The 2022 Chanticleer Authors Conference will take place IN-PERSON!
Thursday – Sunday, June 23 – 26, 2022
The 2021 CIBA Ceremony and Announcements for 1st Place and Grand Prize Winners will take place June 26th, 2022. More info to come.
See our announcement on our main Conference page.
Workshops and Masterclasses are TBA, but will most likely be Thursday, June 23rd. Check back regularly for updates! Click here for a link to the schedule of all sessions
Please check back often! All information subject to change.
Multichannel Marketing
and the Business of Being a Writer
The New Era of Content Creation in All Its Forms
Honing Your Writing Craft
We have a spectacular line-up of experts in marketing, book publicity, publishing, and advanced writing craft lined up for the 2022 Chanticleer Authors Conference!
Hashtags: #CAC22
Headliners and Special Guests
We are excited and honored to have Cathy Ace to present and participate LIVE this year at the Chanticleer Authors Conference!
Cathy Ace, International Bestselling Crime and Mystery Writer!
Having run her own post-graduate marketing communications training company in the UK for a decade, and having traveled the world as a management trainer, she’s now able to take all that experience and be an “edu-taining” speaker who is funny, insightful, knows her stuff and can speak about topics ranging from the broad base of The History of Mystery, to more intimate and personal topics such as how she plans, plots and writes her bestselling mysteries.
BIG NEWS FOR CATHY…Her Cait Morgan Mysteries have been optioned for TV by the UK production company Free@Last TV, which is responsible for the hit TV series based on MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin books (Hamish MacBeth series). The same company has optioned The Wrong Boy, with plans for it to be broadcast as a three-part miniseries, in Welsh and English.
Conference Session Times are TBA!
Judy Gaman is the CEO of Executive Medicine of Texas. She’s an award-winning, seven-time author, nationally recognized speaker, and host of the Stay Young America! podcast. She’s called on often by the media as a health and wellness expert. She and her husband, Walter, have ten children (his, hers, theirs) and five grandchildren.
Judy’s mission is to educate and elevate people by helping them discover their true life passions and reach their full potential while living longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. She is a true inspiration, impacting lives, both young and old, by advancing the modern understanding of what it means to age gracefully and what it takes to live your best life.
Rebecca Bruff earned her Bachelor’s degree in education (Texas A&M) and Master and Doctorate degrees in theology (Southern Methodist University). In 2017, she was a scholarship recipient for the prestigious Key West Literary Seminar. She volunteers at the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, South Carolina. She’s published non-fiction, plays a little tennis, travels when she can, and loves life in the lowcountry with her husband and an exuberant golden retriever.
Chelsea Bennet is The Brand Engagement Manager for Lulu.com and is constantly researching and developing new resources for self-published authors. Her areas of expertise include self-publishing, Print-on-Demand technology, building an author brand, direct sales and marketing for self-published authors and entrepreneurs. When not thinking about self-publishing, Chelsea can be found playing disc golf with her husband or having in-depth conversations about the universe with her cat, Batman.
Oriana Leckert is the Director of Publishing & Comics Outreach at Kickstarter, where she helps creators bring a marvelous array of literary projects to life. She’s written and edited for Vice, MTV News, Slate, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, Atlas Obscura, and many more. Her first book, Brooklyn Spaces: 50 Hubs of Culture and Creativity (Monacelli, 2015), grew out of a multi-year project chronicling the rise and fall of under-the-radar creative places across New York City. Follow her at @orianabklyn on Twitter/Instagram.
Learn more about Kickstarter’s Publishing fundraisers here.
The inimitable, always-in-demand, Jessica Morrell will be joining us at the Chanticleer Authors Conference.
One of the primary contributors to the Chanticleer writing blog, Jessica’s tips and advice are invaluable lessons that benefit all authors. Each year we offer writing craft sessions from the best editors and authors in the publishing industry. We are excited to dive into Morrell’s workshops on Your Brain on Writing, that will delve into the neuroscience of craft.
Writing Coach, Author, and Licensed Therapist, Betsy Fasbinder believes with her whole heart that it is our stories that make us uniquely human, and the sharing of them that connects us deeply to one another. Books and stories can entertain, and that’s wonderful. But they can also inform, inspire, enlighten, and transform us.
Don’t miss this chance to connect!
- Podcasting as Platform: Pitfalls to Avoid, Practices that Pay Off
- Who’s Standing on Your Platform?: Public Speaking made Simple for Authors
- Writing Intimacy Scenes: Avoiding the Corny, the Porny, and the Clinical when Writing Sex
- Series Panel: Being Published by a Hybrid: A Candid Discussion of the Pluses and Minuses of This New Publishing Lane
Alexa Bigwarfe is a mother to 3 wildlings who keep her on her toes. An advocate, activist, speaker, author & author coach, publisher, and podcaster. Her writing career began after her infant daughter passed away at 2 days old, and she turned to writing for healing. Since then, she has used her writing platform for advocacy and activism to support mothers, children, and marginalized voices.
Kaylin McFarren has received 50 national literary awards, in addition to a prestigious RWA Golden Heart Award nomination for FLAHERTY’S CROSSING – a book she and her oldest daughter, New York Times/USA Today best-selling author Kristina McMorris, co-wrote in 2008 and was then opted and made into a Hallmark film. Prior to embarking on her writing journey and developing the popular, THREADS psychological thriller series (Twisted Threads was the CLUE Book Awards Grand Prize winner). She enjoys giving back to her community through participation and support of various charitable, medical and educational organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Her latest release, HIGH FLYING, takes readers on an unusual time-travel adventure, which asks challenging questions that will linger long after the final twists are revealed.
Mcfarren has presented on various subjects at past conferences from how to increase book sales surrounding your release and the many moving parts of the book to screen industry.
Janet Oakley: Award-Winning Author and Historian, and Community Leader
J. L. Oakley writes historical fiction that spans the mid-19th 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.
Janet will present on the ins and outs of Kickstarter campaigns. Further details TBA!
Jodé Millman is a life long resident of Poughkeepsie, New York, which serves as the setting for her crime fiction. In her writing, she draws upon her many years as an attorney to capture the tensions that arise when a small community is rocked by tragedy.
Author of the best-selling SEATS: NEW YORK Theatre guidebook, her debut thriller, “The Midnight Call” was released by Immortal Works Publishing in 2019. “The Midnight Call” won the 2020 Bronze IPPY Award, the American Fiction Award for Legal Thriller, was short-listed for the 2019 Clue Award, and received the First Place Blue Ribbon as “Best Police Procedural” by Chantireviews.com.
Her new thriller, “Hooker Avenue” is being released by Level Best Books in April 2022.
She has developed “The Writer’s Law School,” which is an educational program designed to inform writers and artists about how to protect their artistic rights. Jode has presented the program to international writing associations, arts organizations and libraries. The schedule for her session on Law and Writing is TBA.
Presently, she also co-hosts and co-produces Backstage with the Bardavon Podcast which invites the listener backstage for intimate conversations with musicians and performers appearing at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and UPAC in Kingston, NY. The podcast is available on Itunes, Spotify, iHeart Media, and Google. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Sisters In Crime and Romance Writers of America.
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.
Amy S. Peele, RN enjoyed a 35 year career in transplantation and retired from UCSF in 2014. Her medical mystery series CUT & MATCH have received many awards.
Her series reflects her knowledge of and passion for organ donation and transplant issues in a suspenseful, yet humorous story, set in the Bay Area. They have been referred to as a page turners, and MYSTERY’S WITH A MISSION AND SIDE OF HUMOR
Amy is an accomplished speaker who regularly presents to prestigious US medical centers such as NYU, University of Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, & UCLA.
Amy loves comedy and improv and graduated from Chicago’s famed Second City Players Workshop in 1985. In addition to killing people she didn’t like at work in her mysteries and using their organs for transplant, she enjoys teaching yoga, swimming and meditation.
Avis Adams lives in the Puget Sound area of Washington State on a small farm, where she loves to garden and write. She teaches English courses at a local community college, and her poems have won awards and been published online and in various literary journals. She also writes for children and has a YA novel, The Incident, coming soon from The Wild Rose Press.
Wendy Kendall is Podcaster, Mystery Author, Editor, Book Reviewer and highly sought after Social Media Educator. She specializes in her love of Mystery and all things related to a crime scene.
Peter Greene was born in New York and spent his young life on Long Island and later in the Chicago area. In college, he won an Illinois Art Council grant for his touring musical Watermeyer. Graduating from Illinois State University with a BA in Theatre Education, he moved to California and had some success co-writing screenplays, having one optioned by 20th Century Fox. During over 30 years of working in the business world, he was a technical writer, high school teacher, a technical salesperson for supply-chain software, and was a founding director of PETsMART, Inc. He continued to write short stories and screenplays during this time.
Awards for the Adventures of Jonathan Moore Series:
- Warship Poseidon: Adventure Writers COmpetition’s Clive Cussler Grandmaster Award
- Castle of FIre: Independent Author Network Finalist Award
- Paladin’s War: Chanticleer Int’l Book Award for Goethe Grand Prize
- The Jonathan Moore Series: Dante Rossetti Book Series Award
The entire “Adventures of Jonathan Moore series” is now available as audiobooks, all narrated by the award-winning actor and author Chris Humphreys.
In 2021, Greene released a new science fiction book: Light of Ganymede (Sven Gillhoolie Publishing), which was won honors as a 2021 Top 100 Book by Shelf Unbound and as a finalist in the Chanticleer Cygnus category.
Now retired from the business world, Greene is writing full time, when not fishing or taking his dog on long walks.
Pamela Beason – P.I., Ghost Writer, and Author of the Four Mysteries Series
Pamela Beason – author of 14 mysteries and experiences BookBub user. She will share her knowledge of Bookbub and how to write a sustained series with us.
Seán Dwyer: Award-winning Novelist & Renaissance Man
Seán has been a writer since he discovered that people strung words together to tell stories. He is also a polyglot and has written creatively in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Latin, and Irish. Sean has finished three novel projects and published stories in several journals, anthologies, and Chanticleer Magazine. A native of Gary, Indiana, and Dwyer teaches Spanish, German, and Portuguese at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. The author of over 100 songs, Dwyer is also an active member of Red Wheelbarrow Writers, Whatcom Writers and Publishers, and Upstart Crows.
Michelle Cox is 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 the Mystery & Mayhem Award from Chanticleer and several positive reviews, plus many 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.
Cami Ostman is the founder and head of The Narrative Project. She holsd a B.Ed. in English from Western Washington University and an M. S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University. In addition to her memoir, Second Wind, she’s the co-editor of Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions, a contributor to Adventures Northwest and runs her own blog, 7marathons7continents.com. She also is one of the founders of Red Wheelbarrow Writers, a community of writers in Western Washington and a blogger for psychologtoday.com. She’s been profiled in Fitness Magazine and her books have been reviewed in O Magazine, The Atlantic, and Washington Post.
USA Today Bestselling author and St. Louisan Nicole Evelina is an expert on the US women’s suffrage movement who is an excellent writer resource. In today’s publishing world, it’s not only indie authors who have to handle the lion’s share of marketing their book. Increasingly, traditionally published authors are being asked to shoulder the burden. So where do you start? Draw on Nicole’s 15 years of professional experience and a master’s degree in public relations, as well as her own experience as an author to make your work the best it can be.
Jacquie Rogers is a regular contributor for the Western Fictioneers blog. She presents at RWA conferences and workshops, Chanticleer Authors Conferences, and Western Writers of America. Her works are known for their hilarity, adventure, mistaken identities, and romance. Rogers’ books are a hit for anyone who has a penchant for classic Westerns and Shakespearean comedies. She lassos the genres together in a most enjoyable way making her tales a true pleasure to read. From saddles sores and thorns from the trail, to finally being able to breathe when the last binding on the corset is released, even the most die hard Western readers will be impressed with Roger’s knowledge and expertise she portrays as she takes you back in time to the Old West.
Lisa Dailey is an avid traveler and writer. In her time abroad, she unearthed new ways of looking at her life through her discoveries in remote corners of the world and she continues to enrich her life through travel. She is currently working on a recipe anthology as well as her first work of fiction. A native Montanan, Lisa now makes her home by the ocean in Bellingham, Washington, but returns to her roots every summer for a healthy dose of mountains and Big Sky. Lisa is the owner of Silent Sidekick and Sidekick Press where she helps guide authors through their publishing journey.
KIFFER BROWN
Kiffer is the founder of Chanticleer Book Reviews and International Writing Competitions, LLC. She also specializes in curating books with the potential to become fully actualized intellectual properties.
Her addiction is finding sparkling gems that will become tomorrow’s bestsellers. She is known for her instinct in picking winners. She also acts as an independent acquisitions editor for publishers and entertainment companies. Kiffer is known for her marketing talent and networking skills. She truly loves what she does and her passion shows!
See VCAC21’s line up of Speakers here for an idea of what’s to come!
Check back often for updates!