Saturday Seminar Sessions and Leaders

The Morning Session for All Attendees on "Getting Inspired, Setting Goals and Staying Motivated", will be led by Afternoon Seminar faculty Gayle Brandeis. Gayle Brandeis   Gayle is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne), Dictionary Poems (Pudding House Publications), the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, Self Storage (Ballantine) and Delta Girls (Ballantine), and her first novel for young readers, My Life with the Lincolns (Holt). She released The Book of Live Wires, the sequel to The Book of Dead Birds, as an e-book in 2011. Gayle's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies (such as Salon.com, The Nation, and The Mississippi Review) and have received several awards, including the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelley Peace Poetry Award, and a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. In 2004, the Writer Magazine honored Gayle with a Writer Who Makes a Difference Award. Gayle holds a BA in "Poetry and Movement: Arts of Expression, Meditation and Healing" from the University of Redlands, and an MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction from Antioch University. Learn more about Gayle at www.gaylebrandeis.com FOCUS ON NONFICTION FREELANCING AND WRITING FOR REGIONAL PRESSES -- Wendy Hart Beckman Wendy Hart Beckman  Wendy's seventh book, Founders and Famous Families of Cincinnati, was published in May 2014. She has published nearly 300 articles in print and online publications, and has received a baker’s dozen of awards for her writing, editing and desktop publishing. Her articles have been published in Writer’s Digest, Cincinnati Magazine, M.D. News Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a history of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Nursing, due out this fall, and is completing her first novel. Beckman’s bachelor’s degrees are in geology and natural science/technical communications from Virginia Tech and the University of Cincinnati, respectively. She has a master’s degree in English-with a concentration in editing and publishing-and a graduate certificate in professional writing from UC. FOCUS ON POETRY -- Grace Curtis Grace Curtis    Grace Curtis’ chapbook, The Surly Bonds of Earth was selected by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Stephen Dunn as the 2010 winner of the Lettre Sauvage chapbook contest. Her book, The Shape of a Box will be published in 2014 by Dos Madres Press. Grace has had prose and poetry in such journals as The Chaffin Journal, Red River Review, The Baltimore Review, Waccamaw Literary Journal, Scythe, Clockwise Cat, Dark Lady Poetry, Phoebe Journal and others. She works for The Antioch Review. Her blog is www.N2Poetry.com. FOCUS ON SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY / HORROR -- Tim Waggoner Tim Waggoner   Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and Writers’ Journal, among others. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him on the web at  www.timwaggoner.com. FOCUS ON MYSTERY -- Cyndi Pauwels Cyndi Pauwels Cyndi’s short fiction has appeared in Mock Turtle ‘zine, Over My Dead Body!, The View from Here (UK), and other journals. She has published a non-fiction book, Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History (2008), and two anthologized personal essays through Sugati Publications’ Reflections from Women series. When she’s not immersed in writing her next novel, Cyndi is an adjunct at Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio, teaching freshman composition. Her debut novel Forty & Out will be released in September by Deadly Writes Publishing. FOCUS ON YOUNG ADULT FICTION -- Kristina McBride Kristina McBride   Kristina McBride is a former English teacher and yearbook advisor. She has published two novels for young adults - The Tension of Opposites (May 2010) and One Moment (June 2012). Her third novel for young adults, A Million Times Goodnight, will be released in the fall of 2015. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two young children. Visit her online at http://www.kristinamcbride.com FOCUS ON SELF-PUBLISHING AND COLUMN WRITING -- Lesley Pearce Keating Leslie Pearce Keating Leslie Pearce-Keating is a writing professor at Ohio State University and a fourteen-year columnist for The Daily Record of Wooster, where she has written over 750 weekly columns. Leslie has also written features for AKC Gazette and AKC Family, the latter winning a prestigious Maxwell Award from the Dog Writers of America. This past fall, Leslie self-published a memoir called Hannah’s Memory Box about her therapy dog that helped her through the death of her father and her daughter’s struggle with Lyme disease.