More Information: bit.ly/1NoaXVt
Nicola’s Books will be at this event throughout the day selling books.
Homegrown Talent Schedule
Schedule (subject to change)
8-8:55 AM: Registration / Mingle / Coffee
9-9:10 AM: Welcome and Opening
9:10-9:20 AM: Brief Introduction to Thomson-Shore
9:20-10:10 AM: Kelly DiPucchio – Bulldogs, Babies, and Bacon: Everyone Has a Story
In this humorous and enlightening presentation, Kelly shares 13 concrete ways to improve your picture book manuscript and your odds of being published traditionally.
10:10-10:20 AM: Break
10:20-11:10 AM: Lynne Rae Perkins – A Beginning, a Middle and an End; and Something Has to Happen
If you already know that your story needs these basic elements, then you are ahead of where I started. Twenty-two years ago this October, I got my big break at a regional SCBWI conference in Pittsburgh, PA. I could draw, and I was a reader, but I was a novice in the world of children’s books. Eight picture books and four novels later, I still feel like a novice at times, but I’ve learned a lot. I’ll share the practical info and less obviously practical ideas that have, so far, been the most helpful, interesting, encouraging, and fun. (Image by Lynne Rae Perkins)
10:20-11:10 AM: Ruth McNally Barshaw – Packing the Perfect Portfolio
We will analyze what works and what doesn’t in making your portfolio the best it can be for presenting illustrator work in the current children’s book industry. If you have one, bring your portfolio and your art. Bring any pieces you’re undecided on whether they’re strong enough for your portfolio.
11:15 AM – 12:05 PM: Kathleen Merz – Using Storytelling Techniques to Craft Narrative Nonfiction
How do writers tell engaging stories about real life? How can they capture a person’s life story in thirty-two pages? This presentation will look at the process of using general storytelling technique and sensibility to create well-crafted narrative nonfiction.
12:05-1:20 PM: Lunch / Bookstore / Tours of Thomson-Shore
1:20-2:20 PM: First Pages with Kathleen and Katherine
Busy editors have very limited time to read manuscripts. Some say the “make it or break it” window is thirty seconds per manuscript. During this session, editors Kathleen Merz and Katherine Jacobs will react to first pages of manuscripts read aloud. What makes it compelling? What is a turnoff? What does a first page need to make an editor want to keep reading?
2:20-3:10 PM: Deborah Diesen – Writing Stories in Rhyme: From Inspiration to First Draft in Fifteen Thousand Easy Steps. Debbie will discuss the process she uses to move from a picture book story idea to a rhyming first draft.
3:10-3:20 PM: Break
3:20-4:10 PM: Katherine Jacobs – The Body Electric: Creating Characters that Spark with Life
Learn how to create characters with rich inner lives, clear motivations, and problems that drive the plot. Look at examples and analyze why they work. Come away with concrete ways to make your characters into people readers long to know.
4:10-5:00 PM: Mary Bigler – Reading for the Love of It
Join Mary Bigler as she shares the joy and wonder of reading aloud to children. She will introduce books that will tickle their funny bones, light up their eyes, and touch their hearts. Joke books, poetry, picture books and nonfiction books will be shared. Think about your own school visits as Mary presents ideas on how you can engage children with good books and create a love of reading.
5:00-5:05 PM: Catherine Bieberich: Mentorship Program Winner Announcement!
5:05-5:15 PM: Closing Remarks and Awesome Prizes (including a full conference tuition!)
5:15-5:45 PM: Bookstore / Autograph Party
RC students direct and perform this popular semiannual 90-minute program of short scenes on a variety of topics and in a variety of styles, many written by RC students.
Dempsey and Egen are authors of Michigan at Antietam.
Jack Dempsey is a lawyer and Michigan native. He co-founded and is the president of the Michigan Civil War Association, which is dedicated to erecting a Michigan monument at the Antietam National Battlefield. Jack is president of the Michigan Historical Commission, board member of the Michigan History Foundation and a member of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, the Abraham Lincoln Civil War Roundtable, the Civil War Trust, Preservation Detroit, and runs the Michigan Civil War Blog.
Brian James Egen is executive producer at the Henry Ford and a Michigan native. He is a co-founder of the Michigan Civil War Association, chairman of the Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and member of the Michigan Historical Commission, Monroe County Historical Commission and Commission on the Environment, City of Monroe. Brian is an award-winning director for an independent short film and has worked on several National Park Service and historic site Civil War documentaries.
All adults and teens in grade 6 & up invited to learn about this nonprofit promotion (also known as NaNoWriMo) encouraging teens and adults to tackle the challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel by the end of November. Refreshments.
All poets invited to compete in a poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a poetry open mike and (occasionally) a short set by a featured poet.
8-11 p.m. (sign-up begins at 7:30 p.m.), $5 suggested donation. A2poetry.com.
Jonathan is the coauthor of The Comic Book Story of Beer (Random House), a nonfiction graphic novel telling the story of the world’s favorite alcoholic beverage from 7,000 B.C. to the present.
The book is his third collaboration with artist Aaron McConnell. Their first book release, The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation (2008; Macmillan), was an illustrated, graphic novel edition of the entire U.S. Constitution. It was chosen as a “Best Book of 2008” by The Village Voiceand a 2009 “Great Graphic Novels for Teens” by the American Library Association. A conceptual follow-up, The Gettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation (2013; HarperCollins), used the words of Abraham Lincoln’s immortal speech to tell the whole story of the Civil War from colonial times through to the Civil Rights Era. The book received starred reviews in Kirkus and Library Journal and was also chosen by Library Journal as a “Best Graphic Novel of 2013.”
In addition, Legendary Comics, the publishing arm of Legendary Pictures (Inception, The Dark Knight franchise, The Hangover, Godzilla), launched Hennessey’s first series of fiction comics. A dark and unique twist on time travel rooted in American History, Epochalypse began appearing in comic book stores in 2014. The first six issues were collected into a stand-alone graphic novel, also titled Epochalypse.
Jonathan has appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, has guest-blogged for Fox News and the American Constitution Society; written for the Austin Chronicle; and has appeared at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, San Diego Comic Con, New York City Comic Con, as a featured guest at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Jonathan has also done extensive work in film and television. He has been on the production crews of several noted film directors, including Wes Anderson’sRushmore, Richard Linklater’s Suburbia and The Newton Boys, and Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids. He has worked as a screenplay and story analyst for Phoenix Pictures (Shutter Island, Black Swan, Zodiac) and Jerry Bruckheimer Television.
A lover of illustration with next to no capacity for it himself, Jonathan has been drawn towards working in the graphic novel or comics medium. He also writes across other platforms, including prose for middle grade and adult audiences. He also blogs about ginger beer atilovegingerbeer.com.
Jonathan was born on a U.S. Army base in Massachusetts, grew up in suburban Boston, and has lived in Texas and New York City. He currently resides outside Los Angeles.
Poet, novelist, and Fence founder Rebecca Wolff’s internal monologue made external in poetry is uncanny. Her musical and darkly funny fourth collection, One Morning— (published September 2015), spans language, culture, art history, love, passion, grief, consumerism, environmental devastation, and the ekphrastic experience of pop and high culture. She experiments with torque, energy, narrative—two steps ahead of herself with the reader on her heels.
Rebecca Wolff is the author of four collections of poetry, one novel, and numerous pieces of occasional prose. Her first book, Manderley, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Robert Pinsky. Her second, Figment, was selected for the Barnard Women Poets Prize by Claudia Rankine and Eavan Boland. Her third, The King, was published by W. W. Norton in 2009. Her novel The Beginners was published by Riverhead in 2011. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the Millay Colony for the Arts. In 1998, Wolff founded the influential literary journal Fence; in 2001 she founded Fence Books and launched The Constant Critic website. Wolff lives in Hudson, New York, and is currently a fellow at the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany.
Please note that this event begins at 7:30pm.
John Steadman, author of H.P. Lovecraft and the Black Magickal Tradition, discusses why he chose to write about Lovecraft and why Lovecraft’s work has had, and continues to have, such an enduring influence on Western culture.
Gwendolyn Calvert Baker will read from her memoir, How Fudge Sundae in a White Paper Cup: A Spirited Black Woman in a White World. Gwendolyn will be joined by Deborah Loewenberg Ball, the dean of UM’s School of Education.
Gwendolyn Calvert Baker has had an extraordinary career and has witnessed a dramatic change in the ways that U.S. schools provide education to and about our multiethnic, multicultural society. But Baker hasn’t just lived through the progression of multicultural considerations—she has been singularly instrumental in the creation and acceptance of multicultural education. In Hot Fudge Sundae in a White Paper Cup, she shares her memories and experience of a lifetime spent serving and leading the causes for multicultural education.
RC Writers Tea, open to majors and current writing students who are non majors, and current students interested in the writing major. In RC’s Greene Lounge.
