Lyn Liao Butler

Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of thrillers, upmarket fiction, and rom-coms. Her most recent thriller, Someone Else’s Life, was an Amazon bestseller and her second book Red Thread of Fate is a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards. She was a professional ballet and modern dancer, and is still a fitness/yoga instructor.

• Presentation: Writing Across Genres
• Master Class: Writing Your Query Letter

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Jo Campbell is the author of the novels The Waters (January 9, 2024), Once Upon a River, a National Bestseller that was adapted into a full-length feature film released to international claim in 2020, and Q Road. Her critically acclaimed short fiction collections include American Salvage, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Women and Other Animals, which won the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction; and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. She was a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow whose other honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Eudora Welty Prize, and the Mark Twain Award. She lives outside Kalamazoo with her husband and two donkeys.

• Presentation - topic TBD

Ana Castillo

Ana Castillo, Ph.D. has penned more than two dozen titles to date in a range of genres. She is credited as a pioneer of Chicana/x, feminist works with a career that spans nearly half a century. Her most recent book is Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home: Stories (HarperVia; May, 2023).

Forthcoming works: Isabel 2121 (novel) Harpervia; May 2024.

• We’re excited to welcome best selling author Ana Castillo as our featured speaker for Let’s Just Chat!, the special conversation at our Saturday dinner.

Curtis Crisler

Curtis L. Crisler is an award-winning poet/author who has six poetry books, two YA books, and five poetry chapbooks. He’s been published in a number of magazines, journals, and anthologies and is an editor and contributing poetry editor. He created the Indiana Chitlin Circuit, the poetry form called the sonastic, and is Professor of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). He can be contacted at www.poetcrisler.com.

• How Poetry Can Inform Your Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir

Jonathan Eig

Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of six books, including his most recent King: A Life, which The New York Times hailed as a “monumental” new biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

His previous book, Ali: A Life, won a 2018 PEN America Literary Award and was a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. Esquire magazine named Ali: A Life one of the 25 greatest biographies of all time. Joyce Carol Oates called it “an epic of a biography” that “reads like a novel.”

His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

• Keynote Speaker

Ann Garvin

Ann Garvin, Ph.D. is the USA Today bestselling author of five funny and sad novels, including her latest, There’s No Coming Back From This.

Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers where she is committed to helping women writers succeed. She is a sought-after speaker on writing, leadership and health and has taught extensively in NY, San Francisco, LA, Boston, and at festivals across the country and in Europe.

• How Writing Your Synopsis Can Fix Your Book
• Master Class: How to Summarize Your Book So It Sells

Karen Karbo

KAREN KARBO is the author of fourteen award-winning novels. Three of her novels and her memoir The Stuff of Life were all named New York Times Notable Books. Her latest book is Yeah, No. Not Happening.

Karbo’s short stories, essays, articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications. She publishes Karbohemia Confidential where you can read her hilarious essays about living in the south of France where she writes and runs writers retreats.

• How to Make a Living With Your Writing and Still Write the Great American Novel
• Master Class

Samantha Keating

Samantha Keating does double duty at The Wild Rose Press as fiction editor and social media manager. As an editor she is all about knowing what’s buzzing in the literary world and lifting narratives to their fullest potential. While she champions the raw authenticity of a character, she also helps authors tweak them to resonate with today’s reader, balancing authenticity and market appeal.

On the digital front, Keating’s social media presentations and workshops revolve around the principle of keeping it simple.

• Social Media: Getting the Most for the Least Effort

Daniel Kraus

DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His collaboration with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, The Living Dead, was acclaimed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, also an Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, an Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year.

• A Conversation With This New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film.

Eric Charles May

Eric Charles May is the author of the novel Bedrock Faith, which was named a 2014 Notable African-American title by Publishers Weekly, and a Top Ten Debut Novel for 2014 by Booklist Magazine, and the 2015 recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library. May is a former reporter for The Washington Post. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications. He is an associate professor in the fiction writing program at Columbia College Chicago.

• Topic to be announced

Dipika Muhkerjee

Dipika Muhkerjee writes fiction, poetry and essays, and academic papers.

She travels. Then she writes about the travel. Nothing like the lulling motion of an old train track, or a path that calls with smells of warm food, both familiar and new. 

A collection of her travel essays will be published by Penguin Random House (SEA) in 2023. Right now, she is working on a third novel, as well as a hybrid memoir. When not writing, or travelling, she teaches at StoryStudio Chicago and the Graham School of University of Chicago).

• From Armchair to Being There: Making Travel Writing Pop

Dawn Turner

Dawn Turner is an award-winning author and journalist. Her most recent book, Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2021, and won the inaugural Chicago Book Award. A former columnist for the Chicago Tribune, Dawn has twice served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary,  and has held journalism fellowships at the University of Chicago and Harvard. 

Presentation

Audrey Wilson

Audrey Wilson is an award-winning author and screenwriter with a BA in Television Writing and Producing from Columbia College Chicago. Audrey's debut thriller Wrong Girl Gone was published by Dreaming Big Publications, and her next book, Only Human, an LGBTQ+ romance, will be released February 1, 2024 by Flashpoint Publications. In addition to her novels, Audrey has written over two dozen screenplays and television episodes, and has won a variety of awards for her writing, including a regional Emmy nomination. As a screenwriter, she is represented by Aligned Talent Group. 

• From Story to Screen: Adapting Your Book into a Screenplay

April Eberhardt, April Eberhardt Literary

April Eberhardt, a literary change agent and author advocate, assists authors in being published most successfully given the evolving publishing landscape. She serves on the Advisory Council for The American Library in Paris, and is a reader for the Best American Short Stories series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

April welcomes all non-genre adult fiction be it book club, commercial-to-literary, or historical. No romance, mystery/triller, sci-fi, extraterrestial or YA. 

• Pitch sessions
• Workshop

Samantha Keating, Wild Rose Press

Samantha Keating, fiction editor and social media manager at The Wild Rose Press, merges her foundation in English-Publishing Studies and Psychology with insights from her time in the publishing industry. She digs deep into stories, getting to the heart of what readers are truly after and understanding what makes them tick.

The Wild Rose Press is actively seeking submissions in all genres of fiction. We are open to full length or short stories in adult fiction across all lines. We have room for submissions in our suspense line, our contemporary lines, as well as paranormal, historical, and erotic. We would love the chance to hear about what you are writing and discuss your current manuscript. 

• Pitch sessions
• Workshop

Doug Grad, Doug Grad Literary Agency

The Doug Grad Literary Agency, Inc.  opened for business in 2008, after Doug spent the previous twenty-two years as a senior editor at four major New York publishing houses. Throughout his editorial career, Doug was always an author’s advocate--the kind of editor authors wanted to work with because of his keen eye, integrity, and talent for developing projects. He was also a skillful negotiator, sometimes to the chagrin of literary agents.  

Doug's genre's of interest: Narrative non-fiction, military, sports, celebrity memoir, thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction, romance, music, style, business, home improvement, cookbooks, self-help, science and theater.

• Pitch sessions
• Agent panel

Joanna Mackenzie, Nelson Literary Agency

Joanna MacKenzie represents authors writing for adult and children's markets across all areas of fiction. She is drawn to vivid, engaging writing and is particularly interested in high concept thrillers, voicey mysteries, dark academia, stories that straddle genres, and women's fiction where the personal intersects with the world at large.

• Pitch sessions

Andy Ross, Andy Ross Literary Agency

I opened my literary agency in January 2008. Prior to that I was the owner of the legendary Cody's Books in Berkeley, California for 30 years.

I represent authors who write books in a wide range of subjects including: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, current affairs, contemporary culture, religion, children's books and  commercial and literary fiction.

• Pitch sessions
• Agent panel

Peter Rubie, FinePrint Literary Management

Peter Rubie has been in New York publishing as an agent, editor and published writer for nearly 40 years. He is the CEO of Fine Print Literary Management which he formed in 1998.

Preferences: Nonfiction - narrative non-fiction, popular science, spirituality, history, biography, pop culture, business and technology, parenting, health, self help, music, and food. In fiction he represents literate thrillers, crime fiction, science fiction and fantasy, military fiction and literary fiction, middle grade and some boy-oriented young adult fiction.

• Pitch sessions

Tina P Schwartz, The Purcell Agency

Tina P Schwartz is the founder and literary agent at The Purcell Agency, LLC, near Chicago. She has written 10 traditionally published nonfiction books for children and teens. Tina started The Purcell Agency in 2012.

Tina's preferences: Women’s Fiction, Women’s Romance, LGBTQ, Young Adult, and Middle Grade.

• Pitch sessions