2022 Presenters

Feb

2022

Anjali Enjeti

Anjali Enjeti is a former attorney, organizer, and journalist based near Atlanta. She is the author of Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change, which the Washington Post called "a nuanced and much-needed journey into exploring what it means to be American," and The Parted Earth, which was recently selected as a 2022 Book All Georgians Should Read. Her other writing has appeared in Oxford American, Boston Globe, Poets & Writers, Harper’s Bazaar, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere.

Anjali has received awards from the South Asian Journalists Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors, multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, and two notable mentions in The Best American Essays series. A former board member of the National Books Critics Circle, she teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia.

SESSION: Writing with a Social Justice Lens

What does it mean to write with a social justice lens? In any kind of storytelling, whether fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, or poetry, writing with a social justice lens involves creating vivid three dimensional characters, settings, and riveting storylines that evoke authentic conflicts and worlds. We’ll take a look at how the philosophies behind movement journalism, community organizing, and decolonization can be applied to every genre of creative writing, and how interrogation of the self and rigorous critique can shape fresh and compelling narratives. We’ll discuss the role of imagination in disrupting language and formulaic storylines rooted in white supremacy and the function of authenticity editors.

Jan

2022

B.A. Shapiro

B. A. Shapiro is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Metropolis (May, 2022), The Collector’s Apprentice, The Muralist, and The Art Forger, which won the New England Book Award for Fiction, among other honors. Her books have been selected as Community Reads throughout the country and have been translated into over a dozen languages. She holds a PhD in sociology and has directed research projects for a residential substance abuse facility, worked as a systems analyst/statistician, headed the Boston office of a software development firm, and served as an adjunct professor teaching sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University. She likes writing the best. Barbara splits her time between Boston and Naples, Florida.

Read more about B.A. Shapiro on her website.

SESSION: Classical Story Structure: You Don't Need to Use It But You Have to Understand It

Trouble, trouble, trouble is what you need to move your novel forward, create complex characters as well as a powerful ending—and most important, to keep your readers up beyond their bedtimes. Where does this trouble come from? How do you maintain it? How do you use it to your advantage? Classical story structure holds many of these answers. Before attending this class, we suggest that you read or watch The Godfather, as this story will be used for illustration. Please also bring a scene that you’ve written to use for the in-class exercises.

Jan

2022

Courtney Sender

Courtney Sender's fiction appears with AGNI, Graywolf Press, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, and many others. Her essays appear in The New York Times' "Modern Love" and The Atlantic. She is a fellow of Yaddo, MacDowell, and Ucross, and was the George Bennett Writer-in-Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. She currently teaches at Tufts University and GrubStreet. Her debut story collection, IN OTHER LIFETIMES ALL I'VE LOST COMES BACK TO ME, is forthcoming next year with WVU Press. Read more on her website.

SESSION: Writing the Extremely Personal: Sex, Health, Family

What does it mean to write the extremely personal? How do you navigate the inclusion and publication of intimate details in your fictional or nonfictional work? In this lecture, two writers for The Atlantic and The New York Times’ “Modern Love” discuss how to navigate the writing process when your work includes deeply personal details about yourself or others—sex, family, health, romance, and so much more. Questions we will address include: how do we approach the writing process, and what public and private considerations should we keep in mind during and after the publication process? What are the advantages and disadvantages of plumbing your own life for artistic truth? How does the personal differ in fiction and nonfiction, if at all?

CO-PRESENTER: Christine Gross-Loh

Jan

2022

Katherine Lim

I’m a Filipino-British writer currently based in London but who also calls New York home. I am a 2022 Grace Paley Fellowship recipient at Under the Volcano, Tepoztlán, Mexico, a 2021 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Fellow at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing in Tempe, Arizona, a three-time Finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition (2019-21), and a mentor for PitchWars and #DVMentor. My writing has received support from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Cill Rialaig, Ireland, Norton Island Residency, Maine, Faber Llull Residency, Spain, Yefe Nof, Hambidge, InCahoots, and Sundress Academy of the Arts. “The Party”, a short story about Vita Sackville-West, was performed at the Tara Arts Theatre, London. I’ve received fellowships and/or scholarships from Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Aspen Summer Words, Colgate Writers’ Conference, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Loft Literary, Key West Literary Seminar, and the Arvon Foundation, and have an MA in Creative Writing from Keble College, Oxford University, where I was the Faith-Ivens Franklin scholar.

I’m passionate about writing fiction that challenges how we view history.

Read more about Katherine on her website.

SESSION: Queering Historical Fiction: Who Gets to Tell Which Stories?

In historical fiction about queer lives, questions that often arise are: “Is there any evidence that the character(s) are gay? Or, if they are fictional, are their situations accurately portrayed?” But these may not be the right questions to ask. This workshop invites readers to enter the interstices in history in which the inner lives of queer people are reimagined. Reading excerpts from novels and short stories, we’ll seek to understand what each writer is doing in contextualizing real-life historical events within fiction, and find inspiration in these techniques for our own writing. Participants will discuss notions of stereotyping, power, and privilege. We will discuss diverse sources such as Julie Orringer, Robert Jones Jr., Thomas Mallon, and Sarah Waters, among others.

Jan

2022

Lan Samantha Chang

SESSION: How to Finish a Novel

As the late Irish poet Eavan Boland used to advise her students, "The only way out is through." And yet, when we are bogged down in a work of several hundred pages, it can be difficult to see a way through to the end. In this session, we will discuss several methods of puzzling our way to the end of our novels-in-progress. This will involve examining the sometimes treacherous structural path between the middle and the end, as well as various processes that might encourage us along that path. Participants are encouraged to ask questions.

Jan

2022

Maurice Ruffin

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published by One World Random House in August 2021. It is a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. It was longlisted for the 2021 DUBLIN Literary Award, the Center for Fiction Prize and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. The novel was also a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Kenyon Review, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America. A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Ann Hood

Ann Hood is the author of the bestselling novels The Knitting Circle, The Obituary Writer, and The Book That Matters Most; and the bestselling memoirs Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love and Food, and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief which was a NYT Editors Choice and named one of the top 10 non fiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. She has written The Treasure Chest series for middle readers and three YA novels, including Jude Banks, Super Hero. Hood has won two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Food Writing Awards, and a Best American Travel Writing Award. Her essays have been among the 100 Notable Essays of the Year more than a dozen times and her books have been translated into twenty-two languages. She is the founding director of the low residency Newport MFA. Her most recent book is the memoir FLY GIRL, about her years as a TWA flight attendant.

Sorche Fairbank

Since establishing Fairbank Literary Representation in 2002, Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank has had the pleasure of working with a dynamic and varied client list, representing bestselling authors, award-winning journalists, artists, and illustrators, television and YouTube stars, and of course one of her favorite kinds of client—the debut author. Her authors are found with all the major publishers, as well as in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, the New Yorker, Guernica, Granta, Glimmer Train, the Best American series, Pushcart Prize, Smithsonian, McSweeney’s, Narrative, One Story, and many more.

Sorche’s tastes in novels tend toward literary fiction, international voices, and voice-y novels with a strong sense of place. On the nonfiction side, books that tackle current events and topical and societal issues with a narrative treatment. She has a strong interest in women’s voices and class and race issues, quality lifestyle books (food, craft, design), and the rare memoir, providing it goes beyond the “memoir.” Sorche reps a few wildly successful children’s books and is eager for more submissions from illustrator authors only. She is one of the leading agents of humor, pop culture, and gift books. She and her co-agents work closely to maximize clients’ ancillary rights, including film and television, merchandising, and translation rights.

In 2022 Sorche got a taste of the author experience, publishing her debut picture book (Trucks on Trucks) with Harper Collins, with a second book coming in 2025. Truly every agent should experience the publishing process from the author's perspective, for better and worse.

SESSION: Query Lab: Live Feedback on Query Letters

Most agencies receive at least a hundred query letters each week, yet respond positively to a very select few. Do you know the secrets to writing a winning query? Do you want to know the most common reasons for rejection? In this session, one or more agents will give direct feedback on audience query letters and use them as examples to discuss both effective and ineffective strategies for getting an agent or editor interested in your work. The goal will be to make your query letters as powerful as possible. If you want your query letter considered, please bring a ONE-PAGE electronic version to the session. Query letters will be chosen at random by a volunteer and put up on-screen. After your query letter is read by the agents and the audience, the agent(s) will discuss it, troubleshoot, and offer advice that is both specific to your project and general enough for the rest of the audience to benefit. Given the volume of submissions, we cannot guarantee that your query letter will be read. The point is not to get through as many queries as possible, but to thoughtfully evaluate your ideas and offer concrete suggestions from which all will benefit.

Cherise Fisher

Cherise Fisher began her career in publishing more than 25 years ago, working as an acquiring editor at Simon & Schuster and Penguin, where she was the Editor in Chief of the Plume trade paperback imprint. As an agent, she is interested in working with novelists who have several compulsively readable yarns in their head (both historical and contemporary), memoirists who showcase the diversity of human experience, and nonfiction writers who seek to provoke, inspire, and educate. Her intention is that all the books she helps bring into the world are relevant, enduring, and help readers maximize their life.

SESSION: Don’t Just Try to Please Me: On Incorporating Editorial Feedback (Or Not)

After months (and often years) of toil, blood, and tears, the writer finally shares the work. This triumphant moment inevitably tilts toward anxiety. What has been an intimate conversation between the mind and the computer screen is now opened up to others: a professional editor, literary agent, or perhaps fellow writers in a writing group. The vulnerability often causes authors to surrender to the (over)eagerness to please those responding to their work. This might result in writer's block/paralysis, finished work that feels choppy, or a manuscript that is disconnected from the writer's original imagination. This discussion will offer the best practices for a writer on how to thoughtfully incorporate suggestions from others, effectively push back on feedback that is off base, and distinguish between a resistant ego and a true creative impulse.

Lucy Cleland

Lucy Cleland is a literary agent at Kneerim & Williams, representing idea-driven and narrative nonfiction of all stripes (history, social science, psychology, philosophy, reportage, etc.) as well as upmarket fiction, historical fiction, and select children’s/YA projects. Originally from Atlanta, Lucy joined the agency in 2013 after graduating from Wellesley College. At Kneerim & Williams, she works with a range of writers, from scholars to debut novelists, and has sold books to trade and academic publishing houses including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, W.W. Norton, Random House, Chronicle, Grand Central Publishing, HarperCollins, Sourcebooks, and University of North Carolina Press. Her taste is eclectic—little “c” catholic. Whatever the category, she is looking for authors with sharp opinions who embrace bold concepts and write lucid, textured prose. She’s drawn to unconventional and untold stories, the lives of creatives and rebels, and questions about identity and inheritance.

SESSION: The Art of the NonFiction Book Proposal

Nonfiction writers and memoirists looking to snag an agent or editor’s attention face a puzzling challenge early on in the process: the book proposal. You’ve probably heard of it, but what is it, exactly? How do you describe your book before it is actually written? Do you need to mention your twitter followers, those pesky comp titles, or the prize you won in 2007? And what are the building blocks of a good book proposal anyway? This session will answer all those questions and more as Lucy Cleland, an agent at Kneerim & Williams, breaks down the elements and how to tackle them.

Book proposals are intimidating beasts, but once mastered they are a workhorse of editorial and marketing power. Crafting one can help you solve major structural issues in advance, refine your voice and ideas as you consider the reader’s perspective, and learn to showcase your nonfiction book concept with purpose and style. And, once finished, you’ll have a document that will get an agent or editor thinking “Interesting… not bad… hmm, this could be a book…wow, I think it could be a great book!”

2022 Presenters

Anjali Enjeti

ANJALI ENJETI

SESSION: Writing with a Social Justice Lens

B.A. Shapiro

B.A. SHAPIRO

SESSION: Classical Story Structure: You Don't Need to Use It But You Have to Understand It

Courtney Sender

COURTNEY SENDER

SESSION: Writing the Extremely Personal: Sex, Health, Family

Katherine Lim

KATHERINE LIM

SESSION: Queering Historical Fiction: Who Gets to Tell Which Stories?

Lan Samantha Chang

LAN SAMANTHA CHANG

SESSION: How to Finish a Novel

Maurice Ruffin

MAURICE RUFFIN

SESSION: Fiction Writing Generative Jumpstarter

Ann Hood

ANN HOOD

SESSION: The Art of Revision: Welcome to the Party

Sorche Fairbank

SORCHE FAIRBANK

SESSION: Query Lab: Live Feedback on Query Letters

Cherise Fisher

CHERISE FISHER

SESSION: Don’t Just Try to Please Me: On Incorporating Editorial Feedback (Or Not)

Lucy Cleland

LUCY CLELAND

SESSION: The Art of the NonFiction Book Proposal