2008 Presenters
Grand Master:Walter Mosley
Walter Mosley, one of the most revered writers in the country, has been compared to Dashiell Hammett and Chester Himes. Best known for his popular mysteries featuring private investigator Easy Rawlins, Mosley transcends the conventional bounds of fiction writing. The New York Times Book Review called him “a literary artist as well as a master of mystery.” The Boston Globe hailed him as “one of the nation’s finest writers.” His first Rawlins novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into a film starring Denzel Washington. Other books in the series include the New York Times bestsellers Bad Boy Brawly Brown, Black Betty, A Red Death, A Little Yellow Dog, Cinnamon Kiss, Little Scarlet, and most recently, Blonde Faith.
Mosley’s other works include the Fearless Jones novels Fear Itself and Fear of the Dark and the novels RL’s Dream and Fortunate Son, which Library Journal said “deserves to be on the shelves of every library.” His short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, and GQ. One of the stories in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned won an O’Henry Award, and the book became an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne. In 2007, he released This Year You Write Your Novel, a nonfiction guide for writers, and this spring, Black Classic Press will publish Tempest Tales, his homage to Langston Hughes’ classic Simple stories.
Mosley is an active voice for the African-American community in the ongoing effort for racial equality. In his essays and nonfiction, he examines ways that the African-American perspective can contribute to political, economic and social progress in America. Among his many awards, he was honored in 2004 with the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Major Speakers
Julianna Baggott (a.k.a. N.E. Bode) is the author of five novels, including national bestseller Girl Talk, The Miss America Family, The Madam, Which Brings Me to You (co-authored with Steve Almond), and forthcoming, My Husband’s Sweethearts, as well as three books of poems, including This Country of Mothers, Lizzie Borden in Love, and Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees, winner of the 2007 Leni-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series from Pleides Press. She also writes novels for younger readers under the pen name of N.E. Bode—The Anybody trilogy, The Slippery Map (prequel to the movie Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium), and forthcoming, The Prince of Fenway Park. Her work has appeared in many publications, such as the Best American Poetry series, Glamour, Ms., Poetry, and Triquarterly, and has been read on NPR’s Here and Now and Talk of the Nation. She does hour-long monthly specials for XM Kids as N.E. Bode. Richard Russo says of her, “Julianna Baggott enjoys living on the knife’s edge between hilarity and heartbreak, and that makes her a writer after my own heart.” Fred Chappell says, “Julianna Baggott has achieved a primary place among American writers. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University and lives in Florida with her husband, writer David G.W. Scott, and their three young children.
Frank Deford is the Senior Contributing Writer for Sports Illustrated, a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, and a correspondent on HBO’s RealSports with Bryant Gumbel. Deford has received the Sportswriter of the Year Award six times and been elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters. He is among the most versatile of American writers. He is the author of 15 books, two of which (the novel Everybody’s All-American, and Alex, the Life of a Child, his memoir of his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis) have been made into movies. His most recent work is the novel The Entitled. Deford has won many awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody Award. GQ magazine called him “the world’s greatest sportswriter,” and The Sporting News described him as “the most influential sports voice among members of the print media.” A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Connecticut.
Conference Presenters
Linda J Beam’s editorial experience includes work with books, medical journals, and corporate publications, as well as the development of seminars on business communications. She served as Managing Editor of Gryphon Editions and Crane Hill Publishers/Cliff Road Books, before beginning her current work as a freelance writer and editor. She is the author of more than a dozen books, including What NOT to Say!, The Geek’s Guide to Grammar, and 101 Words Every Grown-Up Should Know.
Daryl Brown’s short fiction has appeared in Yemassee and Amaryllis and was selected for inclusion in the annual anthology New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best 2000. His novel manuscript, Blue Sugar, was a finalist in the 2002 Bakeless Literary Prize competition, and Ghost Children, a work of nonfiction, was republished in the Utne Reader. Brown, formerly a faculty member at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, now teaches at the University of North Alabama.
Ruth Beaumont Cook is the author of four corporate histories and numerous articles for Birmingham magazine and other publications on business, health, and the arts. Her Civil War documentary narrative, North Across the River—A Civil War Trail of Tears, was published by Crane Hill Publishers in 1999 and in paperback in 2000. Her latest book,Guests Behind the Barbed Wire, was released by Crane Hill in 2007. She is currently at work on two more history-related projects. A graduate of The Ohio State University, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Writers’ Forum and is a past chairman of Writing Today.
Scott Fuller is a graphic artist engaged in book publication. A graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, he earned his MFA from the University of Alabama. After working more than 20 years in the Advertising Art Department at The Birmingham News, he worked for Icon Graphics, and in 1999 he began Scott Fuller Designs. He has designed books for Crane Hill Publishers/Cliff Road Books, Birmingham Historical Society, The Altamont School, United States Pipe & Foundry, Buffalo Rock Company, Birmingham Landmarks, and The City of Homewood, as well as many individuals.
Elizabeth Hughey, 2006 winner of the prestigious Iowa Poetry Prize by the University of Iowa, is a native of Birmingham who now lives and teaches in Massachusetts. Her debut poetry collection, Sunday Houses the Sunday House, was published in spring 2007 by the University of Iowa Press. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her poems have appeared in such publications as Shampoo, The Hat, and The Southern Poetry Review.
Sally Hill McMillan has been in commercial book publishing for 33 years, ten of which were spent as owner, acquisitions editor, and production manager of The East Woods Press. She started her literary agency in 1990 with adult nonfiction but in recent years has begun to take on fiction. Among her authors are bestselling novelist Lynne Hinton, suspense author Mike Stewart, literary novelists Nancy Peacock and Joe Martin, fitness expert Victoria Zak, single mother guru Andrea Engber, gardening writer Lois Trigg Chaplin, environmentalist Dr. Sally Kneidel, and psychologist Dr. Bryan Robinson. Through co-agents, she has also placed twelve translations and three film options.
Joe Musso has had plays produced or has received professional staged readings in 15 states. In 2007, his full-length play Voodoo Today Here Now 5 received a staged reading at Nicu’s Spoon Theatre Company in New York City and at the Deland Theatre Festival in Deland, Florida. His full-length play Roma received a staged reading at Theatre in the Square in Marietta, Georgia, and at the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, Maine; and his full-length play Electra Orleans received a staged reading at the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon in Portland. Also in 2007, Hazel Green Dramatis Personae, a high school drama troupe in Alabama, produced One Night in the Mind of Joe Musso, featuring six of his short plays.
Gin Phillips’ first novel is The Well and the Mine, published by Hawthorne Books. “When you close this book, you’ll miss these characters,” says Fannie Flagg. “The Well and the Mine doesn’t just give you characters who’ll stay with you—it gives you a whole world.” Ms. Phillips is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in numerous magazines. Her interviews have included James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers, Sally Ride, Hamilton Jordan, and John Cleese. She graduated in 1997 from Birmingham-Southern College.
Lee Shackleford is a writer for stage, screen, and radio with over 100 produced scripts to his credit. He is perhaps best-known for his script Holmes & Watson, which enjoyed a successful run off-Broadway with Shackleford in the role of Sherlock Holmes. His recent adaptation of the classic Czech play R.U.R. has been widely praised, and he was Head Writer and Producer for the four-season run of the award-winning radio drama series Bodylove. Currently he is Playwright-in-Residence at his alma mater, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he teaches writing for stage and screen, creates new works for the popular “Bookends” touring group, and produces UAB’s annual Festival of Ten-Minute Plays. He is an Active Member of the Dramatists Guild.
Sharrif Simmons is a performance artist, songwriter, and activist whose writing career has spanned more than a decade. He has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, CBGB’s, Joe’s Pub, and other leading Spoken Word venues, sharing the spotlight with poets and emcees such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Saul Williams, and Jessica Care Moore, whose Moore Black Press published his first book, Fast Cities and Objects That Burn. He has also performed and conducted workshops throughout Europe and at university campuses across the U.S. In 2005, he appeared on HBO’s presentation of Def Poetry Jam and released his debut Spoken Word CD, The ECHOEFFECT.
Nathan Hale Turner, Jr., an author-journalist, is a veteran copy-editor at The Birmingham News. His books include The Road South: Memoirs of Shelley Stewart, which Quincy Jones called “Incredible ... truly inspiring,” and Keep Looking Up: The History of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, 1881-2001,” with Reverend Dr. John T. Porter. A graduate of the University of Alabama School of Journalism, he resides in Birmingham with his wife, Machelle, and their two daughters.
Maria Vargas, born in Nicaragua, is a poet and translator. A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Latin American literature at the University of Alabama. She has worked as assistant poetry editor for local literary magazines Astare and Poems, Memoirs, Stories. As a translator, she has translated works of Spanish poets into English and North American poets into Spanish, notably, a selection of poems by Billy Collins. Her book Los Ojos Abiertos del Silencia (The Open Eyes of Silence) won the 2003 Rafaela Contreras Poetry Prize for Central American women writers.
Logan Ward, a freelance writer, has written for National Geographic Adventure, The New York Times, Men’s Journal, Popular Science, House Beautiful, and other publications. He also writes regularly about science and architecture and is a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics, Cottage Living, Coastal Living, New Old House, and Southern Accents. In 2000, he and his family moved from New York City to Swoope, Virginia, to recreate the life of 19th-century subsistence farmers, the subject of his memoir See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America. He lives with his wife and two children in Staunton, Virginia.
