connect With, Engage, and Excite Readers
Karen Dukess
Author
A smiling white woman in her mid-fifties with wavy short brown hair and wearing sparkly gold earrings and a black v-neck blouse and sweater.
What Fiction Writers Can Learn (and Must Unlearn) From Journalism
Anjali Duva
Writer & Educator
A mixed-race (white/South Asian) woman in her forties with glasses and mid-length greying brown hair.
Writing While Multilingual: How to Leverage Your Languages for Strong Fiction
Sorche Fairbank
Agent & Founder of Fairbank Literary
Query Lab: Live Feedback on Query Letters
John Farrell
Author
White cis man, in his mid 50s, with dark hair in an open collar shirt and jacket.
When Science Is Your Main Character
Cherise Fisher
Literary Agent
Black woman with wavy interlocs, wearing a sleeveless aqua dress, a Coreen Simpson black cameo, and smiling brightly.
Don’t Just Try to Please Me: On Incorporating Editorial Feedback (Or Not)
Kerrie Flanagan
Author
Kerrie Flanagan
Magazine Writing Made Simple
Nivair Gabriel
Writer & Editor
A light-skinned Middle Eastern woman in her thirties, wearing thick glasses and an asymmetrical haircut (both dark brown).
Pacing, Pattern, and Plot: Polishing Your Picture Book Manuscript
Laura Gao
Comic Artist & Writer
A nonbinary Chinese-American in their twenties, with dark purple hair and wearing a purple jumpsuit.
Identity, Folklore, and Magic: Showing (Not Telling) Identity Conflicts in Graphic Novels
AC Gaughen
Author
A white woman in her thirties wearing a green shirt and a beige sweater, crossing her arms and making eye contact at the camera.
Hero of Another Story: The Antagonist Who Drives the Story Forward
Christine Gross-Loh
Author
Christine Gross-Loh
Writing the Extremely Personal
Shalene Gupta
Author
A Chinese-Indian woman in her early thirties wearing black glasses with shoulder length black hair.
How Interviews Can Fuel Your Book Project
Sana Haroon
Historian & Lecturer
Sana Haroon
The Historian and the Historical Novel: How to Research Your Novel With (or Like) a Historian
Carrie Howland
Agent & Founder of Howland Literary
Don't Send Your Query Letter with a Box of Doughnuts: How NOT to Become an Anecdote
Kaitlyn Johnson
Literary Agent
Kaitlyn Johnson
Common Publishing Myths... Debunked
Crystal King
Author
A white woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a blue denim jacket.
Food Writing Across Genres
Henriette Lazaridis
Author
Henriette Lazaridis
Two Sessions: The Motivated Writer & Writing While Multilingual: How to Leverage Your Languages for Strong Fiction
Katherine Lim
Author
A Filipina woman in her 40s, with long black hair.
Queering Historical Fiction: Who Gets to Tell Which Stories?
Brendan Mathews
Author
A white man in his early 50s with short gray-brown hair and a well trimmed beard.
Re-Envision Your Revision
Caitlin McGill
Writer & Educator
A white woman in her early thirties, with teal earrings, long brown hair, and a gray shirt.
Imagining the Gaps in Memoir: How to Write a Story When the Story Runs Out
Amaryah Orenstein
Agent & Founder of GO Literary
A white woman with medium length brown hair, in her early-ish 40s (though way younger in this picture!)
First Impressions: How To Hook an Agent/Editor with Your Opening Pages
Pamela Painter
Author
Write Night | The Mystery and Magic of Flash Fiction Prompts
Maria Pinto
Writer & Educator
A black woman in her mid thirties wears a blue dress with a bird print while seated at a desk. Her hair done up in a bouffant and she has a small smile for the camera.
Place as Character: Bringing the World to Life on the Page
Janet Pocorobba
Author
A white cis woman in early fifties, long brown hair and brown eyes, chin in hands.
Who’s Driving this Bus?: Separating Your Narrator From Your Character in Memoir
Allison Pottern Hoch
Writer & Marketing Coach
A white female person with short, dark hair and a big smile, wearing a blue-green sweater.
Writing Like a Parent, Parenting Like a Writer
Eman Quotah
Author
A woman with brown hair and a striped shirt, standing outside.
Just My Opinion: Writing (and Landing) Op-Eds and Guest Essays
Diana Renn
Author
A woman in her late 40s with straight brown hair, wearing a green jacket, sitting in a tree.
The Writer as Sleuth: Mystery Novel Problems and How to Solve Them
Jane Roper
Author
A white woman in her forties with long brown hair and bangs.
The Rhythm and Structure of Memoir
Courtney Sender
Author
Courtney Sender.
Writing the Extremely Personal: Sex, Health, Family
Alyssa Songsiridej
Writer & Editor
An Asian-American cisgender woman with long hair in front of a black background.
Writing Desire: Using Physical Intimacy and the Erotic in Fiction
Shubha Sunder
Writer & Educator
Shubha Sunder
The Two-World Problem: Challenges and Opportunities in Writing Immigrant Stories
Shilpi Suneja
Author
An Indian woman with wavy black hair.
The Historian and the Historical Novel: How to Research Your Novel With (or Like) a Historian
Becky Tuch
Writer
A white woman with curly hair and hoop earrings.
Navigating the World of Literary Magazines
Paloma Valenzuela
Writer, Director, Actress, & Educator
Paloma seated at a chair. She wears a neon green turtleneck and a grey plaid blazer. She smiles slightly. she wears glasses and has curly brown hair.
Place as Character: Bringing the World to Life on the Page
Lyzette Wanzer
Writer & Educator
An African American woman wearing shoulder-length dreadlocks, attired in a black top with a disc-shaped pendant necklace.
For BIPOC Writers: Get Invited to Read at Literary Conferences

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