
Kathi Kamen Goldmark (author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, Chronicle Books 2002, and founder of The Rock Bottom Remainders. |
Sam Barry, (member of Rock Bottom Remainders, and author of How To Play the Harmonica: And Other Life Lessons Gibbs Smith 2009), along with a host of your other favorite authors (listed below in alphabetical order) as they read from each other’s works and join the band, Los Train Wreck, to sing a song or two. |
Peter Beren is a literary agent who also serves as a publishing consultant to authors and publishers. Formerly the Publisher of Sierra Club Books, Vice-President, Publishing at Palace Press International and founding Publisher of VIA Books, and a Contributing Editor to the Boston Phoenix, he has more than 30 years experience in the publishing industry. He is also the author of many magazine articles, and five books, including, The Writers Legal Companion (with Brad Bunnin) |
Tony Broadbent was born in Windsor, England, and was an art student in London in the late Sixties (from “Revolver” to “Let It Be”). He then worked as copywriter and creative director at some of the best advertising agencies in London, New York, and San Francisco, before opening his own agency. He’s now living in Mill Valley and is a consulting brand strategist, planner, and ideator for clients in the U.S. and Europe. Tony is the author of The Smoke and Spectres in the Smoke, a series about Jethro, a cat burglar and jewel thief, in the austere world of 1947 post-war, black-market-riddled England. |
David Corbett’s crime drama, Blood of Paradise, was nominated for an Edgar, an Anthony, and a Shamus for Best Paperback Original, and chosen one of the Top Ten Thrillers & Mysteries of 2007 by The Washington Post. He has a number of other works, including The Devil’s Redhead, widely praised, and nominated for both the Anthony and Barry Awards for Best First Novel of 2002, and Done for a Dime, which was named a New York Times Notable Book, and was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Novel of 2003. |
Katherine Cowles, Cowles Ryan Literary Agency, is an east coast literary agent, now living in San Francisco (and loving it). She has helped numerous writers on their way to becoming successful, published authors, and remains dedicated to that cause. She has been involved in publishing her entire career. Her industry connections and relationships are wide and deep. For more than a decade she was at the center of New York publishing at Simon and Schuster and Doubleday, beginning with contracts and moving through fiction and non-fiction acquisitions, then eventually leading her to a position as Associate Publisher and Vice President at Simon and Schuster. |
Patricia Volonakis Davis’s debut work, Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece, (Harper Davis 2008), dubbed a “My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Under the Tuscan Sun” received wide acclaim as an inspiring woman’s empowerment story and placed as finalist in the ‘Multi-Cultural Non-Fiction Category’ of the National Best Book Awards 2008, sponsored by USA Book News. She is the editor-in-chief of Harlot’s Sauce Radio, a popular non-partisan e-magazine and podcast on the web. |
Verna Dreisbach, of Dreisbach Literary Management, is an award winning published author who has been featured in books, literary journals, magazines, and newspapers. Her Seal Press anthology, Why We Ride, is due for publication spring 2010. Verna is the founder and president of Capitol City Young Writers, a national non-profit organization that supports and encourages creative writing in aspiring youth. Verna represents both fiction and non-fiction authors, a variety of fiction including commercial and literary, with a particular interest in books with a political, economic or social context. With over 13 years as a police officer, Verna also has a genuine interest and expertise in the genres of mystery, thriller and true crime. |
Tanya Egan Gibson is the author of How to Buy a Love of Reading (Dutton, May 2009), a novel about nouveau riche parents who try to cure their teenage daughter’s hatred of books by commissioning a custom-written novel for her and dubbing themselves the Medicis of Long Island. Hailed as “a fresh and funny new voice in the world of fiction” by Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama and One Mississippi), Tanya is an alumna of Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a founding member of CWC Marin. |
Deborah Grabien is a cook, guitar player, cat rescuer, and all-around rocker chick. She also writes a little: the Haunted Ballad series, six stand-alone novels, and the JP Kinkaid Chronicles for St. Martins Minotaur, the first of which, Rock & Roll Never Forgets, was released to unanimously great reviews in July 2008. The second, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, hits shelves September 2009. Her fiction and commentary have appeared in anthologies and magazines. In her spare time (!), she’s consulting music editor for Green Man Review. Deborah honestly believes you’re never too old to rock and roll. |
David Harris is a journalist and author, reporting stories throughout the United States as well as in Central and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, for the last thirty-five years. Well known for his role as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War and jailed for opposing the Draft, he’s published many books, including Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever, and The Genius – How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created An NFL Dynasty. |
Ivory Madison Madison is the CEO and founder of Red Room (redroom.com), the premier social networking site for authors, readers, and the publishing industry. Madison also founded the Red Room Writers Society and was named “Best Writing Coach” by San Francisco Magazine. Trained as an attorney, she is the only person to be both editor-in chief of her school’s law review and to have written Batman. Madison’s feminist-mafia-noir-superhero graphic novel, Huntress: Year One, was published by DC Comics in February 2009. The book hit #10 on Amazon for several minutes, and was hailed as “the best graphic novel of the decade” by a random fan on twitter. |
Gil Mansergh is the FM radio host (KRCB’s Word by Word: Conversations With Writers, and KRSH’s “Cinema Toast”). He is also a film columnist, New York Times affiliated movie blogger, and prolific writer featured as a “Freelance Success” inWriter’s Digest Magazine. With psychology degrees from Stanford, CSUSF and Indiana, Gil is also a respected “book doctor” who has written or co-written over 60 books, manuals, and curriculums. |
Logan and Noah Miller are identical twin brothers, whose film, Touching Home, was made as a dedication to their homeless father who died in a jail cell. Their memoir, Either You’re In Or You’re In the Way, published in April 2009, and a national bestseller, is the heartwarming and amazing tale of how without a dime to their names, nor a single meaningful contact in Hollywood they managed to write, produce, act, and direct a feature film in under a year, starring four-time Academy Award-nominated actor, Ed Harris, and a cast and crew with 11 Academy Awards and 26 nominations. |
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the Bay Area Bestseller, Mary, a historical novel about Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary was a Finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, chosen as Best Historical Fiction of 2006 by USA Today, and a Booksense Year-End Highlight. Newman is also the author of The Russian Word for Snow, a memoir about adopting her son from a Moscow orphanage. Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives and fourTravelers’ Tales editions. She is a member of the SF Writers Grotto, where she teaches classes in creative writing. |
Brenda Novak is a New York Times bestselling author who has three novels out this summer-The Perfect Couple, The Perfect Liar, and The Perfect Murder, all part of her popular Last Stand Series. She runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com. To date, she’s raised over $770,000. Brenda considers herself lucky to be a mother of five and married to the love of her life. |
Susanne Pari is the author of The Fortune Catcher, a novel of revolutionary Iran, which has been translated into six languages. Her non-fiction pieces have appeared inThe New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio, and Voice of America. She is the Program Director for the 25 literary salons of Book Group Expo and teaches writing for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. As a literary host, Susanne has conducted interviews, panel discussions, and conversations with authors such as Amy Tan, Khaled Hosseini, Anna Quindlen, Po Bronson, and more. |
Andy Ross, Andy Ross Literary Agency, has worked in the book business for over 37 years, and was owner and general manager of Cody’s Books in Berkeley, California, widely recognized as one of America’s great independent bookstores. This experience has given him a unique understanding of the retail book market, of publishing trends and most importantly, the hand selling of books to book buyers. Andy is also the past president of the Northern California Booksellers Association, a board member and an officer of the American Booksellers Association, and a national spokesperson for issues concerning independent businesses. He has had significant profiles in the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is the author of a funny and amazingly helpful blog, “Ask the Agent” on everything to do with the world of publishing. |
Kemble Scott is a writer and editor at San Francisco’s subculture e-zine, SoMa Literary Review, and editor of the San Francisco Bay Area Literary Arts Newsletter. In the non-fiction world of television news, he has been honored with three Emmy awards, and is an alumnus of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His debut novel, SoMa, became a bestseller (San Francisco Chronicle) in the spring of 2007, and in June of 2008, SoMa was honored as a finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction. Scott published his second novel, The Sower in May 2009. The first edition premiering as a digital book, one of three new novels selected to launch a book e-commerce venture by Scribd.com. |
Sheldon Siegel earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois in 1980, and graduated from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. He’s been in private practice in San Francisco for over twenty years, and specializes in corporate and securities law. His latest novel, Judgment Day, is the sixth novel in his series of critically acclaimed, best-selling courtroom dramas featuring San Francisco criminal defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into eight languages. |
Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., writer, physicist, and public speaker, is the author of over 200 articles, essays, and anthology contributions on impossible subjects like quantum physics, parenting teenagers, and the future of publishing. His first novel, The God Patent, is the story of a laid-off engineer caught between science and religion in a battle over the origin of the universe and the existence of the soul. Suspense literature that investigates the limits of faith and freewill, it is the #4 most-read e-novel in the history of scribd.com. The print version will be released in 2010.www.TheGodPatent.com Ransom is also on the Executive Committee of litquake.org |
Wendy Nelson Tokunaga is the author of the novels Midori by Moonlight (St. Martin’s) and Love in Translation (St. Martin’s, November 2009). Japan and Japanese culture have been major influences on her life, and this is reflected in much of her writing. Her novel, No Kidding, won the Literary/Mainstream Fiction category in Writer’s Digest’s Best Self-Published Book Awards in 2002. Wendy signed her two-book deal with St. Martin’s just as she was beginning the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco in 2006. Wendy is also a jazz vocalist and a Japanese karaoke singer. She lives with her surfer-dude/musician husband Manabu and their cat Meow on the San Mateo Coast, a short walk from the Pacific Ocean |