Faculty
Keep checking back, as we are constantly adding new conference writers, editors, and agents!
Tracks
Fiction || Creative Nonfiction || Magazine || Young Adult || Poetry
Fiction
Tony Earley
Tony Earley is the author of The Blue Star, Here We Are in Paradise, and Jim the Boy. In 1996, Earley's short stories earned him a place on Granta's list of the "20 Best Young American Novelists", and shortly after that announcement, The New Yorker featured him in an issue that focused on the best new novelists in America. He has twice been included in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. He lives with his wife and daughter in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the Samuel Milton Fleming Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
Julia Glass
Julia Glass is the author of Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, and The Whole World Over. Her newest book is I See You Everywhere. She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Prizes for her short fiction include the Tobias Wolff Award, the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella, and three Nelson Algren Awards. She lives with her family in Massachusetts.
John Byrne Cooke
John Byrne Cooke has lived in Jackson Hole since 1982. He has published three historical novels, The Snowblind Moon, South of the Border, and The Committee of Vigilance. He created and wrote the documentary series Outlaws and Lawmen for the Discovery Channel. His first nonfiction book, Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007.
www.johnbyrnecooke.com/writing
Kyle Mills
Kyle Mills is the New York Times bestselling author of ten political thrillers. He initially found inspiration from his father, a former FBI agent and director of Interpol, who is still able to put Kyle in touch with the people who give his books such realism. Avid rock climbers and mountain bikers, he and his wife have lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for fifteen years but these days are running for warmer climates in the winter.
www.kylemills.com
Tim Sandlin
Tim Sandlin is a novelist and screenwriter. His novels include Sex and Sunsets, Western Swing, Honey Don't, the GroVont Trilogy, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty and the forthcoming Rowdy in Paris. His movie credits include the Showtime original Floating Away, based on Sorrow Floats, and Skipped Parts, a TriMark film. He is also a contributor to the New York Times Book Review and has judged several writing competitions, including the Western States Book Awards.
www.timsandlin.com'
Tina Welling
Tina Welling is the author of the novels Fairy Tale Blues and Crybaby Ranch, published by NAL/Penguin. She has lived in Wyoming 30 years and resides in Jackson Hole. Her non-fiction has been published in The Writer, Body & Soul and other national magazines as well as five anthologies. She has won the Doubleday Award, plus two national awards and writers residencies for her short fiction. She conducts creative writing workshops wherever invited. Her next novel will be published in 2011.
Lise McClendon
Novelist Lise McClendon has been writing about Jackson Hole for fifteen years, starting with The Bluejay Shaman, but only recently moved here. She is the author of six mystery novels, including Blue Wolf, One O'clock Jump, and Sweet and Lowdown. She has taught writing through the Writer's Voice Project and the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, for many years. She has served on national boards of Mystery Writers of America and International Association of Crime Writers/North America. She has lived in Montana and Wyoming for twenty-five years.
www.lisemcclendon.com
Craig Johnson
Craig Johnson has received both critical and popular praise for his Sheriff Walt Longmire novels The Cold Dish, Death Without Company, and Kindness Goes Unpunished (Viking/Penguin) with starred reviews in Kirkus, Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly. All three have been made Booksense selections and Killer Picks. The Cold Dish was a DILYS Award Finalist. Death Without Company was selected by Booklist as one of the top-ten mysteries of 2006, won the Wyoming Historical Society’s fiction book of the year, and was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Bookseller’s Association’s Book of the Year. Another Man’s Moccasins, the fourth in the series, was number nineteen in Bookscan’s nationwide bestseller’s list.
Deborah Turrell Atkinson
Deborah Atkinson’s mystery series portray an insider’s view of Hawai‘i, a perspective the tour books never show. Featuring half-Hawaiian, half-Japanese protagonist Storm Kayama, the novels lead the reader off the beaten trail and expose not only the dark side of human nature, but the legends and folklore of the islands and the unique vulnerability of living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Atkinson lives in Honolulu, Hawaii with her husband and their two teenage sons. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the author of Primitive Secrets (2002), The Green Room (2005), and Fire Prayer (2007). In her free time, Debby enjoys surfing, skiing, outrigger canoe paddling, and scuba diving with her husband and sons.
www.debbyatkinson.com
Jill Conner Browne
Jill Conner Browne is the best-selling author of The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love and several other humorous books. Her books focus on The Sweet Potato Queens, a group of "fallen Southern belles" who are known for their outlandish costumes and annual participation in Mal's St. Paddy's Parade and Festival held every year in Jackson. Browne has been called America’s #1 Humor Writer, by Nielsen BookScan, and her books have inspired more than 5,000 Sweet Potato Wannabee chapter groups in 20 countries around the world.
Creative Nonfiction
William Powers
William Powers is author of two critically acclaimed books from Bloomsbury, and the forthcoming book, The Soft World. His Liberia memoir, Blue Clay People: Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge (2005), was a Top 5 Bestseller at Harvard's bookstore, and received a Publisher's Weekly starred review. Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization (2006) has been featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross and in Newsweek.
For over a decade Powers has led development aid and conservation initiatives in Latin America, Africa, and Washington, D.C. From 2002 to 2004 he managed the socio-economic components of a project in the Bolivian Amazon that won a prize from Harvard's JFK School of Government. His essays on global issues have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, The Sun, and the International Herald Tribune, and have been syndicated to three hundred newspapers around the world. He has appeared on NPR's Living on Earth, Fresh Air, The Leonard Lopate Show, West Coast Live, Left Jab, and World Vision Report, as well as on Book TV. Powers has worked at the World Bank and Conservation International, and holds degrees from Brown and Georgetown universities.
Jill Conner Browne
Jill Conner Browne is the best-selling author of The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love and several other humorous books. Her books focus on The Sweet Potato Queens, a group of "fallen Southern belles" who are known for their outlandish costumes and annual participation in Mal's St. Paddy's Parade and Festival held every year in Jackson. Browne has been called America’s #1 Humor Writer, by Nielsen BookScan, and her books have inspired more than 5,000 Sweet Potato Wannabee chapter groups in 20 countries around the world.
John Byrne Cooke
John Byrne Cooke has lived in Jackson Hole since 1982. He has published three historical novels, The Snowblind Moon, South of the Border, and The Committee of Vigilance. He created and wrote the documentary series Outlaws and Lawmen for the Discovery Channel. His first nonfiction book, Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007.
www.johnbyrnecooke.com/writing
Karol Griffin
Karol Griffin is the author of Skin Deep: Tattoos, The Disappearing West, Very Bad Men and My Deep Love for Them All (Harcourt, 2003). She earned the Wyoming Arts Council 2000 Doubleday award, an annual grant to "honor a woman writer of exceptional talent." Her work has appeared in Northern Lights; Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos; Fourth Genre; Red Rock Review; and other publications. She teaches in the English Department at Central Wyoming College. She has also worked as a tattoo artist, photographer, horse wrangler, salvage-yard car crusher, and phone-sex operator. She is currently embroiled in the literary possibilities of the Wyoming oil field.
Laurie Gunst
Laurie Gunst was born and raised in Richmond Virginia, the youngest daughter in a Jewish family with a paternal ancestor who fought for the Confederacy and a mother who campaigned for civil rights. She was partly raised by the African American women who worked for her family, and the experience of growing up between these two worlds has shaped her life and writing
After earning a doctorate in history from Harvard and a master’s in journalism from Columba, she published her first book in 1995. Born Fi’ Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld is her account of ten years she spent exploring that island’s gang life and the political corruption that spawned it. Her second book, Off-White (2005), is a memoir of her family—both sides—and the fierce contradictions of being what the title says.
She’s presently at work on a new book, LoveSick, a mind/body exploration of love’s downside: when the stress of being with the wrong person sends your health south. Laurie Gunst lives in Dubois, Wyoming.
Ted Kerasote
Ted Kerasote's writing has spanned the globe and appeared in many periodicals and anthologies, including Audubon, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Salon, and The New York Times. He is the author and editor of six books, one of which, Bloodties, is often cited as one of the most definitive works on the ethics of hunting. Another of his books, Out There: In the Wild in a Wired Age, won the National Outdoor Book Award. His latest book, Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, is the story of a remarkable dog and how the dog-human partnership can become far more than we have imagined. It's been translated into seven foreign languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. Kerasote has lived in Jackson Hole since 1986.
Magazine
Chuck Sambuchino
Chuck Sambuchino is the editor of Guide to Literary Agents and the assistant editor of Writer's Market (both Writer's Digest books). He is a former staffer of several newspapers and magazines—most notably Writer's Digest. In addition, he was recently named the founding editor of Screenwriter’s and Playwright’s Market, a directory and instructional resource for those who write scripts and plays (December 2008 release).
He is a produced playwright with both original and commissioned works produced. Chuck is also a freelance editor, public speaker, and award-winning journalist—with accolades from both the Kentucky Press Association and the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists. He teaches online instructional courses through Writers Online Workshops.
He is a magazine freelancer with recent articles appearing in Watercolor Magic, Pennsylvania Magazine, The Pastel Journal, Cincinnati Magazine and New Mexico Magazine.
www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/meet_the_editor.asp
Allison Adato
An award-winning journalist, Allison Adato is a staff editor at PEOPLE magazine, where she covers celebrity, politics, food, fitness, and human interest stories. As a freelance writer she contributed regularly to the Los Angeles Times Magazine and several national publications. She is currently at work on a book about chefs.
home.earthlink.net/~aladato/main.html
Katie Ives
A graduate from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Katie Ives is the former senior editor of Alpinist magazine. Her fiction, nonfiction and translations have appeared in Rock & Ice, Alpinist, Urban Climber, the American Alpine Journal, She Sends, The Mountain Gazette, Circumference and 91st Meridian. In 2004 she won the Mammut/Rock & Ice Writing Contest, in 2005 she received a scholarship to attend the Banff Mountain Writing Program, and in 2008 she placed third in the UKC/Kendal Mountain Festival short-story competition. She currently works as a freelance writer and book editor, specializing in outdoor adventure. Recent projects include co-writing the screenplay for a feature-length version of Dean Potter’s The Aerialist.
Young Adult
Chris Crutcher
Chris Crutcher is an author, educator and family therapy consultant known for his realistic fiction.
He grew up in Cascade, Idaho (a tiny logging town north of Boise) and graduated from Eastern Washington State College (now EWU) with a BA in psychology and sociology.
He wrote Running Loose for Greenwillow in the early 1980s and is known for nine other novels — Stotan!, Chinese Handcuffs, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, The Deep End, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Ironman, Whale Talk, The Sledding Hill, and Deadline — as well as a collection of short stories — Athletic Shorts — and his autobiography, King of the Mild Frontier, followed. Other books, including a collection of novellas and several motion picture projects, are also in development.
Crutcher's fast-paced fiction — heavily influenced by his work as a therapist and child protection advocate — is known for its expert balance of comedy and tragedy, as well as its unflinching honesty and authentic voice. He has been honored with dozens of awards and honors including the CLA's 2005 St. Katharine Drexel Award, Writer Magazine's 2004 Writers Who Make A Difference Award, the ALA's 2000 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, the NCTE's 1998 National Intellectual Freedom Award and the ALAN Award.
Terry Davis
Terry Davis is currently a professor in the English department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he teaches Creative writing—fiction and screenwriting—as well as adolescent literature. Davis, who has been a high-school English teacher and a wrestling coach, is the author of three novels for young adults: Vision Quest (1979), Mysterious Ways (1984), and If Rock & Roll Were a Machine (1992). He has also written Presenting Chris Crutcher, a biography of the respected young-adult author. Vision Quest was made into a 1985 movie of the same title, starring Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino.
Patti Sherlock
Patti Sherlock has published two nonfiction books for the adult market and three young adult novels, and publishes in magazines, too. Her latest YA novel, Letters from Wolfie, about a boy who donates his dog to the army during the Vietnam war, was selected for Westminster, Colorado's "One City One Book" event and for the Solano Kids Read event, a California one-county one-book event. The book won the Merial Human-Animal Bond Award, is a nominee for the Rebecca Caudill Award, was nominee for the Young Reader's Medal in California and nominated for Young Reader's Choice in six other states, plus it has been nominated for two literary awards in Japan. Letters from Wolfie and Some Fine Dog were Junior Library Guild selections. Four of a Kind was runner-up for the Spur Award from Western Writers of America.
Roz Monette
Roz Monette is the author of an edgy YA series which will be re-released by Cedar Grove Books in 2009. Alex and The Enderson Brothers was first published in July 2006 followed by its sequel Invisible Shadow, in March 2007. Roz began her writing career being solely responsible for all aspects of the profession: website design, marketing plan, speaking schedule, book signings, etc. Yet she continued to find time to write her novels. She has been a speaker at a conferences, schools, and libraries across the country.
Poetry
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar is Associate Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Central
Connecticut State University and the founding editor of the international online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat. He has published a book of poems, Instrumentality (Cherry Grove), named a finalist for the 2005 Connecticut Book Awards, and with Reb Livingston, a collaborative chapbook, Wanton Textiles (No Tell Books, 2006). He has taught at Queens College, University of New Haven, and Columbia University, where he received his MFA in Poetry. He currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Connecticut Center for the Book, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he edited Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond (W.W Norton & Co.)
Katherine Coles
Katharine Coles' books include the novels Fire Season and The Measurable World and four collections of poems, Fault, The Golden Years of the Fourth Dimension, A History of the Garden, and The One Right Touch. Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Paris Review, The New Repulbic, The Kenyon Reivew, and Poetry, among many other journals. Her poems have been included in numerous public arts projects, including Salt Lake City's Passages Park, for which she served on the design team; and Numbers and Measures, an installation by Anna Campbell Bliss in the Leroy Cowles Mathematics Building at the University of Utah.
She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN, among many other organizations. She is on the faculty of the English Department at the University of Utah, where she teaches creative writing and literature and, with mathematician and biologist Fred Adler, co-directs the Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, which she originated in 2001. She has recently finished Burnt Letters, a nonfiction book about her grandfather. In 2006, she was named to a five-year term as Utah's Poet Laureate. In addition to her position at the University of Utah, she is Director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago.
Laurie Kutchins
Laurie Kutchins has published two previous books of poetry. The Night Path (BOA Editions, 1997) received the inaugural Isabella Gardner Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and Between Towns was winner of the Texas Tech University Press First Book Award in 1993. Her poems have been published widely in anthologies and periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, West Branch, and Denver Quarterly. Kutchins has also published prose essays in The Georgia Review, LIT, and in the anthologies A Tough and Tender Kinship, and A Place on Earth: Nature Writers from North America and Australia.
She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at James Madison University. She has also been a visiting writer at the University of New Mexico, and a faculty member of the Taos Summer Writers Conference where she offers workshops exploring the intersection of the creative and therapeutic processes.
Kate Northrup
Kate Northrop’s first collection of poems, Back Through Interruption (Kent State University Press 2002) won the Stan and Tom Wick First Book Award. Her second collection, Things Are Disappearing Here (Persea Books 2007) was the finalist for the James Laughlin Award and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. Her poems have appeared recently in AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Raritan, and other journals. Northrop is Associate Professor in the English department at the University of Wyoming.