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THE WRITER’S LIFE:

ADVANCED WRITING CRAFT, MARKETING, PUBLISHING, BOOK to FILM

& BEYOND

Prices are going up soon, so register today!

We’re bringing together top experts in storytelling, marketing, book publicity, and publishing for the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference!

With two master classes (read our recent article celebrating those here!), we are just getting started with the incredible offerings at CAC24! Check out these amazing attendees and upcoming sessions below!

MICHELLE COX – OVERALL GRAND PRIZE AUTHOR

Near and dear to our hearts is Michelle Cox, the author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago’s forgotten residents. She suspects she may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, has resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting herself back there.

Her work has received multiple Mystery & Mayhem and Clue Awards from Chanticleer as well as the Overall Grand Prize Award for Best Book for her book A Spying Eye, in addition to several top-rated reviews and other accolades, so she might be on to something. Unbeknownst to most, Michelle hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade.

**DIANE GARLAND – Your WorldKeeper – Continuity Senior Editor**

An expert in world building and continuity, Diane Garland and her editorial company Your WorldKeeper, specializes in the world of continuity. Multiple USA Today best-selling and award-winning authors in various genres rely on her system of cataloging and organizing the minutiae and rules of their story worlds. Growing up as an AF Brat, Diane traveled extensively as a child, which has fueled her passion for travel and reading. She graduated from Florida State University and is a life-long learner. She, along with her husband and two cats, have recently relocated to Columbus, Ohio from the Seattle, Washington area.

Join Diane at her sessions about the necessity, creation, and organization of a story bible along with pointers on maintaining and using it to take your author career to the next level.

Sessions include:

Creating Worlds that Last
Continuity and Preparing for a Series

LISA SPICER – Producer, Editor, Writer

Our local expert on Book to Screen, Lisa Spicer has worked in television, film, and video production for over 30 years as producer, writer, and editor. Starting in the documentary unit at KCTS/PBS Seattle, later on she worked on the Bill Nye the Science Guy show, earning 3 Emmys. As an independent documentary producer, she has worked in Kenya, Mexico’s Lacandon rainforest, Northern Cheyenne and Lummi Indian reservations, Boulder, Seattle,
and Bellingham. Lisa has a BA in Broadcast Journalism and certificates in Filmmaking and Screenwriting (UW). Mid-career she earned an MA in Anthropology (WWU). Integrating anthropology into documentary, she
co-produced Homeless in Bellingham, an award-winning web series and documentary, and served as Consulting Anthropologist for the feature documentary, Cheech and Chong’s Last Movie. Recently
finishing an historical novel, Radio Smokva, she’s now writing about her back-to-the-land childhood and publishing a weekly series on Substack, Collective Effervescence: Research About the Counterculture.

Lisa will lead a workshop called How to Read a Film, with a focus on enhancing your fluency in the language of film. Rooted in the practice of mise-en-scene, learn how meaning is conveyed through elements such as camera angle, set design, motif (shapes), lighting, actors, sound, all of which work together in support of the narrative.

How to Read a Film and Writing Tips & Tools with the Screen in Mind – by Lisa G. Spicer

Writing for the screen or with the screen in mind, whether narrative or non-fiction (documentary) film.
- Ex: From any story, what is selected to be scripted and filmed? How is it framed (what do we see)?
- Ex: Screenplays are written in present tense
As related to writing, film borrows from theater by using elements of mis en scene and motif.
- Ex: How do theater directors use props and costume to support the narrative?
- Writing for film or with film in mind can be informed by the craft and how films are actually made.

Ex: Basic camera terminology, used throughout entire process: writing, filming, editing.

JANET OAKLEY – Award-Winning Author and Historian, and Community Leader

The leader of our usual suspects and historian extraordinaire, J. L. Oakley writes historical fiction that spans the mid-19^th century to WW II with characters standing up for something in their own time and place. She is an award-winning author and a recipient of the 2013 Bellingham Mayor’s Arts Award; the 2013 Chanticleer Grand Prize; the 2014 First Place Chaucer Award; an Everybody Reads and Bellingham. When not writing, she demonstrates 19th-century folkways in the schools and at San Juan Island National Park. She also has a cat who thinks she’s editing. Read pick and the 2015 WILLA Silver Award, Pulpwood Queen Book Club 2016 backlist pick for February 2016.

As a First in Category winner in the Goethe, Laramie, and Chatelaine Awards for Mist-chi-mas: A Novel of Captivity, the Chaucer Award for Timber Rose and The Jøssing Affair, the Hemingway Grand Prize Winner for The Quisling Factor and the OVERALL Grand Prize for her book, Tree Soldier, Janet will present at the 2021 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremonies (The CIBAs) on Sunday evening and recognize the finalists and announce the Grand Prize winner, and perhaps the Overall Grand Prize winner on Sunday evening.

J.L. Oakley is an expert in presenting on the following:

Ins and outs of running a successful Kickstarter
Creating Audiobooks and working with Narrators
Becoming a Research Expert in your Writing

STRIDER KLUSMAN – Award Winning Author and Host of the Author in the Headlights Podcast

Renaissance Man and one of the most interesting people you’ll meet, Strider is an award winning, first place author of the Chanticleer International Book Awards, Strider began his writing career after twenty-five years as a firefighter/EMT. The emotions and experiences of those calls carry themselves through every story, bringing true ‘been-there’ reality to the scenes.

With additional years as a business owner, general contractor, designer, wildland firefighter, big game guide, ski instructor, backpacker and sword fighter, his wide range of knowledge is intricately woven throughout his stories.

To date, Strider has written YA (young adult), NA (new adult), and general fiction in the realm of: sci-fi western, light steampunk, dystopian (post apocalyptic), gaslight (early mechanism era) and just good fun reading.

Strider will be presenting in and around the following topics:

Creating a Young Adult Series
Best Practices for Making a Podcast

Our full list of presenters are here!

SCHEDULE WILL BE UPDATED REGULARLY HERE!

Keep an eye out for more to come!

Other upcoming sessions include:

Learn the Power of Pitch Decks, Log Lines, and Quick Pitches
Working with Ingram
Marketing for Indie Authors
Multi-Author Anthologies – the Why and How You Should Do Them
How to market your work, yourself, be seen by producers, execs, studios. How to get a Lit Manager or Agent and if you need one.
Going Wide—Selling Your Books Internationally
Selling On Amazon – How to Up Your Game
Getting Your Books into Libraries – Panel
CHAT GPT
AI intro with Argus – Creating Cover Ideations & Story Telling Collateral
Pitching with Kiffer Brown
Dynamic Dialogue: The Art of Subtext
Grabbing the Reader’s Interest and Not Letting Go – Techniques and Strategies
Writing the Short Story
Look Out! He’s Behind You!
Power Moves to Make Your Story UNDENIABLE
Women’s Fiction Writing
Get to Know Your Characters – A new perspective
Incorporating the Mystery Genre Into Any Genre – Master Class
Pacing and Plotting
The Five Best Pieces of Advice I Ignored – D.D. Black
Healthy Habits for the Writing Life – Tana Hope
Do’s and Don’ts for Book Events – Paul Hanson & Chloe Hovind
Intro to TikTok
Intro to reels
Podcasting
Audiobooks