Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers' Guild

218ANNUAL CONFERENCE & BUSINESS MEETING

SATURDAY, MAY 19 – HILTON GARDEN INN3300 VANDIVER DR, COLUMBIA, MO

www.missouriwritersguild.org

Conference Faculty

Keynote Speaker

Marideth Sisco is a veteran journalist, teacher, author, musician, student of folklore, and creator of These Ozark Hills, an ongoing series of audio essays that air monthly on regional public radio in the Ozarks. The series can be heard live on KSMU-FM, Springfield, MO., or in its entirety at ksmu.org. Recently, when the film Winter’s Bone won best picture and best screenplay at the Sundance Film Festival, suddenly this little low-budget tale shot in the Ozarks and featuring music by Sisco began getting some impressive international buzz. And much to her surprise, so did she.

Agents

Amy Brewer has been an avid reader and lover of literature her whole life. She is a graduate of Culver-Stockton College with a theater degree because drama, romance, and angst are her lifelong passions. She is the co-writer of the Texting Prince Charming series and continues to be enthralled with the art of writing. During her internship at Metamorphosis, she has learned to utilize her skills as a certified yoga teacher to calm writers nerves and help guide them to the rightpublishers so that they may realize their dreams. She’s seeking: Anything in the romance genre but loves an engaging fantasy.

Patty Carothers has been in love with stories for as long as she can remember. She is a certified copy editor and an Oxford comma fangirl. Her adoration of all things comic book related and YA has morphed into her co-writing the Texting Prince Charming series. Engaging and realistic characters that bounce off the pages through witty and thought-provoking dialogue are a thrill for her to read. Although, most days the real question lies with a simple: Is she team Marvel or team D.C.? During her internship at Metamorphosis, she has utilized her passion for being a wordsmith and grammar guru to help writers develop their writing skills and harness their distinctive inner voices. She is seeking: Anything YA, with an innate fondness for contemporarystories whose characters she’d want to claim as her BFF’s.

Natalie Graziano, Associate Literary Agent for Martin Literary Management, would love it if you sent her contemporary fantasy (in the vein of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians). She’s drawn todark comedy that still carries a beating heart—because at the end of the day, she turns to books to find humanity. She is highly interested in reimagined myths and fairytales from different cultures, historical fiction, and a good quest narrative in any genre. More than anything, she looks for complex characters who make the unrelatable relatable, and for a smart, distinctive narrativevoice. At this time, she’s not seeking military thrillers, sports stories, or romance novels.

(Natalie will be available for pitches via Skype.)

Jennifer Haskin is an agent apprentice, author, and portrait artist who lives in Olathe, Kansas. She began working for Corvisiero Literary Agency in October of 2017, following a year at Metamorphosis Literary Agency. She assists in a Creative Writing workshop and runs weekly author writing groups. She is a member of Savvy Authors, RWA, Missouri, Kansas City, and Nebraska Writing Guilds. She has a B.S. from Friends University, but took her English coursework through the University of Missouri. Her debut novel, The Key of F, was named a winner in the Ink & Insights literary contest in 2016, and is scheduled for release May 8th 2018.

Authors / Editors

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® finalist; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer; a disabled US Navy veteran who now writes full-time; and a coffee addict. One of these is false. A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA, and is the current Publicity Director of the Missouri Writers Guild (MWG). He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day.

JeriAnn M. Geller is a writer, editor, and artist who has produced copy in almost every medium including newspapers, magazines, books, websites, video, scripts, blogs, and newsletters. A third-generation journalist, she balances technological advances with a traditional foundation based on elements of story and grammar. She has worked for major publications including Gannett-Westchester Newspapers, the Journal-Register newspaper family, theConnecticut Post, and the national magazine Fine Gardening. She was the co-founder and publisher of Oh, Baby!, a newspaper for new and expectant parents, and was an editor for the American Museum of Natural History as well as a columnist for Weekly Reader. In addition, as a co-founder of Pop Hero Media, she teaches classes in memoir writing and facilitates writing workshops and seminars for writers of all levels of ability.

Michael Ruscoe is a writer, editor, publisher, and teacher who lives in the hills of central Connecticut. He is the author of the novel From the Stray Cat Files: You’ll Do Anything, theforthcoming young reader’s novella The Christmas Spies, and numerous educational texts. Ruscoe has taught composition and creative writing at Brooklyn College of the City University ofNew York, Quinnipiac University, and Southern Connecticut State University, where he’s been afaculty member since 1989. An avid baseball fan, Ruscoe is a passionate supporter of the New York Mets and the Hartford Yard Goats, and is the author of Baseball: A Treasury of Art and Literature, which is part of the permanent collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York. As co-founder of Pop Hero Media, Ruscoe teaches memoir writing classes and contributes to the website Pop Hero Weekly. Ruscoe is the father of two children and the adoptive parent of a goldfish named Flipper.

Liz Schulte didn’t always want to be an author. She wanted to be a veterinarian, then shewanted to be a lawyer, then she wanted to be a criminal profiler. In a valiant effort to keep from becoming Walter Mitty, Liz put pen to paper and began writing her first novel. It was at that moment she realized this is what she was meant to do. As a scribe she could be all of those things and so much more. When Liz isn’t writing or on social networks, she is inflicting moviequotes and trivia on people, reading, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family. Her favorite authors range from Edgar Allen Poe to Joseph Heller to Jane Austen to Jim Butcher and everything in between. She is currently the Treasurer for the Missouri Writers Guild.

Wayne Ude‘s fourth book, Bird: Book I, Flight was published this winter. Books II and III will appear later this year. In addition to Bird, he’s the author of Becoming Coyote; Buffalo & Other Stories; and Maybe I will Do Something: Seven Tales of Coyote. Winner of a Story Tellers Choiceaward. He’s been teaching workshops and craft since 1976.

Wayne grew up in northcentral Montana and attended U of Montana, graduating in 1969 where the MFA in creative writing was getting started. Over the years, Wayne has held full and part-time faculty positions at various colleges and universities. In 1996 he began teaching online forWriters’ Digest’s new online courses. In 2002-3 he designed low-residency MFA program for Whidbey Island Writers Association, later Northwest Institute of Literary Art. Wayne held position as Program Director and Chief Academic Officer from 2004 – 2016 until the institute announced its closure.

Registration from March 21 – April 30
MWG Member $125 / Chapter Member $125 / Non-Member $150 / Volunteer $75

Late Registration after April 30
MWG Member $175 / Chapter Member $175 / Non-Member $200

Optional Fees: Guest MealsLuncheon $20 each / Banquet $30 each