KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: |
|
 |
Daniel Handler
|
 |
Christopher Moore
Christopher Moore is the author of nine novels, including the international bestseller, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, and the ever-popular Practical Demonkeeping. His latest, A Dirty Job, has been met with rave reviews. You Suck: a Love Story will be in stores January 2007. Walking a tightrope between horror and humor, reading Moore will terrify and delight, sometimes simultaneously. |
|
Steve
Hockensmith
Journalist, columnist, short story writer, and novelist, Steve Hockensmith sent the mystery genre on its ear with Holmes on the Range. It seems the spirit of Holmes in 1892 inhabits the brain of an illiterate cow poke and solves a murder. Irreverent and hilarious, Holmes on the Range has been nominated for an Edgar! Take that, Watson! His new book On the Wrong Track promises to be another rousing success. End the day with this brilliant new voice in American mystery. |
| AGENTS and PUBLISHERS: | |
 |
Laurie
McLean Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency Following a 20-year stint as the CEO of a successful Silicon Valley public relations agency, Laurie was able to switch gears in 2002 to immerse herself in writing. She has penned three novels to date, and if that wasn’t enough, she decided that the life of a literary agent would be the perfect complement to her duties as an author of genre fiction. Laurie McLean handles romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense and western novels, as well as young adult and middle grade fiction and non-fiction. |
 |
Caryn
Wiseman Andrea Brown Literary Agency Caryn has been an agent with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. since early 2003. She handles children's books only: young adult and middle-grade fiction and non-fiction, chapter books, and picture books. Caryn holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, and a BS from the University of Virginia. Caryn's fifteen years of business experience prior to joining the Agency emphasized editing and writing as well as sales, negotiation and client management. |
 |
Elizabeth
Evans Reece Halsey North Elizabeth Evans is a literary agent and an associate of Kimberley Cameron at the Reece Halsey North Literary Agency, where she has worked since 2004. Her interests are in literary fiction, commercial fiction, mystery and science fiction. She is especially interested in stories with a strong sense of place. In nonfiction she is looking for biography, history, health , current events and pop culture. |
 |
Ted
Weinstein Ted Weinstein Literary Management Literary agent Ted Weinstein has broad experience on both the business and editorial sides of publishing. Before opening the agency he held senior publishing positions in licensing, marketing, publicity and business development with several major publishing companies. Also a widely published author, Ted has been the music critic for NPR's All Things Considered and a commentator for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Guardian, SF Weekly and Might Magazine. Ted is particularly interested in narrative nonfiction, popular science, biography and history, current affairs and politics, contemporary culture, business, food and cooking, health and medicine, and quirky reference books. No screenplays or children’s. |
 |
Michael
Larsen Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency Michael Larsen, along with Elizabeth Pomada, worked for six New York publishers before moving to San Francisco. Michael worked at William Morrow, Bantam Books, and Pyramid which was absorbed into Berkley Books. Michael represents non-fiction only. |
 |
Jennifer
Jaeger Andrea Brown Literary Agency Jennifer Jaeger handles young adult and middle grade fiction, chapter books, easy readers, and picture books. She considers herself an editorial agent in that she works with her clients to develop and strengthen their manuscripts before presenting them to editors. Jennifer's recent sales include Las Mantas de Milagros by Meg Medina (Holt), and Down to Earth: Let's Get Real about Global Warming by Cami Gordon and Laurie David (Scholastic). |
|
Robert
Shepard Robert E. Shepard Agency Robert Shepard is celebrating the 13th year of his Berkeley-based agency and more than two decades as a publishing professional. Representing only non-fiction works, by authors across the country and around the world, his clients include 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid, whose Night Draws Near (Holt hardcover, Picador paperback) won this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Other recent titles include Word Freak, Wall Street Journal reporter Stefan Fatsis’s bestselling narrative about obsessed Scrabble players (Houghton Mifflin hardcover, Penguin paperback); Champagne, by Don and Petie Kladstrup (William Morrow), whose previous work, Wine & War, has now been published in 10 countries; and Leave the Office Earlier, by Laura Stack (Broadway Books). |
 |
Charlotte
Cook President, KOMENAR Publishing Thanks to KOMENAR Publishing for sponsoring our Novel Writing Contest. Charlotte Cook, president of KOMENAR Publishing, is the daughter of one independent bookseller and serves as consultant to another, her husband, owner of Sunrise Bookshop in Berkeley. Charlotte is a writer, editor, teacher, as well as a publisher. KOMENAR's titles include Over the Edge by Marc Paul Kaplan and My Half of the Sky by Jana McBurney-Lin (CWC member). |
 |
Paul
Levine Paul S. Levine Literary Agency Paul Levine began his entertainment law career straight out of law school, as an associate with the Law Offices of Stephen F. Rohde, where he specialized in entertainment law and litigation for almost seven years. In 1996, he opened the Paul S. Levine Literary Agency, specializing in the representation of book authors and the sale of motion picture and television rights in and to books. Since starting his literary agency, he has sold over 100 fiction and non-fiction books to over 30 different publishers and has had several books developed as movies-for-television. Paul Levine represents adult, children, and young adult fiction and non-fiction as well as entertainment clients, movies for television and feature films. |
 |
Gloria
Stern Gloria Stern Literary Agency Gloria Stern is an agent, consultant, teacher, and an author. She has written two books for writers, Do the Write Thing: Making the Transition to Professional and Reel Romance: Writing About Love, Sex, and Romance for the Movies. Gloria Stern is the founder of the Gloria Stern Literary Agency. She has had a career in the entertainment industry as a film editor and teaches writing at Los Angeles Valley College. She represents fiction and films, electronics and multimedia. |
 |
Philippa
Burgess Creative Convergence Philippa Burgess, Senior Managing Partner of Creative Convergence, a Los Angeles-based entertainment management, production and business consulting firm. A graduate of USC, Phillippa is an active speaker, teacher, and writer on the subject of marketing for screenwriters. Represents screenwriters. |
 |
Sharlene Martin, Martin Literary Management
Sharlene Martin opened Martin Literary Management in 2003 and has already tallied over 50 non-fiction book sales to major publishers. Sharlene Martin represents non-fiction only: Reference, Biography, Computers/technology, Business/investing/finance, History, Mind/body/spirit, Health, Travel, Lifestyle, Science, Celebrity memoirs. She would like those interested in meeting with her to write up a description of the project with sample pages or other pertinent information and submit it through the Jack London Writers Conference organizing committee. We will forward these proposals to her and she will let us know several weeks in advance with whom she would like to meet. |
 |
Alan Rinzler,
Jossey-Bass
Alan Rinzler is a veteran book editor who recently celebrated his 44th anniversary in the business. |
 |
Tom Britt, AuthorHouse Tom Britt has a unique blend of over 15 years in the publishing industry and 10 years of Internet marketing experience. Britt now heads up Author Development for AuthorHouse, charged with reaching out to new authors, literary agents, past AuthorHouse authors, and other influential members of the literary industry to evangelize the benefits of publishing with the world’s most experienced publisher. Marketing via the Internet and discussing the affects of the Internet on the publishing industry are his areas of expertise.
|
|
Jason Adams, Lulu Jason Adams wears many hats at Lulu.com and is currently working in Marketing, PR, and Community. He has been the administrator of the Lulu Blooker Prize—the first ever literary award for books based on blogs—since its inception in October 2005. Jason is also the producer and host of Lulu Radio, the official podcast of Lulu.com, which features weekly interviews with Lulu authors and covers a wide range of topics related to writing and self-publishing. |
|
Jay Schaefer, Chronicle Books Jay Schaefer is the editorial director for literature at Chronicle Books in San Francisco, where he has worked for 19 years. He edits fiction by both new and established writers, including Robert Olen Butler, Craig Ferguson, John Nichols, and Senator Barbara Boxer. He also has acquired memoirs, including Under the Tuscan Sun, and humor/pop culture books, including The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series.
|
 |
Linda
Wisdom, editor and author
Linda Wisdom, a multi-published author in a variety of genres over the past 28 years, has been an editor at Triskelion Pubilshing for the past two years. Triskelion publishes ebooks and traditional print books. Linda is currently looking for quality romance in the following sub-genres: chick-lit, paranormal/fantasy, inspirational, historical and science fiction. She is also looking for science fiction, young adult fiction and horror. Multicultural stories are a plus.
|
| AUTHORS: | |
 |
James Dalessandro
Since its publication in April, 2004, James Dalessandro’s 1906, an epic novel of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, has fulfilled the prediction of the Chronicle’s Heidi Benson and become “a publishing sensation,” appearing regularly on Northern California Best Seller Lists for nine months. Mr. Dalessandro has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, The Ronn Owens radio show on KGO radio, and twelve regional television stations. Warner Brother’s Films is scheduled to begin production
this spring on a $150 million film version of 1906, from a script also written by James
Dalessandro. |
 |
Ellen Sussman At the 2004 Jack London Writers’ Conference, people packed into Ellen Sussman’s lecture room so tightly that we vowed to have her back and to give her a larger space! Sussman has taught at Rutgers University, UCLA, Johns Hopkins and currently gives private classes on the craft of fiction. Her novel On a Night Like This, soon to be a Lifetime Film, became a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller and has been translated into six languages. A master craftsman of storytelling technique, Ellen is an editor of the forthcoming anthology, Bad Girls: 25 Writer’s Misbehave. |
 |
Candice Hern
Candice Hern is the award-winning author of 13 historical romance novels set during the English Regency, a period she knows well through years of collecting antiques and fashion prints of the era. She travels to England regularly, always in search of more historical and local color to help bring her books to life, and prides herself on the detailed research that goes into each novel. Her books have won praise for their "intelligence and elegant romantic sensibility" (Romantic Times) as well as "delicious wit and luscious sensuality" (Booklist). Her latest books, In the Thrill of the Night and Just One of Those Flings, have won much acclaim. |
 |
Lolly Winston Born and raised in the glamorous insurance capital of Hartford, Conn., Lolly Winston holds an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied with Alan Gurganus, and wrote a collection of short stories as her thesis. A stint at freelance writing landed articles in Redbook, Family Circle, Working Mother, New Woman, Sunset, Lifetime and others. She teaches classes in fiction writing and feature writing. Her short stories have been published in The Sun, The Southeast Review, The Third Berkshire Anthology. Her two best-selling novels, Happiness Sold Separately and Good Grief have been met with critical acclaim. |
 |
Martha
Alderson
Martha Alderson, M.A. is an international plot and story consultant for writers. Her clients include best-selling authors, writing teachers and fiction editors. As the author of Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple, she created a unique line of plot tools for writers. She teaches plot workshops privately, through University of Santa Cruz and Learning Annex. |
 |
Anthony Flacco
Actor Anthony Flacco ended up on the other side of the camera and sometimes on the other side of the world. His career in screenwriting has brought him in contact with Touchstone Pictures, NBC Studios and the Discovery Channel. A Checklist for Murder was acquired by Dell Books as a mass market paperback, but his non-fiction book Tiny Dancer, the true story of an Afghani burn victim, has won him praise and acclaim. In June of 2007, a division of Random House will be publishing The Last Nightingale, a story about the San Francisco earthquake. Currently he is marketing an historical novel, Tesla’s Best Secret, based on the life of the famed Serbian inventor of alternating current as well as its screenplay adaptation. Flacco frequently works as a freelance editor for books that have sold to Hay House, Vanderwyck and Burnham, ThurndersMouth, and Rodale Press. |
 |
Barbara Freethy
Barbara Freethy is the author of 22 contemporary romance novels. Her books have landed on the USA Today, Waldenbooks, Barnes and Noble and Bookscan bestseller lists. She has also received numerous writing awards and is a four-time finalist and winner of the RITA for "Best Single Title Contemporary Romance" by Romance Writers of America.
|
|
|
Gennifer
Choldenko
Widely acclaimed for her superb humor and appeal to children of all ages, Gennifer Choldenko’s book, Al Capone Does My Shirts (age 10 and up), has been on the New York Times, Booksense, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists. Notes from a Liar and Her Dog (9 and up) was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a California Book Award winner. Her other books include Moonstruck (all ages), How to Make Friends with a Giant (ages 4-9), and a picture book, Tales of a Second Grade Giant. We are anxiously waiting for her next book, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period. |
 |
Ejner
Fulsang
A graduate of West Point , Ejner Fulsang has been an Army helicopter pilot, an infantry captain, and a software development guru who worked on autonomous battlefield robots. All this left him in a unique position to write realistic war and sci-fi stories. His first book, A Knavish Piece of Work, is based on his friendship with Richard Van de Geer, the last man to die in Viet Nam . Being an ardent leader and long-standing non-conformist, Fulsang took the road less traveled and started his own printing house, Århus Publishing where he has published both of his novels. High-energy and constantly innovative, when Fulsang is not writing, he travels and gives lectures about his latest book. |
 |
Phyllis
Mattson
Sent to America to avoid Hitler’s persecution, 10 year old Lizzy had to leave her parents, learn a new language and manage her new life alone in America . War Orphan in San Francisco is Phyllis Mattson’s story of plucky determination and emotional survival. Awarded Best Memoir by the Bay Area Independent Book Association and “Achiever in Letters” from the National Association of Pen Women, War Orphan has been highly acclaimed. Educated at both Berkeley and Harvard, Mattson has enjoyed teaching in Silicon Valley, the Peace Corps, and China. |
 |
Jane
Booth
Jane admits it, the most athletic event she used to participate in was lunch. Then came a love for running and cycling that got out of hand. So out of hand that she niggled, teased, and forced her pudgy body into becoming ready to tackle a triathlon. What’s even more amazing is that she not only wrote a book about her transformation, she lined up endorsements (Brandi Chastain and other famous athletes), arranged nearly 40 speaking engagements for herself up and down the coast, secured advance orders from skeptical booksellers and launched a website that brought in over $2,000 worth of direct orders in five weeks. All before the book’s official launch. |
 |
Albert Flynn DeSilver
Albert Flynn DeSilver is a poet, teacher, visual artist and publisher living in Woodacre California. He is the author, most recently of Letters to Early Street, Spring 2007 from La Alameda Press in New Mexico, and Walking Tooth & Cloud from French Connection Press in Paris, January 2007. He has published more than one hundred poems in literary journals worldwide including Zyzzyva, New American Writing, Jacket (Australia), Poetry Kanto (Japan), Van Gogh¹s Ear (France), Hanging Loose, Exquisite Corpse, and many others. He is also the editor and publisher of The Owl Press, publishing innovative poetry and poetic collaboration. He teaches writing workshops with adults, and as a California Poet in the Schools in San Francisco and Marin. |
 |
Arlene Okerlund
Arlene Okerlund taught English literature and writing at San José State University until she retired to complete her biography of Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen. She became interested in the life of Elizabeth Wydeville, mother of the two princes allegedly murdered by Richard III, when she discovered that traditional historical accounts slandered this Queen’s character. Her determination to expose the lies and restore Queen Elizabeth’s reputation took over the next five years of her life. Professor Okerlund is now writing a biography of Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor queen and mother of Henry VIII. When afflicted by writing block and computer crashes, she picks up her tenor banjo to play jazz and ragtime with the Peninsula Banjo Band. |
