PR Week Magazine has described Peter as “redefining the art of networking,” and Investor’s Business Daily has called him “crazy, but effective.” Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you harness the power of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and make it work to your advantage.

An entrepreneur, author, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, marketing, advertising, creativity, and customer service.

Peter is perhaps best known for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO) which in under a year has become the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 100,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out over 1,200 queries from worldwide media each week. HARO’s tagline, “Everyone is an Expert at Something,” proves over and over again to be true, as thousands of new members join at helpareporter.com each week.

In addition to HARO, Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc, a boutique Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. His blog, which he launched as a website in 1995, (www.shankman.com) both comments on and generates news and conversation.

Peter’s PR and Social Media clients have included the Snapple Beverage Group, NASA, The US Department of Defense, Walt Disney World, The Ad Council, American Express, Discovery Networks, New Frontier Media, Napster, Juno, Dream Catcher Destinations Club, Harrah’s Hotels, and many others, and he sits on the board of the Scott-e-Vest, the world’s first technologically enabled clothing line.

Peter is the author of _Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your Company Needs Them_ (Wiley and Sons 2006) and a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences and tradeshows worldwide, including The Public Relations Society of America, The International Association of Business Communicators, CTIA, CTAM, CES, PMA, OMMA, Mobile Marketing Asia, and the Direct Marketing Association.

A marketing pundit for several national and international news channels, including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, Peter is frequently quoted in major media and trade publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, and USA Today.

Peter started his career in Vienna, VA, with America Online as a Senior News Editor, helping found the AOL Newsroom and spearheading coverage of the Democratic and Republican 1996 conventions, which marked the first time an online news service covered any major political event.

Born and raised in New York City, Peter still lives there with his two psychotic cats, Karma and NASA, who consistently deny his repeated requests to relinquish the couch. In the few hours of spare time Peter has per month, he’s a frequent runner, with 13 completed marathons and three Olympic distance triathlons to his credit, and an “B” licensed skydiver, specializing in free-flying.

Join AIW here or call 202-775-5150.

AIW is an association that seeks to create an open and inclusive community of authors, journalists and other writers across the United States. AIW informs, educates and supports its members in the business and craft of writing and helps them succeed in a rapidly changing environment. AIW also advocates for writers on key local and national issues. You can find AIW on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here are the official details:

AIW Summer 2009 Membership Drive!

American Independent Writers are starting the 2009 Summer Membership Drive on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 and ask each AIW Member to recruit one writer from your circle of friends and associates.

To make the new member even more welcome, we are dropping the $45 Initiation fee for the new members who are recruited in July and August. To reward you for your recruiting job, we will give you a $35 discount on any of our future Saturday Seminars.

The new member may sign up online or call the office. Be sure you remind them to include your name as the referring member.

If each member brings just one new member we will be way ahead of the goals set by the new AIW Board and Officers!

Join AIW here or call 202-775-5150.

I’m a member of the AIW Board of Directors, so I’m not gunning for the discount. But I would appreciate your mentioning my name (Kristen King) if you join so I can keep track of how effective my promotion of the membership drive is. Questions? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

This economy has been unforgiving for many of us. Very few folks seem interested in, you know, actually buying anything. Lot of tire kickers these days. But there is hope. I have some very exciting news that will help you attract some opportunity.

There’s an awesome free online event called Marketing Strategies With White Papers coming on July 2nd that I strongly encourage you to attend. Michael Stelzner (author of the bestseller, “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged” and the man behind huge summits like Social Media Success Summit) will be leading this free online class.

Go here to check it out.

In this free class, Michael will reveal:

• What marketing techniques bring in ongoing leads at no cost?
• What are the five deadly marketing mistakes most businesses make and how can I avoid them?
• How can I effortlessly get my information in front of prospects?
• What are three proven techniques that greatly improve the quality of leads generated?
• How can I find prospects actively looking for the products or services I sell?

Whether you simply need new ideas to generate interest or have been thinking about white papers (or, like me, it’s both!), you need to see what Michael’s going to share.

Go here to grab your seat before they’re gone. Remember, this is a free event. Normally Michael charges $59 for this, but he’s decided to offer it at no cost for a limited time.

Like I said, my boy Mike gave me an early heads up on this free event.  He’ll be notifying his more than 30,000 subscribers in the next few days.  Once he does that, the free seats will be gone for sure.  And seriously, his stuff is always top notch and worth easily twice the price of admission. (So imagine it being worth 2 x $59, not 2 x free, heh).  Go here and register right away.

Remember the online event happens on July 2nd (and will be recorded)–but you must register in advance.

Hope to “see” you there!

1. Distribute a clear agenda in advance of the call and stick to it

Make sure all call participants know exactly what’s expected of the, and what will be covered and decided during the call to maximize the time available. Betsy Garman, publications and distance learning specialist at AACC, advises assigning roles ahead of time as well so people know what agenda points they’re responsible for. And don’t neglect the tech. “If you’re the call leader, be familiar with the technology — especially if you’re recording the call or using a moderator provided by the call company,” she says. Photographer Andrew Deci echoes Garman’s advice. “Conference calls are always better when there is a clearly identified ‘moderator,’ someone who can direct responses and ask questions,” Deci says.

2. Send the dial-in number, pass code, and instructions multiple times

Make sure you include any access details when you announce the call, when you send out the agenda, and the day of or the day before the call to make sure everyone has what they need to get on the line.

3. Always identify yourself when you’re speaking

Whether there’s one person on the phone or a dozen, everyone on site and conferencing in should say who they are at opening of every comment. Says freelancer Elizabeth Sheley, “Speakers should err on the side of over-identifying themselves.” If I can’t see you, I have no idea who’s talking which means that I can’t follow up with you later on questions. It’s also just good manners.

4. Limit or eliminate background noise as a caller

Newsflash, folks: If you’re not muted, others can hear you eating, burping, tearing paper, and yelling at your kids or pets. Kelly, a writer who tweets as @writelikeamutha, adds, “I’m sure someone said not to pee [while on a conference call]. You can hear it.” Sheley, mentioned in No. 3, also suggests confining pets who fancy themselves as helpful to another room or the great outdoors.

Remember, the mute button is your friend…if you know how to use it properly. “Make sure the mute is REALLY on before you call the other party a little s–t,” says writer Paula Whyman. “This really happened.” But, cautions Garman, mentioned in No. 1, don’t mute the call on hold if you have a background music service, because then everyone else will be subjected to your hold music (which, if you ask me, is probably better than being subjected to your potty mouth unless your hold music is something like “Baby Got Back”). Speaking of which, don’t forget to turn off any computer or cell phone tones that may ring out mid-call. “Check your audio so you don’t share those pesky TweetDeck update beeps,” advises Jo Golden of Chaos to Clarity.

5. Limit or eliminate background noise as an on-site participant

The same rules go for participants in the conference room on the other end. If you’re whispering amongst yourselves, we can all hear you; take it outside or shut up. Turn off your cell or put it on vibrate and don’t answer it until you’re out of the room. If the conference call is headquartered in a high-traffic area, close the door. It’s very distracting to hear the mail cart clattering by amid echoing laughter in the corridor. Oh, and can we talk about why you shouldn’t tap or bang on the table that’s holding the phone/conference speaker or the phone or speaker itself? Yes, sliding papers and books across or into these items counts. Knock it off.

6. Speak loudly and clearly

This one sounds like kind of a no brainer, but as every conference call I participate in bears out, it requires frequent repetition. Those calling in: Speakerphone may be handy when it comes to allowing you to take notes, but if the speaker is across the room from where you’re sitting, no one can hear you when you try to comment. Those on-site: The farther you are away from the conference device, the louder you need to be for others to hear you.

7. If you don’t have anything to add, don’t add anything

When the facilitator asks, “Any more comment / questions / problems / whatever?” don’t say a word unless you actually have one. Enough said.

8. End the call on time

I cannot tell you how many calls I’ve been on where I was told to allow 2-3 hours and the conference actually lasted more like 6. There is no excuse for (a) not sticking to the time you told everyone to allot or (b) having a 6-hour conference call. Get a grip, people. And see No. 7. It will cut the time down.

9. Close with clear next steps

The only thing worse than a never-ending conference call is a never-ending conference call that doesn’t go anywhere when it’s over. Assuming that you had the call for a specific reason and stated what that reason was and what the call was to accomplish (see No. 1), there should be something else happening now that the call is over. Make sure everyone knows what that is, whether it’s summarizing notes, meeting in smaller groups, or beginning / continuing work on whatever the project may be.

Those are my biggies for conference call etiquette, and a few mishaps along the way. What are your biggest peeves and gaffes?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

They sent me this big fat novelty check for $13,055,720.00.

And speaking of big and fat, do my fingers look huge in this picture, or what?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

The one that’s due to the client tomorrow morning.

Yeah, that’s what happened to me last month. What would you have done? Me, well, I had a panic attack.

Let’s back up a minute.

For the last several months, there’s been something wrong with my computer. It was freezing randomly, and certain processes were running really slowly. I kept calling tech support and they’d walk me through a temporary fix, but the problems just kept coming back. In the meantime, my external hard drive (aka, the useless-when-I-actually-needed-it backup drive) spontaneously stopped working and had to be sent out for replacement. I didn’t really think much of it, and I was learning to live with the random slowness.

And then disaster struck. I was literally — literally — attaching the draft to the e-mail when the computer froze up. Literally. If it had waited 30 seconds, this would still be a sucky story but not an absolute freakin’ nightmare. Don’t worry, I won’t disappoint. It was an utter disaster.

I called my client as soon as I realized there was a problem, but at that point I wasn’t in complete panic mode yet. That came later.

I still had faith in tech support walking me through some magical fix by phone. She stayed calm, I stayed calm, we agreed that she would e-mail the end client and just let them know that there was a tech glitch and we’d sent the document as soon as it was resolved. But then I hung up the phone and tried to do a little troubleshooting of my own by attempting to access my desktop through my laptop like an external drive. That’s when I got the message that my desktop’s hard drive didn’t exist. That was when I had the panic attack.

The next morning I was on the phone with tech support when they opened. We tried everything. Nothing happened. “Well,” the guy said, “the next option would be to erase the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch to see if that will make it recognize it.” Uh, dude, are you on CRACK? eRASE the HARD drive? When my STUFF is still ON there?

That obviously didn’t fly. Instead, I got a referral to a data recovery service and my husband cancelled all of his plans for the day and schlepped the comptuer to the local store for some on-site attempts at repair. Nada. Data recovery it was.

And data recovery is expensive! The quotes I got ranged from $2,000 to $9,000, with no guarantee of success. Since I hadn’t set the computer on fire, thrown it down the stairs, or immersed it in water or another liquid, the company I ultimately went with was pretty optimistic that they’d be able to get at least something back for me. Something. Gee, thanks. But I FexExed it off to them and started waiting.

Last night I got an e-mail: Please call our customer service department about your order. When I did, a nice lady named Kelly told me they had recovered more than 99% of my data. I screamed. “Kelly,” I said, “if you were in the room I would hug you.” She laughed. The bill? Only (and I use the term loosely) $2,100 and change. Considering how much worse it could have been, I’ll take it.

I’ll have my data back by the end of the week, and my computer is still under warranty so I should have a new machine shortly thereafter.

“But Kristen,” you ask, “what happened with the proposal?”

Once I realized that the file was gone forever, or at least until well after the deadline, I busted out my laptop and combed my sent e-mails for earlier drafts, and then painstakingly reconstructed the 10 hours of work I had put in the day before in about 4 hours. I’m still not sure how I managed it. We missed that deadline by a few hours but still made the important one — the deadline to actually submit the proposal — with time to spare, so all’s well that ends well. And I’m getting my files back! Woohoo!

Lessons learned:

• One backup method is not enough. (That phrase makes me think of middle school sex ed class. Snort.)
• Never underestimate the value of e-mailing yourself interim drafts to a Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or other Web-based account so if you have a crisis, you also have a safety net.
• When you screw up, whether it’s your fault or a circumstance beyond your control, just panicking doesn’t help. Panic for a few minutes, but then get it together and bust your butt to make it right; if you do that, you’ll keep your client despite the crisis.

After we sent the reconstructed draft to the end client, my client said to me, “I wasn’t going to tell you this last night, but I was really nervous. I’ve been left holding the bag in situations like this before, and we haven’t really been in the trenches together yet. You get an A+ for professionalism and perseverance. And this makes me want to work with you even more.” Hey, works for me!

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

Please forward to anyone you think might like to know about these
events. To be added to their email announcements list, sign up at
www.writerhouse.org

»Friday June 5, 7:00 pm
———————————
Unveiling Iranian Women Writers in America with UVA Professor Farzaneh
Milani. UVA Professor Farzaneh Milani discusses the recent flowering
of Iranian women’s memoirs in English in the context of modern Iranian
literature and society, and the rich complexity of Iranian women’s
experience. Milani is the author of “Veils and Words: The Emerging
Voice of Iranian Women Writers.” She has written for the New York
Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Ms.
Magazine, USA Today, and N.P.R.’s “All Things Considered.”

»Monday, June 15, 7:30 pm
—————————————
An Evening of Student Readings. WriterHouse Spring Session students
from all classes will present brief samples of their work

»Tuesday, June 16th, 7:30pm
—————————————-
Getting Published in the Children’s and YA Markets: A Cinderella
Story, An Overview, and Specific Suggestions, with WriterHouse member
Fran Cannon Slayton, author of the forthcoming YA novel, When the
Whistle Blows. Copies of Fran’s book will be available for purchase
and signing.

**********************************************************************
|  Volunteers Needed FRIDAY JUNE 12! Help raise money for WriterHouse
while listening to music! WH has three dates this summer to work the
concession stands at  the Pavilion during Fridays after Five.
Sign up on their website. |
***********************************************************************

WriterHouse Information
writers@writerhouse.org
www.writerhouse.org
508 Dale Ave, Charlottesville VA
434-296-1922

(http://inkthinkerblog.com) — If you’ve been an Inkthinker reader for any length of time, you know I’m all about the strong online presence as a key component of your personal and professional brand. But what happens when you spread yourself too thin online? And what can you do about it?

I found myself in this very same dilemma recently. Well, let’s back up a minute. I’ve had this dilemma for a while, but I didn’t realize it until recently. My writer pal Anne Wayman invited me to participate in Problogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project in April, and I quickly realized that I just did not have the time to keep up with it. But before that hit me, I tried to complete the first couple of exercises first, and Day 1 was my revelation moment.

The task: Write an elevator pitch for your blog.

My response: Panic.

See, here’s the thing. At some point in my blogging career, I went from blogging with a purpose to blogging to blog, and blogs with no purpose don’t really lend themselves to elevator pitches. So I decided to table the elevator pitch until after SOBCon09 in the hope that I’d reach some new level of clarity afterward like I did last year. (Read: I fell into glorious, glorious denial.) And I did, but it wasn’t the moment I was expecting.

At SOBCon, I decided that I’d take the four weeks after my return from Chicago to write a one-page business plan a week, one for each of my four active blogs (Inkthinker, Sass Pants, Meow/Bark/Blog, and Richmond on the Cheap). The plans would include the following components:

• Purpose and “elevator pitch”
• Audience
• Content strategy (type, frequency, style, etc)
• Monetization strategy

I did okay with Inkthinker and Richmond on the Cheap (which, for the record, you haven’t really heard about because it hasn’t formally launched yet but in brief it’s  about finding free and cheap stuff in Richmond, VA, which has nothing to do with me at all and is irrelevant to this discussion). But for Sass Pants and MBB, forget it. I didn’t really have a purpose, and I think it showed in my content.

When I stepped back from my blogs and thought about what I was doing, it became clear that Sass Pants and MBB weren’t really supporting any of my goals (except, you know, stroking my ego, which is more of a side effect than a goal). What I really wanted them to do was to give me a place to have a strong personal voice and brand. I wanted blog properties where I could be snarky and funny and just talk about life and relationships and my pets (without taking Inkthinker totally off track), and maybe make a few bucks here and there on advertising . Instead, I overanalyzed, overcategorized, and basically just overbooked myself into not wanting to deal with any of them. No fun, I tell you.

But I don’t want this post to be all about what I did wrong. I want it to be about how I’m turning it around.

When I stepped back and asked myself what I was trying to accomplish with these blogs, I realized that fragmenting myself was decidedly not the way to develop a strong personal brand. Sounds obvious when you see it in black and white, doesn’t it? Yeah. That was more of a moment of DUH than a moment of clarity.

Anyway, here’s my solution: I combined MBB and Sass Pants into a single blog at KristenKing.com (brilliant concept for personal branding, no?), posted updates for my feed subscribers, and redirected both pages to the Kristen King URL. Easy-peasy. Inkthinker’s still about my take on writing and business, and KristenKing.com is about, well, me. See the connection? I was so busy trying to blog to blog that I forgot to blog for me.

This has been a bit of a circuitous way of saying that I was trying to be too many things to too many audiences and lost track of what I really wanted in terms of blogging and branding. My pal Jen Knoedl (aka Jen Chicago) put it perfectly at SOBCon09:

It’s better to blog for yourself and have no audience than to blog for your audience and have no self.

The awesome thing I’ve realized through this process is that you can have an audience and a self — but the self has to come first, and strong loyalty to yourself makes for a strong brand and an even stronger audience.

What do you think?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

The 30th AIW Writers Conference
Sponsored by American Independent Writers

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING IN A CHANGING WORLD

The George Washington University
Cafritz Conference Center
Marvin Center Building
800 21st St. N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20052

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Sign Up to Meet with a Literary Agent NOW!

2009 Literary Agents (PDF - 163 KB)
2009 Literary Agents Sign-Up Form (PDF - 14 KB)
Pitching Formula for Success—Do Your Homework

AGENT BREAKFAST (Advance reservations only), Third floor, Continental Ballroom
7:30 – 8:30 a.m.

OPENING REMARKS, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
9:00 – 9:10 a.m.

Cecilia Seppis currently serving her second term as president of AIW and was first elected in 2007. An association management consultant and writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland, she joined AIW in 2004, and served as 2007 Conference Co-Chair.  She is also an active volunteer with the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership (ASAE & the Center), where she is currently serving as Vice Chair of the Communication Section Council and is Immediate Past Chair of the Gold Circle Awards program that recognizes excellence in association communications. Cecilia is a member of the ASAE & The Center CenterU faculty, facilitating online courses in component relations, marketing, and leadership. Cecilia writes on a variety of issues related to association management and personal/professional development at Association Puzzle (www.associationpuzzle.typepad.com), the blog she launched in 2005. She received her BA in political science, with an adjunct degree in management, from Webster University in St. Louis, MO. In her spare time, she writes book reviews for Book Launch Café (www.booklaunchcafe.com).

PLENARY SPEECH, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
9:10 – 9:45 a.m.

Michael Shilling is the author of Rock Bottom, a novel recently published by Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company. Michael will be discussing the opportunities online media presents in book promotion, from social networking sites to blogging to podcasts.  His presentation will center around his web site for the book, www.rockbottomnovel.com, in which he created a virtual band web site for Blood Orphans, the band about which Rock Bottom is centered. Among other things, rockbottomnovel.com contains songs, merchandise, band member bios/member illustrations, and a tour blog. A Lecturer at the University of Michigan, where he received his M.F.A. in creative writing, Michael is currently working on a novel that takes place in 1820’s England, and which involves several of the characters from Jane Eyre.

BREAK
9:45 – 10:00 a.m.

MORNING AGENTS PITCH SESSIONS
10:00 a.m.—12:45 p.m.
There are 15 literary agents signed up for the Agents breakfast, two 10-minute pitch sessions, and the Fiction and Non-fiction Agent Roundtables.  The list to select agents from will be posted on the Web site on Wednesday, April 1, 2009.  It is on a “first come—first served” basis and you can register in advance for the conference to be ranked in the order of your registration.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
10:00 – 11:15 a.m.

FICTION AGENTS ROUNDTABLE
What are the hot book topics in 2009? How can you boost your chances of getting an agent to represent your project? Here’s a chance to ask four top literary agents who represent fiction everything you ever wanted to know.

Moderator: Paige Wheeler is founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC (Folio). Prior to forming Folio, Wheeler formed Creative Media Agency (CMA) in 1997 and served as its president for nine years until 2006 when she merged the company into her new venture, Folio. Wheeler is interested in representing all commercial fiction and upscale fiction (book club books) as well as women’s fiction, romance (all types), mystery, thrillers, psychological suspense, and young adult. She also represents narrative nonfiction and prescriptive nonfiction, books in which the author has a huge platform and something new to say in a particular area. Other nonfiction areas that interest her are lifestyle, relationship, business, pop culture, popular/trendy reference projects and women’s issues. Over the course of her career, she has worked as an agent in both a literary and entertainment capacity. Before forming Folio and CMA, she began her agenting career with New York-based Artists Agency, Inc. where she worked as a literary and talent agent representing authors, script writers, television producers, and on-camera personalities. Before that she was an editor for Harlequin/Silhouette in New York and Euromoney Publications in London. An active member of Women in Publishing, she served as the organization’s president from 1996 to 1998. Wheeler earned a B.A. from Boston University.

RESEARCH: BESIDES AND BEYOND THE WEB
Do we depend on the Web for too much of our research?  What is out there that you can’t get on your screen at your desk?  What other approaches are available and how can you employ them in your work?

Thomas Mann is a reference specialist in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the Library of Congress.  He is the author of The Oxford Guide to Library Research and Library Research Models, both from Oxford University Press.  Mann also worked as a private detective before joining the Library of Congress.  He has worked with many of our members over the years on a wide variety of research projects.

A specialist on investigations of organized crime since 1974, best-selling author and investigative journalist Dan E. Moldea has published seven nonfiction books:  The Hoffa Wars; The Hunting of Cain:  A True Story of Money, Greed, and Fratricide; Dark Victory:  Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob; Interference:  How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football; The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy:  An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity; Evidence Dismissed:  The Inside Story of the Police Investigation of O.J. Simpson; and A Washington Tragedy:  How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Firestorm. Moldea, a former president of Washington Independent Writers, is currently at work on his eighth and ninth books.

BROKEN BONES, BALLISTICS, AND BURNS: TECHNICAL STUFF THAT WRITERS SHOULD GET RIGHT
Nothing ejects a reader out of a story faster than fumbled details.  Drawing on his expertise as a firefighter, EMT, safety engineer and explosives safety expert, bestselling author John Gilstrap will give you the lowdown on how bullets behave, what happens when they impact the body, what everybody gets wrong about fires, and other stuff that all writers should know before they start shooting people on the page.  Gilstrap is the New York Times bestselling author of six thrillers, the latest of which, No Mercy will be released on June 27.  His previous books include Six Minutes to Freedom, Scott Free, Even Steven, At All Costs, and Nathan’s Run, four of which were selections of the Literary Guild.  His novels have been translated into more than 20 languages.  John has also adapted four bestselling novels for the big screen: Red Dragon (uncredited) from the Thomas Harris novel, for Dino DeLaurentiis Productions, Word of Honor (from the Nelson DeMille novel, for Dino DeLaurentiis Productions); Young Men and Fire (from the Norman Maclean book, for Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures/Warner Brothers); and Nathan’s Run (from his own novel, also for Warner Brothers).  Last month, he signed on to write the screenplay for Six Minutes to Freedom for Sesso Entertainment.  Gilstrap holds a master’s degree in safety engineering from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree in history from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.   Please visit www.johngilstrap.com.

SPEECHWRITING: TIPS FROM THE TOP
Whether learning the “nuts and bolts” of writing speeches or how to find work as a freelancer, this session will provide insight into one of the most lucrative fields of writing in Washington, DC.  Following this interactive discussion, you’ll walk away knowing how to:

• Find common ground with any audience;
• Craft jokes that capitalize on your speaker’s strengths;
• Be fearless in helping CEOs improve their presentations;
• Translate general writing skills into remarks for the ear;
• Manage the lion share of the speech process—far from the keyboard;
• Capitalize on visual support in a great speech;
• Leverage a speech so it reaches beyond those in the room; and
• Find out what the audience really wants to hear.

Whether you’re ready to write for the CEO or you’re just trying to hone your use of tone, rhythm, and cadence, join this veteran speechwriter to learn the tricks of the trade.  Or just come by to hear entertaining stories of what it’s like to work in the shadows of power.  Among them:

• A flopped joke about nude beaches for remarks in Heidelberg;
• A near-miss at a press conference on missile defense in Moscow; and
• A heart-warming moment about Washington’s lovely Tidal Basin in the spring.

Moderator: Acclaimed speechwriter Dr. Rosemary King has written for the Secretary of Defense, two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and corporate executives.  She has taught English at the Air Force Academy and published Border Confluences:  Borderland Narratives from the Mexican War to the Present.

Dr. Stanley Dambroski has written speeches for U.S. government officials at the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and State. He won Cicero Speechwriting Awards in 2007 and 2008. He has taught communications and linguistics courses at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University.

Tim Hayes is a nationally-known speechwriter who has earned more than 25 awards at the national and regional level for his writing.  His clients include CEOs from Fortune 200 companies, elected officials, professional athletes, and civic leaders.  He is the author of the soon-to-be published book on effective speechwriting, “The Sunrise Sentence,” available through Amazon Books.

Neil Mansharamani writes speeches for the Chief Operating Officer and several executives at the Federal Aviation Administration.  He has taught Advanced Public Speaking and Argumentation and Debate, and is pursuing a doctorate in Communication at the University of Maryland.

BREAK
11:15—11:30 a.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
11:30 a.m.—12:45 p.m.

NONFICTION AGENTS ROUNDTABLE
No matter what kind of non-fiction you write– biography, self-help, memoir, pop culture– it’s important to know what’s selling and how you can increase your chances of getting an agent. Ask four top literary agents who represent non-fiction everything you ever wanted to know.

Moderator: Regina Ryan is a literary agent, primarily in the adult nonfiction market. Areas of interest include well-written narrative nonfiction, architecture, history, business, natural history (especially birds), science, the environment, women’s issues, parenting, cooking, psychology, health, wellness, diet, fitness, lifestyle, home improvement and design, business, and leisure activities, including sports, travel and gardening. She founded Regina Ryan Publishing Enterprises, an independent literary agency, and 30 years ago. Her clients include Kairol Rosenthal, author of  Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in your 20’s and 30’s; Susan Carrell, author of Escaping Toxic Guilt: Five Proven Steps to Free Yourself from Guilt for Good; David Deardorff, Ph.D. and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with my Plant?   Easy Diagnosis and Natural Remedies, Suzanne von Drachenfels, author of The Art of the Table; Michael Karpin, author of  Tightrope: Six Generations of a Jewish Dynasty; Judith Wurtman, author of The Serotonin Power Diet; Andrea Warren, author of Under Siege: Three Children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg; Edwin Shneidman, author of Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind; and Paul Holinger, author of What Babies Say Before They Can Talk. Before launching her agency, Ryan was editor-in-chief of Macmillan Adult Books, the first woman to hold that position in a major hardcover publishing house. Before that she was an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Ryan is a member of the Women’s Media Group, PEN, the Authors Guild, the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR), and the Agents Roundtable. She is a past president and former board member of the American Book Producers Association.

DO’S AND DON’T’S OF WRITERS’ WEB SITES
Join us for a hands-on workshop on how to create a successful website for your writing business. Discuss how-to’s, pitfalls, and best practices, and lead interactive exercises to help you define a strong Web strategy.

Moderator: Kristen King, M.P.S., is a communications consultant who has been writing and editing for business and publication for more than five years. She launched her first business, Kristen King Freelancing, in 2004 and re-launched it in June of this year as Inkthinker Communications, LLC, which provides a full range of writing, editing, and consulting services. Her website www.kristenkingfreelancing.com was a finalist in the 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest. King currently writes four blogs, two of her own (www.inkthinkerblog.com, named one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers in 2006, and www.meowbarkblog.com) and two for global information network b5media (www.bizchicksrule.com and www.livelywomen.com). She was profiled in the fifth edition of Lucy V. Parker’s How to Start a Home-Based Writing Business (Globe Pequot Press, 2008), and is scheduled to appear in the revised edition of The Well-Fed Writer, by Peter Bowerman. King has spoken on marketing, networking, blogging, and online promotions to the National Writers Union, the Society for Technical Communications, 40plus, and The George Washington University, among others, and is a familiar face at AIW events. She was elected to a two-year term as an AIW Board Member for 2008-2010. King has a BA in English from Mary Washington College and an MPS in publishing from GWU. She lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, an uncoordinated 140-lb English mastiff puppy, a long-suffering 100-lb bullmastiff, an energetic pug, and three very tolerant cats.

Jo Golden, M.S., Ph.D., is a principal at Chaos To Clarity LLC, a woman-owned small business established in 2003, providing education services in the DC Metro area and web presence services to clients across the US. Jo specializes in self-education and communication in the digital world. She has worked with adults from 18–80+ as they change their relationship to education and technology. Jo cares deeply about supporting people who feel left behind by technological change and want to empower themselves by learning new ways of living and working in a digital world. She refined her approach to education, in part, while teaching at Georgetown University for several years, and believes in starting from wherever people are, customizing their approach to education, and establishing the confidence and competence they need to succeed in a digital world. Jo also supports clients by polishing their story for the web, communicating their business or professional identity in writing, and establishing a compelling web presence that allows others to connect with their work in meaningful ways. She is currently writing about self-education strategies and skills, knowledge work, identity, and conflict around learning and change in a digital world.

Tracey Holinka, M.S., began working with the Web more than ten years ago and quickly developed a passion for creating easy-to-use, functional, end-user focused technologies. Before joining Chaos To Clarity LLC full-time, she worked as a Senior Web Developer, creating innovative web development tools and cutting-edge approaches to programming, procedures, and applications. Tracey is the Technology Specialist and Managing Partner who supports clients by developing and implementing their web presence, educating for business success, and supporting technological competence and confidence. She believes that technology ought to be clarified by professionals, not cloaked in mystique to exclude everyone else.

WRITING CORPORATE, ASSOCIATION, AND ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORIES
Companies are always looking for effective ways to portray a positive image of themselves. An effective and unusual means of doing that is through a corporate history. These can be used as promotional tools, as inexpensive “rewards” for employees, even as a “gut check” on where an enterprise has been and where it should be headed. At the same time, corporate histories provide opportunities for writers with experience in history, business, book design, and the industry in question.

Moderator: Ed Moser has recently completed a corporate history of Abbott, the Fortune 100 medical products company. He is the author of seven published books in the fields of history, information technology, politics, and science.  His varied background includes stints as a speechwriter for the President of the United States, and as a writer for Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show.” He has a B.A. in history from the University of Albany in New York, and a Masters in business, economics, and technology from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Sandy Kolman Laycox has authored digital publications for The History Factory’s clients, including the history of a diversified, global holding corporation that owns and operates businesses across a range of industries. She has been a contributing writer and lead editor for several educational publications, as well as the corporate history of a leading financial services company. She also covers an annual training conference for a leading global retailer, producing a detailed photojournal of the event. As The History Factory’s senior writer and editor, Sandy manages the company’s quarterly e-publication and heritage management blog. A former senior editor for The Corporate Executive Board and travel writer/editor, Laycox earned a BA in History and Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Writing from the University of New Orleans.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CRAFT SESSIONS
EXPLODING A SCENE: ADDING DETAIL, DEPTH, AND SURPRISE TO YOUR FICTION
What makes one scene feel alive and another fall flat?  How can your scenes work harder?  What constitutes a good scene, anyway? This discussion (with handouts and audience participation) will show you how to wring the most from your scenes through thoughtfully-chosen details, as well as weave in the nuance that will lead you—and your characters—to exciting new discoveries. It would be helpful, but not necessary, if you were to bring with you a few pages of a scene you’ve written.

Mark Farrington is a coordinator and the faculty fiction advisor for the M.A. in Writing Program at Johns Hopkins. He has an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from George Mason University and a B.A. from Colby College. He has published short stories in The New Virginia Review, The Louisville Review, The Potomac Review, and other journals, and he has served as editor-in-chief of Phoebe: The George Mason Review. He also has published numerous articles on the teaching of writing. In 2003 and 2008 he received the Johns Hopkins Writing Program’s Outstanding Teaching Award, and in 2004 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Advanced Academic Programs at Hopkins.

Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree (Avon Books) and A Year and a Day (William Morrow). Her short fiction has appeared in many journals and magazines, including The Iowa Review, New England Review, The Sun, TriQuarterly, and Shenandoah. Visit Leslie’s blog at: http://www.workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/)

BREAK
12:45—1:00 p.m.

LUNCHEON, AWARDS, AND KEYNOTE SPEECH, Third floor, Grand Ballroom
1:00—2:15 p.m.

AIW WRITING AWARDS
Beryl Leif Benderly, Chair, AIW Writing Awards

PRESIDENT’S AND STERN AWARDS
Cecilia Sepp, President, AIW

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Keith Donohue is the author of The Stolen Child (Nan Talese/Doubleday, 2006), a novel that uses the folk legend of the fairy changelings to explore issues of identity and memory.  The Stolen Child received favorable reviews from National Public Radio, Newsweek, USA Today, the New York Times, Washington Post Book World, Detroit Free-Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and other national press, and it was a bestseller on the Amazon.com Fiction List, the New York Times Fiction Hardcover List (extended), the San Francisco Chronicle, and Book Sense.  In addition to the North American edition, the novel was published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and is scheduled to be translated in over 20 languages.  Nominated for Quill Award, Borders Original Voices, Crawford First Novel, QPB New Voices, Audie Recorded Books Award (recipient), Mythopoeic Society Award, and the International Horror Guild Award, The Stolen Child was a May 2006 Book Sense Pick, the novel was named a 2006 Best Book by the Library Journal, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Amazon.com, and Locus Magazine (UK). His second novel, Angels of Destruction was published by Shaye Areheart Books in Spring 2009, and has received favorable notices in the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others.  It will be published by Jonathan Cape (UK) in July 2009, and is currently slated to be published by an additional eight foreign languages. Donohue has spent most of his career as a ghostwriter.  For the past 20 years, he has written speeches, articles, and books and created websites for national arts and cultural organizations. Currently, Donohue is the Director of Communications for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the grant-making arm of the National Archives in Washington, DC.  Prior to joining the staff in February, 2004, he was most recently Creative Director at the Center for Arts and Culture. He also worked for three years as Senior Policy Advisor for the Office of Management and Worklife at the U.S. General Services Administration, where he wrote about federal child care policy, held training programs for the agency’s senior executives, and wrote speeches, articles, and Congressional testimony. From 1984 to 1998, he worked at the National Endowment for the Arts.  He wrote hundreds of speeches for chairmen John Frohnmayer and Jane Alexander, and directed the first international online conference on the arts and culture at Art-21 in 1994.  Donohue also created Open Studio, a national project in the early 1990s to provide artists and arts organizations with the skills needed to go online. As Director of Publications, he edited and produced the agency’s website (arts.endow.gov), over one dozen books, including Writing America, an anthology of literary works from creative writing fellowship recipients.  Two of his speeches were included in Representative American Speeches (LSU Press), and his ghostwritten articles appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers. Donohue holds a Ph.D. in English from The Catholic University of America.  His dissertation on Irish writer Flann O’Brien was published as The Irish Anatomist: A Study of Flann O’Brien (Maunsel Press, 2003).  He wrote the introduction to the Everyman’s Library edition of the Novels of Flann O’Brien (Knopf, 2008). At Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, he earned an M.A. in English, studying under Samuel Hazo, poet laureate of Pennsylvania and director of the International Poetry Forum.  Donohue also taught freshmen composition and literature courses. He also spent his undergraduate years at Duquesne, paying for college through two creative writing scholarships and as an English Department intern, and writing numerous short stories, poems, and plays performed by the university’s Red Masquer theatrical group and by Carnegie-Mellon University’s musical theater company.  He spent summers working on construction of townhouses, in the box office at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, and for a year, ran a tobacconist’s shop in a Pittsburgh hotel. Donohue’s short stories have appeared in Cricket, Elysian Fields Quarterly, and Friction magazines, and he has reviewed fiction for the Washington Post Book World.  He has given the Schleg Memorial Lecture at Albion College, the First Year Lecture at McDaniel College, and lectured at the University of Central Florida, the U.S. Naval Academy, and American University.  He lives with his family in Wheaton, Maryland.

BREAK
2:15—2:30 p.m.

AFTERNOON AGENTS PITCH SESSIONS
2:30—5:00 p.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
2:30—3:45 p.m.

WRITING FOR ON-LINE AUDIENCES
Good writing is good writing in print or online, but there are distinct differences between writing for hardcopy or electronic readers. This session provides an overview of different types of Web audiences at the techniques and tools you need to know to reach them effectively. Writing for the web is vastly different from writing for print. Readers have different expectations, different reading patterns, and a veritable flood of content to pick and choose how they will spend their online time.  Learn how to make your writing stand out from the crowd and land your dream e-signment.

Moderator: Kristen King

Beth Jackson Bates is the owner of Web Strategies Internet Solutions, LLC and a jack of all trades in the web world. She consults with small to mid-size businesses and nonprofits on social media marketing and helps her clients find effective ways to leverage these mediums to meet business and marketing goals. With over 14 years experience in web development, project management and marketing, Beth enjoys putting a new twist on traditional web technology and methods. She specializes in social media marketing and how strategy and tactics help businesses expand their reach through their web presence.

Jill Kurtz is Director of Client Services for Balance Interactive, an interactive web strategy firm located in Springfield VA. Her clients include large and small businesses, nonprofits and associations. She has more than 20 years of experiences working in strategic communication and public relations. She has worked for General Motors, International Paper, Fairfax County Public Schools and Arlington Public Schools. For several years she also worked as a freelance writer. In 2006, she earned the Accredited in Public Relations (APR) professional credential.

Mayra Ruiz-McPherson is a social media strategist working with organizations to encourage their emergent behavior and help them to establish their social identity.  With more than 14 years of diverse marketing, communications, brand management, and creative direction experience, she brings a seasoned eye, original perspective, and a unique approach to any marketing challenge.

OTHER PLACES, OTHER TIMES: THE SPECIAL CHALLENGES OF WRITING (and PUBLISHING) HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL FICTION

“A novel worth reading,” said Susan Sontag, “is an education of the heart.” This is no easy task and especially challenging for novelists whose works are set in periods and places unfamiliar to their readers. How to make the characters and scenes vivid and compelling? How much research is needed, and when should the writer say, “pencils down” and rely on imagination? When is detail necessary, and when does it become clutter? And then the book comes to market. At what point does it deserve, or become ill-served by the label “historical fiction,” or, say, “romance,” or “fantasy” or “mystery”? Panelists discuss some of the tricks, traps, delights and opportunities in writing novels set in other places and other times.

Moderator: C.M. Mayo is the author of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire (Unbridled Books, 2009), an historical novel based on the true story; Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico (Milkweed Editions, 2007) and Sky Over El Nido (University of Georgia Press, 1995), which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Mayo’s other awards include three Lowell Thomas Awards, and three Washington Writing Prizes; fellowships to the Bread Loaf, Sewanee and Wesleyan Writers Conferences; as well as residencies at Ragdale, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. A long-time resident of Mexico City and an avid translator of Mexican poetry and fiction, she is founding editor of Tameme, a bilingual chapbook series, and also the editor of an anthology of Mexican writing, Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, which Mexican poet and critic David Huerta has called “one of the outstanding contemporary works on this country.” She divides her time between Mexico City and Washington DC where she is on the faculty of the nearby (Bethesda Maryland) Writers Center. Her website is www.cmmayo.com

Olga Grushin was born in Moscow, grew up in Prague, moved to the United States at the age of 18, and became the first Russian citizen to graduate from an American college. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, The Guardian, Partisan Review, Vogue, and elsewhere. Her first novel, The Dream Life of Sukhanov, won the 2007 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award and Orange Prize for New Writers; it has also been translated into fourteen languages and named a NewYork Times NotableBook of the Year. Her second novel, The Line, will be published in 2010. Grushin was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35. A citizenof both Russia and the United States, she lives near Washington, DC, with her husband and their two children.

Wayne Karlin’s new non-fiction book, Wandering Souls, about an American soldier who returned captured personal documents and befriended the family of a man he killed during the Vietnam war, will be published by Nation Books in October, 2009.  Karlin has previously published seven novels: Marble Mountain, The Wished-For Country, Prisoners, Lost Armies, The Extras, Us, and Crossover and two works of creative non-fiction: Rumors and Stones: A Journey, and War Movies.  As American editor for Curbstone Press’ Voices from Vietnam series, he has edited and adapted translations of writers from Vietnam, including (with Le Minh Khue and Truong Vu), The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, which received a  Critics’ Choice Award for 1995-1996, and (with Ho Anh Thai) Love After War: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam, an anthology chosen by The San Francisco Chronicle as one of the 100 best books of 2003. He was the consulting producer and writer for a six part National Public Radio series on the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Karlin has received five State of Maryland Individual Artist Awards in Fic­tion, two Fellowships from the National En­dowment for the Arts, the Paterson Prize in Fiction for 1999, and the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in Arts Award for 2005. He is a professor of languages and literature at the College of Southern Maryland.

Frederick Reuss is the author of four novels, Horace Afoot (MacMurray & Beck), a New York Times Notable Book; Henry of Atlantic City (MacMurray & Beck), awarded the Notable 2000 prize by the American Library Association, The Wasties (Pantheon), which Esquire Magazine listed in their Ten Best Books You Didn’t Buy in 2002. Of the critically acclaimed, Mohr: A Novel (Unbridled), Booker Prize winner, John Berger wrote: “His aerialist’s sense of history, his sleight of hand, his animal knowledge of political practice, his silver tact and his cool tenderness make his performance nothing less than Orphic.” Richard Eder of the New York Times wrote: “Painful and beautiful….Reuss…writes with Jamesian complexity about states of mind and character…with brilliant understanding and a painter’s rich detail.”

BUILDING YOUR BULLY PULPIT: A PLATFORM FROM WHICH TO PEDDLE YOUR WARES
After you complete your book and find an agent willing to represent it, an unexpected wrinkle in the process presents itself.  The publisher to whom your agent has presented your hard work wants to know about your platform before he or she will agree to offer you a contract.   Basically, the publisher wants to know what else you’ve done in your life that will make folks want to read your baby.

Moderator: Alan C. Portner spent 35 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, editor and publisher throughout the country including Hawaii, California, Iowa and the metro DC area.  He has spent the past five years as a freelance writer and author, as well as the president and founder of The Assignment Desk.

Ed Barks is the author of The Truth About Public Speaking: The Three Keys to Great Presentations, and the “Speaking Sense” columnist for the Washington Business Journal.  Barks has conducted trainings for more than 3,100 business leaders, association executives, physicians, government officials, non-profit leaders, athletes, entertainers, and public relations staff. He earned his expertise in the sometimes bruising public relations arena of Washington, D.C. He has spent 20 years in the nation’s capital directing efforts in such critical areas as media training, media relations, public speaking, and Congressional testimony.  In addition, he logged over a decade as a radio broadcaster, news director, talk show host, and reporter.  He has served as President of Barks Communications since its founding in 1997.

John Gilstrap is a veteran of the platform wars, author of seven thriller novels.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CRAFT SESSION
THE PERILS AND PLEASURES OF WRITING FICTION AND NONFICTION
What techniques can nonfiction writers learn from fiction writers, and visa versa?  What are the dangers of cross-pollination?  How can writers ensure that readers discern between fact, fiction, and the varieties of truth in between?  Join three writers who practice both forms for a conversation about the rewards and pitfalls of working in fiction and nonfiction.

Bill Loizeaux is Writer in Residence in the Johns Hopkins Writing Program.  His stories and essays have appeared in journals such as TriQuarterly, The American Scholar, and The Christian Science Monitor.He is the author of two memoirs: The Shooting of Rabbit Wells and Anna: A Daughter’s Life, a New York Times Notable Book.  His children’s novel Wings received a 2006 ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Award and was the 2006 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction.   Another children’s novel, Clarence Cochran, A Human Boy has just been released by FSG.  Currently, he is at work on an adult novel.

Tim Wendel is the author of seven books, including the novels Castro’s Curveball and Red Rain. His stories have appeared in Gargoyle and The Potomac Review, and his articles in Esquire, The New York Times, GQ and USA Today, where he is on the op-ed page’s board of contributors. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he teaches nonfiction and fiction writing there. Visit the author at www.timwendel.com.

Wendi Kaufman’s fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Fiction, New York Stories and Other Voices. Her stories have been widely anthologized including Elements of Literature, Faultlines: Stories of Divorce, and most recently Enhanced Gravity: more writing by Washington area women. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and Washingtonian Magazine. Wendi was a recipient of the Mary Roberts Rhinehart award for short fiction, a Breadloaf Writer’s Conference Scholar in Fiction, and has been a designated Scholar for Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature, a reading and discussion series with Nextbook (www.nextbook.org) and the American Library Association. Visit her blog at: www.thehappybooker.net.

BREAK
3:45—4:00 p.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS
4:00-5:15 p.m.

RUNNING YOUR WRITING BUSINESS IN A TOUGH ECONOMY
As the recession has deepened and the administration has changed, freelance writing has become ever more challenging as a profession.  This panel raises previous discussions of business operations and marketing to a whole new level as it looks at economic background, rate-setting ideas, legal details, and business operations.

Moderator: Alan C. Portner

Robert Stowe England is an author and financial journalist who has specialized in writing about financial institutions, financial markets, retirement income issues, and aging. He writes regularly for Mortgage Banking and Banking Strategies and occasionally for Institutional Investor. From 1999 to 2003 he has served as director of research for the Global Aging Initiative (GAI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. CSIS published three books authored by Mr. England on the impact of global aging on government spending on the elderly, the global economy, and financial markets. He has also authored a book on the impact of aging on China. England was the Washington correspondent for Plan Sponsor Magazine from 1993 to 2003. Other subject areas of concentration as a journalist include business strategy, banking, corporate finance, and the economy, as well as foreign affairs. Mr. England is a graduate of Duke University. He can be reached at rengland@us.net. He has a web site at http://robertstoweengland.com and a blog at http://www.mindovermarket.blogspot.com.

John Mason is a Washington DC/Maryland based art, entertainment, and intellectual property attorney. His practice focuses on copyright and trademark matters, litigation, contracts, and commercial matters. He works with writers, artists, and creative people and companies to protect and exploit their work and is also a literary agent. The website for his new firm, The Intellectual Property Group, PLLC, is www.artlaws.com and his e-mail is artlaws2@aol.com.

Ken Norkin is an ADDY and ASPC Colonial Award-winning copywriter and full-time freelancer specializing in business-to-business marketing communications for technology-based products and services. Since establishing his own business—KN Creative—in 1991, he has written ads, brochures, annual reports and Web content for Sprint, Nextel, Time-Warner Cable, IBM, Citrix, Carl Zeiss, Road Runner, MCI, Savin, Sharp and the American Gas Association. Beyond the tech market, Norkin has written for T. Rowe Price, Arlington and Prince William Counties, The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Holy Cross Hospital, the Vince Lombardi Cancer Research Center, The Washington Post, PBS, the Discovery Channel and many other companies. His ability to share what he’s learned in 30 years of writing for a living makes Norkin a frequent and sought-after speaker on the business of freelancing and creative self-employment.

GENRE FICTION
Literary fiction has often been thought to be written for small presses and academic readers, while genre fiction was “pulp” fiction intended to entertain the masses. But recently there are signs of a genre/literary melding. Books like Girl with a Pearl Earring, Water for Elephants, and March are written in a literary style, yet they’ve attracted a wide audience of “crossover” readers, and been particularly popular with reading groups. More often, literary writers seem to be “borrowing” popular fiction techniques such as use of quicker pacing, increased dialogue, active scenes, perhaps even a mystery or a romance. And genre writers are looking to the literary world for inspiration and a means of gauging the quality of their writing, which in some cases verges on high art. As publishers gear up following the recent economic fiasco, fiction writers will want to pay attention to the way the market follows readers’ current tastes. There’s probably room for both the genre writer and the literary writer, as well as any combination of the two, to sell well and share space on best-seller lists.

Moderator: Clyde Linsley, former president of WIW and a member of the AIW Board, is a freelance journalist and writer, whose four mystery novels were published by Avalon and Berkley Prime Crime.  A 1964 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, he has worked in all media.  He became a full-time freelancer in 1986.

John Betancourt is a best-selling science fiction author who has worked on such series as Star Trek, Batman, Superman, and many others. Recently, he won the Black Orchid Novella Award for his story “Horse Pit” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He owns Wildside Press, an independent publishing company located in Rockville, Maryland.

Ellen Byerrum is the author of the Crime of Fashion mystery series featuring Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington, D.C., “the city that fashion forgot.” Drawing inspiration for her books from her days as news reporter in a crazy Western town as well as in the nation’s capitol, Byerrum has used everything from crawling through a massage parlor window to covering Congress. She also holds a private investigator’s registration in the state of Virginia, and she is a playwright (under her pen name Eliot Byerrum). Byerrum’s fictitious heroine’s qualifications include a nose for nuance, a knack for unraveling mysteries, and a wardrobe full of fabulous Forties suits and killer heels. The Crime of Fashion series debuted in August 2003 with Killer Hair, followed by Designer Knockoff, Hostile Makeover, Raiders of the Lost Corset, Grave Apparel, and Armed and Glamorous in July 2008. Now, fans of the series will be able to see Lacey’s great vintage fashions in two television movies—Killer Hair and Hostile Makeover—premiering on the Lifetime Movie Network in June 2009.

Kathryn Johnson has authored more than 40 published novels, is an Agatha Award finalist and honoree of the American Library Association. She serves on the Board for the Mystery Writers of America/Mid-Atlantic Region. Founder in 2006 of Write by You (www.writebyyou.com), an author’s mentoring service, she also teaches at the renowned Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland and speaks at regional and national writers’ conferences. Her professional memberships include the Author’s Guild, Ninc, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America. Having lived in Italy and traveled throughout Europe, and most recently to Egypt, she enjoys weaving rich historical details and settings into her novels. Kathryn and her husband Roger enjoy cultural events in the Washington metro-area and spend most of their summers sailing the Chesapeake Bay.

TECHNOLOGY AND WRITING: THE LATEST IDEAS FOR PUTTING PRINT ON SOMETHING WE CAN READ

BACK TO BASICS: PROFESSIONAL SKILLS THAT MAKE WRITER’S BLOCK GO AWAY
For many professional writers facing a drop deadline, the overwhelming temptation is to throw some words and phrases at the project. At such times it’s difficult to remember that the fear of deadline can obscure the benefits of writing it right the first time. No patented formulas exist that guarantee you will whip out the copy in a printable form on demand, but Robert Knight offers some pointers that can help you work your way through the dilemma.

Join Knight, a longtime journalist and professor who writes about writing, as he shares his experience and helps hone your communication skills, talents and abilities.  Enjoy this fascinating review of effective English and explore how these pillars of good writing can help you take your copy from the mundane to the magical:

• A strong and enticing introduction that involves the reader and helps you organize the remainder of your project.
• The essentials of word economy.
• The importance of word precision.
• The energy of action verbs.
• The effective use of active voice.
• An emphasis on strong nouns and verbs and a reduction of adjective and adverbs.
• Avoiding clichés.
• An appreciation of the Anglo-Saxon core of the English language.

This session includes discussion and exercises that emphasize the beauty and history of English. For seasoned professionals, it provides a welcome back to basics. For aspiring writers, it provides a structure that allows them to meet project requirements as it frees up the creativity that lends itself to excellence. For both, it provides a refreshing antidote for the disease known as writer’s block.

Knight’s career has taken him from United Press International to newspapers and broadcast, to freelancing for more than 40 publications and news services. He has been a frequent contributor to The Chicago Tribune and its Sunday magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters and The Washington Post.

He taught journalism in the Evening Division of Northwestern University and journalism and English composition at Gettysburg College. In addition, Knight was an editor at the late, greatly lamented City News Bureau of Chicago. He is author of The Journalistic Writer: Building the Skill, Honing the Craft, to be published next spring by the Marion Street Press.

BREAK
5:15—5:30 p.m.

RECEPTION, Morton Langstaff, piano and Chris Carrino, guitar;
Cash bar and complementary appetizers, Grand Ballroom
5:30—7:30 p.m.

PRICES AND REGISTRATION FORM

Member cost is $235 (By May 11), $275 (After May 11), $295 (at the door).
Nonmember cost is $340 (By May 11), $380 (After May 11), $400 (at the door).
Conference with New Membership is $375 (By May 11), $415 (After May 11), $435 (at the door).
Senior/Student and Membership $335 (By May 11), $375 (After May 11), $395 (at the door).
Other prices may apply.

Click here to register for the conference online.

Click here to print out the conference form to mail.

For more information about the conference, email us at info@awriters.org or call 202-775-5150.

Click here for directions and more information on the Cafritz Conference Center.

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