* The AWC Annual Conference *
September 6-8, 2024
Orange Beach Community Center
27235 Canal Rd.
Orange Beach, AL 36561
The AWC was founded in 1923. Join us as we celebrate 101 years during our conference. It will include Open Mic on Friday night, workshops all three days on all aspects of the art and business of writing, and more. Saturday's Awards Dinner will feature a ceremony for the AWC Writing Contest winners, as well as a keynote address by Javacia Harris Bowser.
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Faculty
Faculty Bios
JAVACIA HARRIS BOWSER is an award-winning freelance journalist and the author of the essay collection Find Your Way Back: How to Write Your Way Through Anything. In Birmingham, Javacia is best known as the founder of See Jane Write, a website and community for women who write and blog that she founded in 2011 in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Today, See Jane Write serves and brings together women from across the country and around the world. Because of See Jane Write, Javacia was included in Southern Living magazine’s list of Innovators Changing the South, alongside household names like Dolly Parton and Reese Witherspoon. She was also a recipient of the 2022 Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowship for Prose. Javacia has written for several local, regional and national media outlets including ELLE magazine, Good Housekeeping, Shondaland.com, Good Grit magazine, and The Birmingham Times and has received several awards from the National Federation of Press Women for her work. In 2020, her column for Birmingham magazine was awarded Best Magazine Column by the Alabama Press Association. Javacia is a proud graduate of the University of Alabama and the University of California at Berkeley. When she isn’t writing, Javacia is usually eating tacos, listening to Beyoncé or spending time with her husband Edward.
Tina Mozelle Braziel won the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for Known by Salt (Anhinga Press). She co-authored Glass Cabin (Pulley Press) with her husband, writer James Braziel, a collection of poems about how they built their home by hand. An Alabama Poetry Delegate, she has been awarded a fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, an artist residency at Hot Springs National Park, and the first Eco-Poetry Fellowship from the Magic City Poetry Festival. She directs the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop for high school students at UAB.
James Braziel and his wife, Tina Mozelle Braziel, live and write in a glass cabin that they are building by hand in rural Alabama. In spring 2024 Pulley Press, whose mission is to highlight rural poets, published, Glass Cabin, a book about their experience. James’s This Ditch-Walking Love (Livingston Press - winner of the Tartt Fiction Award), tells the stories of people living on Alabama’s Cumberland Plateau in Blount County. His novels Birmingham, 35 Miles (Bantam) and Snakeskin Road (Bantam) are about the survivors of an environmental disaster in the future South. He has received fellowships from Hot Springs National Park, and from Georgia and Alabama's arts councils.
Melissa Carrigee is the founder and creative force behind Brother Mockingbird, a small, independent publisher dedicated to discovering and nurturing talented writers with original stories. With a commitment to bringing fresh, creative voices in fiction to the marketplace, Brother Mockingbird combines years of traditional publishing experience with innovative strategies to support authors.
Starting as a literary agent, Melissa learned the intricacies of the industry through hands-on experience. This journey led to a role as Creative Director for a children's book line at a small publisher. Realizing the disconnect between authors and publishers, Melissa established Brother Mockingbird in 2018. The goal: to create a transparent publishing process and provide a platform for writers often overlooked by larger publishing houses.
Brother Mockingbird prides itself on its creative, strength-driven, and storytelling-focused list of books and authors. Always seeking manuscripts from dedicated writers, Brother Mockingbird offers an opportunity for hard-working authors to bring their unique stories to life.
Brooke Champagne is the author of Nola Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy, published with the Crux Series in Literary Nonfiction at the University of Georgia Press. Her work has been selected as Notable in several editions of the Best American Essays anthology series, and she is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. She lives with her husband and children in Tuscaloosa, where she is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Alabama.
Hallie Christensen is a children's author who loves to write books full of adventure and hope. She grew up in a small town in Alabama surrounded by professional storytellers - her family. Her middle grade fantasy Enchanted Misadventures with Great-Aunt Poppy was published in 2021 (Sweetwater Books). When she isn’t writing, she enjoys hiking, attending rock concerts from musicians her parents’ age, and of course, reading. Hallie currently resides in northern Alabama with her husband and a couple of cats. Visit authorhalliechristensen.com to learn more about Hallie's future works and sign up for her e-newsletter.
Claire Datnow writes environmental novels with themes of mystery, adventure, and environmental action. Her stories interweave science and storytelling to inspire readers to become wise and just stewards of the Earth. If you are like Barbara Kingsolver, Carl Hiaasen, or Sy Montgomery you will enjoy Claire’s stories.
Emma Fox lives in “The Magic City” of Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, three kids, and an energetic border collie. She’s the author of the award-winning YA fantasy novels The Arrow and the Crown (KDP, 2019) and The Carver and the Queen (Owl’s Nest Publishers, 2023), and a contributor to The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad (Rabbit Room Press, 2022). She leads regular writing workshops for tweens, teens, and adults through her local library, and is equally happy digging into historical research or delving into magical worlds. Visit www.emmafoxauthor.com to learn more about her work and read her blog reviews of other YA fantasy and historical fiction.
Judge Debra H. Goldstein writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series and is the author of two standalones: Maze in Blue and Should Have Played Poker. Her novels and short stories have received Silver Falchion, IPPY, BWR, and AWC awards and been named as Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Claymore finalists. A national board member of Sisters in Crime, Debra previously was a national board member of SinC and MWA and served as president of the Guppy and SEMWA chapters. Debra is a civic volunteer, mother of four, and is married to a man whose blood runs Crimson. Find out more about Debra at https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com .
Saundra Scribner Grace spent 44 years living and working around the world before returning to Mobile. During her years with the United Nations, she held various positions as writer, editor, and event producer, as well as the head of a Secretariat promoting programs for women and children. Saundra draws on her experiences growing up in the South, and on her life with the United Nations, writing memoir in both poetry and essay. She has won numerous awards from the Alabama State Poetry Society, and her work has been published in several anthologies. She is currently an Associate Editor at Negative Capability Press.
Aimee Hardy is a writer and editor in Birmingham, AL. She is the author of Pocket Full of Teeth (out Sept. 13, 2024) as well as various short stories and poems. As a former teacher, she has a passion for storytelling and a love of cultivating creativity in the larger community. She has a MA in English and is married and has two children. When she's not writing stories, she can usually be found hiking or enjoying a nice cup of tea.
Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne (Picador), which received an honorable mention for the Southern Book Prize. His nonfiction has been cited in Best American Essays, and appears in Garden & Gun, Southern Living, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Caleb grew up in Arley, Ala., studied journalism at The University of Alabama, and earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Wyoming. He has received fellowships from the Longleaf Writers Conference, The Jentel Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Currently, Caleb teaches creative writing at the University of South Alabama.
Don Keith is a graduate of the University of Alabama. As a broadcast journalist, he won awards from the Associated Press and UPI and was the first recipient of Troy University’s Hector Award for innovation in broadcast journalism. As a broadcaster, Don was twice named Billboard Magazine "Radio Personality of the Year." His novel The Forever Season received the Alabama Library Association’s "Fiction of the Year" award. He has since published forty-one books, fiction and non-fiction. Several are nationally best-selling thrillers including Hunter Killer, the basis for the hit film starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman.
His writing has appeared in such publications as The Washington Post, The American Legion Magazine, and The Irish Times. Don is a partner in a film production company and was writer and producer of the theatrical documentary Colors of Character based on his biography of acclaimed Alabama artist Steve Skipper.
Don lives in Indian Springs Village, Alabama, with his wife, Charlene. His email address is don@donkeith.com and his web site is www.donkeith.com.
Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet’s nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. A founding member of the 1990s improvisational poetry collective, The Kevorkian Skull Poets, Layne believes in the radical transformative power found in the intersection of poetry and art, and he wants you to write your truth and share it out loud. A multiple Hackney Award winning writer, he has also been recognized by the National Society of Arts and Letters, and his poetry has been featured in Peek Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Steel Toe Review, B-Metro, and elsewhere. His poetry collection Miracle Strip is the 2024 Alabama State Poetry Society Book of the Year. Look for him at your local library.
Jason McCall holds an MFA from the University of Miami. His recent collections include the poetry collections Two-Face God; A Man Ain’t Nothin’; What Shot Did You Ever Take (co-authored with Brian Oliu); and the essay collection Razed by TV Sets. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.
Don Noble is professor emeritus of English at the University of Alabama, host of Alabama Public Television’s author interview program Bookmark, and book reviewer for Alabama Public Radio. He is the editor of volumes on Harper Lee, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald and four collections of Alabama fiction, Alabama Noir, Climbing Mt. Cheaha, A State of Laughter, and Belles’ Letters (with Jennifer Horne). He won a regional Emmy for Achievement in Screenwriting with Brent Davis for a documentary on Alabama writer William Bradford Huie and was the recipient of the 2000 Eugene Current-Garcia Award, the 2013 Wayne Greenhaw Service Award from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, and the 2017 Governor's Arts Award given by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Barbara Barcellona Smith grew up on the Central Coast of California with her Italian father, Giuseppe Barcellona, and Puerto Rican/Cuban/Lebanese mother, Emily. It was nothing to come home from school to find dead doves, rabbits or whatever her hunter-dad shot that day.
Barbara’s ethnic household was quite unique providing her with a lifetime supply of strange, entertaining, and valuable stories she has written and is excited to share with young readers today. Her first book, Let’s Eat Snails!, is about the culinary traditions of other cultures and the importance of being open-minded. She has a degree in journalism/public relations from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She was an English as a Second Language educator and currently live in Enterprise, Alabama (BarbaraBarcellonaSmith.com).
Jessica Temple grew up in Alabama. She holds a BA in English from the University of Alabama, where she minored in journalism, an MA in English with dual emphases in creative writing and TESOL from Mississippi State University, and a PhD in poetry from Georgia State University.
She currently teaches at Alabama A&M University and works for the syndicated poetry college radio show melodically challenged.
Besides creative writing, her scholarly interests include 20th Century American literature and Southern literature specifically.
Her work has recently appeared in Aesthetica; Blast Furnace; Canyon Voices; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems from Negative Capability Press; Loose Change Magazine; and Over 35, Under Pressure anthology.
Her chapbook, Seamless and Other Legends, is available from Finishing Line Press.
Retiring as a police captain in Birmingham, Al., T.K. Thorne turned to crime with a trilogy of murder, magic, and mayhem in the “Magic City Stories” (House of Rose, House of Stone, and House of Iron) where a rookie policewoman discovers she is a witch. A deep dive into the past produced award-winning historical novels about famous, unnamed women briefly mentioned in the Bible (Noah’s Wife and Angels at the Gate) and two nonfiction works of civil rights (Last Chance for Justice and Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days). TKThorne.com
Mike Turner retired to Alabama after a 27-year career as a Federal law enforcement executive, and took up songwriting and poetry. He was named Male Gospel Entertainer of the Year (Age 50+) by both the Alabama Music Association (2016) and the North America Country Music Associations International (2017); and was featured performing his original songs about Alabama on the “15 Minutes of Fame” stage at the 2020 Monroeville Literary Festival. Mike has had more than 325 poems published in over 65 literary journals and anthologies; his poem, “Sense of Peace”, won the Alabama Writers Cooperative’s 2023 Roger Williams Peace Prize. He is on the AWC board of directors and edits the AWC Newsletter. Mike’s book, Visions and Memories, was published by Sweetycat Press in 2021.
Sue Brannan Walker is a Professor Emerita at the University of South Alabama where she chaired the English Department and taught literature and poetry. She is a former Poet Laureate of Alabama, was inducted into the University of Alabama College of Education Hall of Fame in 2024, and will be inducted into the University of Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in March 2025. She has published books of poetry, nonfiction, and literature and is the publisher and editor of Negative Capability Press.
Growing up on a pig farm on Sand Mountain in North Alabama, Neal Wooten's new memoir, With the Devil's Help (Pegasus Crime/Simon and Schuster) is being made into a ten-part miniseries. An author, actor, artist, and standup comic, Neal is the creator of Pancho el Pit Bull, now considered the most popular cartoon in parts of South America. A production company is currently making it into an animated series. His new sci-fi romance saga, End Z.O.N.E., is due out July 1, 2024.
Workshop DESCRIPTIONS
(See complete schedule and locations on registration form above)
Banquet Keynote: “Write With the Whole World in Your Arms: Building Writing Communities” - Javacia Harris Bowser
In her book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg asserts that writing is a communal act. She tells us writers that we are not “Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire.” Be a tribal writer, she urges, “and write with the whole world in your arms.” Through See Jane Write, a writing community I founded in 2011, I have learned how to be a tribal writer and why we should. Being a tribal writer is not without its challenges but doing so has not only improved my writing but also has changed my life. I’ve learned many lessons along the way, lessons that – as a tribal writer – I’m eager to share with others.
"Confessions of a Book Critic" - Don Noble
A prolific book reviewer offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on how he chooses which books to review and how he approaches reviewing them. He’ll also give advice on writing reviews for publication.
"Blame it on the Book-keepers" - Matthew Layne
Matthew Layne, former President of the Alabama Library Association, will give a brief overview of how Alabama libraries and librarians became a target in the current culture wars, and what you can do to defend your First Amendment Rights, followed by a discussion of how best communicate with librarians and get your work on their shelves.
"Let’s Write Books! Perspectives from the Writer of Let’s Eat Snails!" - Barbara Barcellona Smith
To become a published writer? Bottom line, it all boils down to believing in the quality of your writing, believing in the value of your story, and willing yourself to continue through the painful publishing process. In this presentation I will share my own experience from pen to paper to Pulitzer Prize-Winning author endorsement. We will discuss writing to your strengths, writing what you know, writing about culture and diversity in America’s melting pot, publishing tips – yes – I broke every rule, strong query letters, confident cold calling, instincts, utilizing contacts, and even the occasional peaceful sit-in. We will talk about the importance of a well-designed, user-friendly, enticing website for publicity and sales purposes and how I made an author video bringing the snail picking process to life. We will also discuss reaching out to radio, local tv, magazines, libraries, and attending local events. I look forward to answering questions and I look forward to meeting you!
"Writing Fantasy Novels for Young Readers" - Hallie Christensen and Emma Fox
Fantasy books may take place in other worlds, but they can be powerful guides in helping young people to navigate their own. In this workshop, authors Hallie Christensen and Emma Fox share the keys to writing strong and sellable fiction for middle grade and teen readers, with a focus on fantasy. We'll touch on the core topics of worldbuilding and voice, and share some of the pros and cons of self-publishing, small press, and working with literary agents in the larger publishing world.
”Writing in Place” - Tina Mozelle Braziel and Jim Braziel
We experience and remember more when we take time to jot down field notes or postcards. Join Tina Mozelle Braziel and James Braziel at Orange Beach Waterfront Park for a guided exercise and tips on how to make writing in place part of your practice.
"Publishing Your Poetry Manuscript" - Sue Walker and Saundra Grace
The What and How of getting published – prose and poetry: chapbook, book, and journal. An interactive workshop.
"Going Beyond Getting Ready to Start to Commence to Begin Thinking About Writing or Completing Your Novel" - Don Keith
Practical ideas on finally completing (or starting) the novel or other work that you have been postponing writing since Reagan was president. Prolific best-selling and award-winning author Don Keith, who overcame laziness, a demanding media career, procrastination, and abundant soul-crushing rejection to publish 42 (and counting) books—fiction and non-fiction—offers tips on getting past “writer’s block” and some of those other imaginary impediments to authors whose muses have suddenly ceased being chatty.
Publishing Panel: "Queries, Proposals, and Submissions" - Melissa Carrigee
Join a seasoned publishing professional as she shares insider tips and strategies for successfully navigating the world of book publishers. Learn the dos and don'ts of crafting compelling queries, proposals, and submissions. Get your questions answered and gain valuable insights to boost your chances of getting published.
"Understanding the Art of Mystery Writing" - T.K. Thorne and Debra Goldstein
An analysis of the sub-genres of crime fiction and the elements necessary to write compelling novels and short stories.
"Eco-Fiction: Crafting Nature-Inspired Narratives" - Claire Datnow
Dive into the exciting realm of eco-fiction; Through discussions and generative writing exercises, discover how contemporary writers craft narratives that reflect our connection with nature, addressing pressing issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. Unlock the techniques authors employ to weave environmental themes into gripping tales. Craft your own eco-inspired work, aiming to spark critical reflections on our role in the natural world. Learn how our stories contribute to the dialogue on our planet's future.
"Make 'Em Laugh" - Neal Wooten
Donald O'Connor in Singing in the Rain:
Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin' to eat
Just slip on a banana peel,
The world's at your feet
Make 'em laugh. Make 'em laugh. Make 'em laugh.
Author, comedian, and cartoonist Neal Wooten discusses the importance of levity in literature. In trying to make our characters heroic, knowledgeable, villainous, etc., we often forget to make them real. In real life, 50% of the population love to make others laugh and 100% of the population love to laugh.
"Beyond the Big Five: Assessing the Publishing Landscape" - Don Keith and Neal Wooten
Two veteran writers assess the landscape of publishing beyond the "big five" major commercial publishers, including university/academic presses, indie publishing, self-publishing, hybrid, and small and niche presses.
"Taking the Leap: How to Jump from Short Story- and Poetry-Writing to Novel-Writing" - Aimee Hardy
Sometimes the ideas that emerge in short stories and in poetry are just the “jumping off point” and can be the perfect opportunity to dive into novel-writing. In this workshop, we will take the seeds of ideas and explore how they can be used in novels and longer works of fiction. Author Aimee Hardy uses her own experience growing her career as a short story author to a novelist as a practical example. From generating questions to working through possibilities to fleshing out a long-form story, we will work through the process of "taking the leap" and turning your big ideas into a novel.
“Ekphrastic Poetry” - Jessica Temple