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Master Classes:
November 4th-7th, 2019

Conference:
November 8th-10th, 2019

The 2019 Kauai Writers Conference ended to tremendous acclaim.

Both participants and faculty loved their experience here.

 

2019 MASTER CLASSES

 

The Art of Short Story

Richard Bausch

Turning Life Into Art

Christina Baker Kline

Paula McLain

Meg Wolitzer

Bringing the Past Alive

Whitney Scharer

Priya Parmar

Plot & Character

Greg Iles

Breathing Life Into Your Novel

Anne Perry

Victoria Zackheim

The Art of Non-Fiction

Mark Kurlansky

5-Sense Psychology

Joshua Mohr

Masters of Modern Fiction

Nicholas Delbanco

Cutting and Polishing

Elizabeth Rosner

The Power of Words

Amy Ferris

Linda Schreyer

Getting Ready for Publication

Andy Ross

Brooke Warner

Your Book into Film

Ken Sherman

Jim Abell

Putting Your Passion into Print

Arielle Eckstut

David Henry Sterry

 

PUBLISHING

The second most requested change was for more agents interested in a diversity of topics. We’ve increased the roster of agents to include:

 

Pitch & Critique Sessions with Literary Agents & Editors

 

Susan Golomb

Writers House

Stephanie Cabot

The Gernert Company

Alia Hanna Habib

The Gernert Company

Elizabeth Kracht

Kimberly Cameron & Associates

Andy Ross

Andy Ross Literary Agency

Ken Sherman

Ken Sherman & Associates

Brooke Warner

She Writes Press

Arielle Eskstut

The Book Doctors

Levine Greenberg Rostan

Kevin Larimer

Poets & Writers Magazine

David Sterry

The Book Doctors

Michelle Tessler

Tessler Literary Agency

 

 

SPONSORED BY:

Fiction | Nonfiction | Memoir | Poetry | Screenwriting | Top Authors | Literary Agents

Fiction | Nonfiction | Memoir | Poetry | Screenwriting | Top Authors | Literary Agents

2019 EVENT ARCHIVE

Authors:

Literary Agents:

Publishing:

“I’m a veteran, and this was an exceptionally well-organized, conceptually-rich, generous, fruitful and peaceful gathering. I’m amazed that, at least from my point of view, there were no visible glitches in any of the complicated logistics. It was genuine Aloha spirit that made the Kauai magic happen.”

—2018 attendee.

 

 

2019 Master Classes

Four days of close personal guidance in small groups with living masters of their genres. Choose from Fiction, Memoir, Screenwriting, Poetry and others.

MORNING MASTER CLASSES

4 Days | Monday 11/4 – Thursday 11/7  |  9:00am to 12:00

Plot & Character Development

with Greg Iles

 

For writers wrestling with nuanced multidimensional characters in a complex plot structure, this class will be a game changer. Greg will share intimate stories of life-altering moments that led him to fearlessly cast aside merely good prose in favor of the great. He will lead participants not to emulate him, but to delve into their lives to bring out their own unique gems of situation and personality.

New York Times #1 bestselling author Greg Iles navigates the line between big commercial thrillers and literature. The Washington Post writes: “Natchez Burning obliterates the artificial distinction between genre and literary fiction with passion, grace and considerable style.” The Times (London) called Natchez Burning “the thriller of the year, of the decade even.” Stephen King said, “Natchez Burning is extraordinarily entertaining and fiendishly suspenseful. I defy you to start it and find a way to put it down . . . This is an amazing work of popular fiction.”

Turning Life Into Art

with Christina Baker Kline, Paula McLain, Meg Wolitzer

 

Christina Baker Kline is returning to KWC to lead this class again. It was the most popular of all the master classes last year. Attendees came away feeling that their entire approach to writing had been transformed and enriched.

This year, Christina will be joined by Paula McLain and Meg Wolitzer.

The class is a rare opportunity to learn from these three remarkable authors. Each will delve deeply into the process by which she draws inspiration for her work from people, places and events in her life. Writing, at its essence, is a process of transmuting one’s life experiences into art. In this class, you will learn unique way each of these renowned writers does this.

It is equally suitable for writers of fiction and memoir. Through dialog and written exercises, each of the three teachers will inspire and challenge you to become more conscious and intentional about how you yourself are “turning life into art.”

Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train and A Piece of the World are each major international bestsellers.

Paula McLain is author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Paris Wife, Circling the Sun, and Love and Ruin.

Meg Wolitzer is the author of numerous bestselling books including The Female Persuasion and The Wife (now an Oscar-nominated film.)

The Art of Non-Fiction

with Mark Kurlansky

 

In this four-day class, Mark will work closely with non-fiction writers on issues including:

 

  • Zeroing in on your topic—finding the fascination that lies hidden in plain sight.
  • Efficient research techniques to find gems of factual reality.
  • Meeting the challenges of nonfiction publishing

Mark Kurlansky is a beloved teacher of writing.  In addition to numerous guest lectures at Columbia University School of Journalism, Yale University, Colby College, Grinnell College, the University of Dayton  and various other schools, he has taught a two week creative writing class in Assisi, Italy, a one week intensive non-fiction workshop in Devon, England for the Arvon Foundation, and has guest lectured all over the world on history, writing, environmental issues, and other subjects. 

He is the widely acknowledged master of single-topic nonfiction. His bestsellers Cod, Salt, Milk, and Paper—among his thirty other booksshowed his many devoted readers the overlooked charm of the commonplace.

The New York Times Book Review describes him as “Brilliant… Journalistic skills might be part of a writer’s survival kit, but they infrequently prove to be the foundation for literary success, as they have here. …. Kurlansky has a wonderful ear for the syntax and rhythm of the vernacular… For all the seriousness of Kurlansky’s cultural entanglements, it is nevertheless a delight to experience his sophisticated sense of play and, at times, his outright wicked sense of humor.”

Putting Your Passion into Print

with Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry

You’ve got a book inside of you, but do you know how to get it out into the world? The Book Doctors are here to help you locate your voice, unshackle your creativity, and shape a life that will lead you down the road to publication.

Why passion? It moves mountains and it sells books. It’s the one quality all successful writers share. With their trademark blend of humor, inspiration, and information, The Book Doctors will show you how to harness your passion to write and sell your book.

This master class will help you:

 

  • Make sure you’re writing the right book;
  • Train yourself and your loved ones to give you the time you need to be a writer;
  • Overcome Writer’s Block, PD (procrastination disorder), and Perfectionitis;
  • Pick the right title;
  • Determine what category your book is in (memoir or novel? young adult or middle grade? literary or commercial?);
  • Edit yourself and/or choose the right editor for you;
  • Tap into your true voice when writing your book;
  • Develop your pitch and your marketing materials;
  • Research and put together the right agent list;
  • Write a query letter that will get a response;
  • Figure out if you want to be published by The Big 5, an independent publisher, a hybrid or if you want to self-publish;
  • Learn to deal with rejection;
  • And finally, bring more joy to your writing life.

David Henry Sterry & Arielle Eckstut are co-founders of the Book Doctors.  They are co-authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How To Write It, Sell It, and Market It… Successfully (Workman, 2015).

Arielle has been a literary agent for over 25 years at The Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. She is the author of ten books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, LittleMissMatched.

David is the best-selling author of 16 books.  His first book has been translated into 10 languages; his latest book was featured on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  They’ve taught at Stanford University, Indiana University, Smith College, and other institutions. Some of the publications they have appeared in include The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

The Power of Words: Writing/Righting Our Lives

A workshop collaboration with Amy Ferris and Linda Schreyer

 

Everyone has a story. Every woman, every man. Whether it’s deeply personal or greatly inspired. Whether it’s a long-held secret, or a long-held dream; every one of us has a story we want to tell, share, write about and get down on the page. And most of us don’t know where or how to begin. It’s daunting, it’s scary; the first word, the first sentence; bringing to life the very first paragraph. This workshop is all about igniting those words. One word leads to another word, leads to another word, leads to a sentence or two or three…and leads to a story. Amy Ferris and Linda Schreyer are collaborating on this extraordinary writing workshop dedicated to the irrefutable power of words and story telling; sharing those stories, the one’s we’ve kept hidden, the ones we dare share; the ones we’ve tucked away out fear and shame and humiliation. The ones we’ve imagined and concocted, and yes, dreamed about. The stories that move & shake & rattle the universe – the stories that save our lives, the stories that change the world: those are the very stories we are going to share in this workshop. Amy and Linda will help you unlock the story within you, and they will give you some tools to help you write it. You may very well be strangers when you first come to this master class – but you will be a community of writers by the time you leave. Tell us – what is your story?

Amy Ferris is an author, screenwriter, editor and playwright. Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney: Confessions From A Midlife Crisis debuted theatrically (Off-Broadway) in 2012. Ruth Pennebaker of The New York Times called her memoir “poignant, free-wheeling, cranky and funny.” Amy co-edited, along with Hollye Dexter, the new anthology DANCING AT THE SHAME PROM. She has contributed to numerous anthologies including: He Said What? The Drinking Diaries, Exit Laughing, and The Buddha Next Door.

Linda Schreyer is an author, television and screenwriter, writing teacher and music composer. She has a long career as a writer for TV and movies, including over 1,000 hours of serial television for which she received a Writers Guild Award nomination. She has mentored countless writers to completion of their books, taught classes since 1995 and conducted large writing workshops for organizations. Her books include From Cowboy to Mogul to Monster, and Tears and Tequila.

Masters of Modern Fiction

with Nicholas Delbanco

 

It is an honor and a privilege to have Nicholas Delbanco return for a third time to conduct a workshop at the Kauai Writers Conference. In this class, he will delve into the unique styles of masters of modern fiction. By analyzing their voices, he will guide his students to develop their own.

John Updike said Delbanco “wrestles with the abundance of his gifts as a novelist the way other men wrestle with their deficiencies.” He is a writer that other writers, including many of the most celebrated, look up to and have sought out for advice. He’s served as both chairman of the fiction panel of the National Book Awards and as a judge for, among other contests, the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction..

Delbanco is the author of twenty-nine books, both fiction and nonfiction. He was the founding director of the Bennington Writing Workshops and served for many years as head of the esteemed creative writing program at University of Michigan. There he was director of the Hopwood Awards Program, the oldest and best known series of writing prizes in the academy.

In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner paraphrases Delbanco, who “remarked that by the age of four one has experienced nearly everything one needs as a writer of fiction: love, pain, loss, boredom, rage, guilt, fear of death.” Yet Delbanco’s recent book, Lastingness, the Art of Old Age, reflects on the qualities that transcend age in the lives of authors. His most recent work of non-fiction, “Curiouser and Curiouser: Essays” continues that exploration, both in personal and in professional terms.
Delbanco has a unique voice. His workshop will focus on helping writers find and refine their own individual voices. He says: “My notion of a failed writing workshop is when everybody comes out replicating the teacher and imitating as closely as possible the great original at the head of the table.” Instead, in his storied career of helping authors, he has found the gift of identifying, honing, and perfecting the individual style of each one.

We can promise that those fortunate enough to find a spot in Delbanco’s workshop will find it a seminal event in their writing careers.

Nicholas Delbanco has published twenty-five books of fiction and non-fiction. His most recent novels are The Count of Concord and Spring and Fall; his most recent works of non-fiction are The Countess of Stanlein Restored and The Lost Suitcase: Reflections on the Literary Life. As editor he has compiled the work of, among others, John Gardner and Bernard Malamud.

Nicholas has served as Chair of the Fiction Panel for the National Book Awards. He’s The Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan and heads the MFA Program as well as the Hopwood Awards Program. He  received a Guggenheim Fellowship and, twice, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship. His teaching text for McGraw-Hill is entitled Literature: Craft and Voice, and he edited a three-volume Introduction to Literature with Alan Cheuse. in 2004 he published The Sincerest Form: Writiing Fiction by Imitation. His new non-fiction book, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age was published by Grand Central Publishing in 2011.

Getting Ready for Publication

with Andy Ross & Brooke Warner

 

This class is for writers who have fiction and creative non-fiction projects at an advanced stage and are ready to take the steps necessary for finding a commercial publisher. The first part of the class will focus on final editing and polishing the craft elements of your manuscript including character, voice, style, and plot from the perspective of how literary agents and acquisition editors evaluate these elements in the acquisition process.

The second part of the class will focus on the different paths writers can take for publishing. Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press will join us. Andy will discuss steps you must take before submitting your project to agents. We will workshop your query letters and teach you what makes an effective non-fiction book proposal. We will consider strategies for finding the right agent for your project, and how to work with an agent who has decided to represent you. We will discuss the elements of the book contract and how the publisher will work with you before and after publication. In the process, we will also have a lot to say about the culture and the business of book publishing.

Brooke will lead the discussion on alternatives to publishing with commercial publishers.

Following the conference, the instructors, literary agent Andy Ross and book publisher Brooke Warner, will consult with each participant individually and edit your draft query letters and book proposal overviews.

 

AFTERNOON MASTER CLASSES

4 Days | Monday 11/4 – Thursday 11/7  |  1:30pm to 4:30pm

5-Sense Psychology

with Joshua Mohr

This class by Joshua Mohr was the surprise hit of the 2018 Kauai Writers Conference. By the second day, word spread about how good it was, and people were dropping out of classes given by more famous authors to sit in. Josh captivated his audience with his wit and unassuming wisdom. Students said it transformed their whole approach to writing. So many people asked for us to offer this class again that we present it unchanged for 2019.

This seminar will examine how setting might be a useful frame of reference for rendering a character’s inner life, the heartbeats and brainwaves of our main players. For if we’re interested in plumbing the existential depths of our protagonists, perhaps our readers need to traverse the mind and metaphorical heart as a 360 degree location, the setting of the mind.

Camaraderie between reader and main character is vital if we’re to establish a lasting, poignant connection between them. But how do we go about building that? What if we render a character’s consciousness as though it’s a cogent ecosystem for the reader to inhabit?

During the course, students will be led through all five senses – touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing –learning how to translate these perceptions into opportunities to enhance thought process and psychic access on the page. Through in-class reading and writing prompts, students will practice each sense, cementing an understanding on how to bring these techniques straight into your work-in-progress, building dynamic inner lives for your characters, places for your reader to curl up and listen to the whispers of the heart.

Joshua Mohr is the author of the novels “Termite Parade,” an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List, and “Some Things that Meant the World to Me,” one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a SF Chronicle best-seller. His most recent novel is “Damascus” about which the New York Times said:

“The author’s jaunty voice [is] Beat-poet cool…Mohr nails the atmosphere of a San Francisco still breathing in the smoke that lingers from the days of Jim Jones and Dan White, a time when passionate ideologies and personal dysfunction intermingled and combusted.”

Mohr teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco and Stanford University’s creative writing program.

Breathing Life into your Novel

with Anne Perry & Victoria Zackheim

 

Anne Perry, the author of more than ninety novels, many on the New York Times bestseller list, and Victoria Zackheim, novelist, playwright, and instructor in the UCLA Writers’ Program, are not only dear friends, but they have collaborated on many projects and taught workshops together. Both of them are dedicated to the working with authors to create compelling and marketable plots, and to take those fictional (or fictionalized) characters and give them unique and memorable voices.

This workshop will guide you through the basics of creating your novel. Plot and character development, back story, identifying/developing/portraying character arcs, learning about continuity, conflict, and then resolution. Add to this instruction on outlining the novel, organizing scenes, building tension…and editing.

By the end of this four-day course, you will have the skeleton…and good amount of flesh!…for your novel.

Would you like to pull your readers into a story they cannot resist? This is a good place to start!

Anne Perry is an extremely prolific writer. She works at her craft 12 hours a day, six days a week. Death on Blackheath is the twenty-ninth in her Victorian mystery series starring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. Its first installment, The Cater Street Hangman, was released in 1979. She has also written twenty novels in her William Monk series, set in an earlier period of Victoria’s reign.  In addition to those 49 novels, she also, during those 35 years, wrote five World War I mysteries, two faith-inspired epic fantasy novels that explore the meaning of life, and 11 mystery novellas with Christmas themes, three YA novels featuring time travel, two adult historicals set in late-18th-century France, and another set in the waning stages of the Byzantine Empire.

 
Victoria Zackheim is author of The Bone Weaver and creator/editor of six anthologies, including The Other Woman, which she adapted to the theater. Her play Entangled was based on the memoir of the same name. Victoria wrote Maidstone, a feature film about the IRA prison breakout in Northern Ireland, now under development, and is working with Amber Entertainment and mystery writer Anne Perry on a series based on Perry’s Thomas Pitt series. Victoria wrote the documentary Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps, which aired nationwide on PBS. She created Women’s Voices, an event in which five authors present their work and discuss the craft of writing and the life of a writer. She teaches creative nonfiction/essay in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

The Art of the Short Story

with Richard Bausch

 

The Kauai Writers Conference is honored to have this master of his genre give a class devoted to short story writing. Crafting a short story is a no less demanding task than writing a novel. In some ways it is harder. Characters need to be fully developed and a compelling story arc traversed in just a few pages. Add to that the fact that few short story collections ever make it to the best seller lists, and one might wonder why writers would set their sights on such a daunting task. The answer, as for any art form, is simple: because they are compelled to.

In this small group workshop, Richard will cover such key elements of short story success as the importance of the untold subtext, creating memorable characters with an economy of words, and grabbing and keeping the readers’ imagination. This is a rare opportunity for intimate communication with this true short story genius.

In selecting Richard Bausch for the 2012 Rea Prize, the highest honor in short story writing, jurors Stuart Dybek, and Richard Ford wrote:

“Richard Bausch is a shining light in the small group of great American story-writers. His stories, published in many languages and widely anthologized in our own country, bear out the directive that literature should renew our sensuous and emotional lives and foster a new awareness in its readers. Bausch’s stories, solidly, eloquently in the realistic tradition shared by O’Connor (Frank and Flannery).Welty, Cheever and Yates, are ever in search of the heretofore unsayable in human affairs. In doing so, they are incisive, surprising, felicitous, various, often mirthful, and unstintingly about those subjects we can not afford to ignore: matters of life and death, yes; but chiefly matters of life sustained.”

Bringing the Past Alive

with Whitney Scharer & Priya Parmar

 

This class with Priya and Whitney is an exceptional opportunity for writers of historical fiction to hone their craft. It is designed for writers of this genre at all levels of accomplishment. Historical fiction presents unique challenges. It is neither biography nor pure fiction. Subjects’ lives must be meticulously researched, and the knowledge gained has to inspire rather than merely be reported upon. Achieving a distinctive voice for each character is nowhere more important than in historical fiction. Each must come alive on the page with authenticity, remaining always true to their personality. Both Priya and Whitney will inspire their students with accounts of their fascination in immersing themselves in the lives of real people, and extrapolating narratives as plausible as if they were purely factual.

Historical fiction presents its own challenges of point of view, character development, and story arc. Priya and Whitney each deal with these issues in unique ways. You will learn not merely to imitate them, but to adapt the lessons they have learned to tell your story in the way that rings most true to you and your characters.

Priya Parmar is the author of two acclaimed works of historical fiction, Exit the Actress, inspired by Nell Gwyn, an impoverished girl who became the mistress of Charles II, and Vanessa and Her Sister, a story of the Bloomsbury Group from the perspective of Virginia Woolf’s less famous sister Vanessa Bell.

The New York Times Book Review wrote of Vanessa and Her Sister, “Rarely do you encounter a woman who commands as much admiration as does the painter Vanessa Bell in Priya Parmar’s multilayered, subtly shaded novel. . . . Parmar’s fabricated journal is an uncanny success. Its entries, plausible and graceful, are imbued with the same voice that can be found in letters by or about Vanessa. . . . Parmar gives truth and definition to the character of a woman whose nature was as elusive as her influence was profound. She has caught the phantom.”

Whitney Scharer’s first book is due to be published in February, yet she has become one of the most talked-about authors in the publishing world. Her historical novel The Age of Light drew such interest that it was sold at auction for more than a million dollars, arguably the highest price ever for a debut work.

Fellow Kauai Writers Conference faculty member Paula McLain wrote, “Rapturous and razor sharp all at once, The Age of Light fearlessly unzips anything we might know of Lee Miller as model and muse and recasts her as artist, free thinker and architect of a singular and unapologetic life. Whitney Scharer is a stunning new discovery. This novel sparks on every page.”

Cutting and Polishing: Turning your good manuscript into a great book

with Elizabeth Rosner

 

You’ve completed a draft, or nearly so. You think it’s good. But is it the best it can be? Is it enough of a gem to stand out in today’s crowded marketplace? What can you do to transform your manuscript from adequate to extraordinary? That is the topic of this unique class.

In Elizabeth Rosner’s three-decade career as a teacher and nationally bestselling author, she has worked with hundreds of writers in revising and refining drafts and turning them into successful books. She has not won the Pulitzer for her writing (at least so far), but if there were one for teaching, we think she would be a top candidate. And a multitude of her grateful students share this opinion. She is truly an exceptional teacher.

Elizabeth will invite you to share excerpts, both those that you think are excellent, and others that you aren’t sure about. She will skillfully dissect them, finding what makes the great parts great and where the less-than-great parts are missing the mark.

She will help you to identify what truly works in your manuscript. The originality of your voice. The depth of your characters. The power of your story arc. The fluency and cleanliness of your prose. Then, with her exceptional gift for gently yet accurately guiding writers, she will help you understand where these strengths shine brightly, and where they don’t.

Writers sometimes dread the process of revision. “I gave it my best shot,” they tell themselves. “I’d rather move on to another book now.” And their book languishes unpublished, or if it is published, not widely read. Elizabeth’s inspirational teaching has helped many to bring the same joyful creative energy to the revision process that compelled them to write the book in the first place.

We enthusiastically recommend this class for writers who have a completed or nearly completed manuscript in any genre—fiction, memoir, non-fiction, short story or other—who have the courage to recognize that their creation is not quite the masterpiece they want it to be, and the determination to bring it to its true potential.

 

Elizabeth Rosner is a bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist living in Berkeley, California. Her most recent book, SURVIVOR CAFÉ: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and in The New York Times; it was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award and named one of the Best Books of 2017 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her third novel, ELECTRIC CITY, was included among the Best Books of 2014 by National Public Radio. Her poetry collection, GRAVITY, was also published in 2014. THE SPEED OF LIGHT, Rosner’s acclaimed debut novel in 2001, was translated into nine languages. Short-listed for the prestigious Prix Femina, the book won several literary prizes in both the US and Europe, including the Prix France Bleu Gironde; the Great Lakes Colleges Award for New Fiction; and Hadassah Magazine’s Ribalow Prize, judged by Elie Wiesel. BLUE NUDE, her second novel, was selected as one of the Best Books of 2006 by the SF Chronicle. Rosner’s essays have appeared in the NY Times Magazine, Elle, the Forward, and numerous anthologies. Her book reviews appear frequently in the SF Chronicle. A graduate of Stanford University, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of Queensland in Australia, Elizabeth has been teaching writing workshops and lecturing internationally for three decades. She also coaches writers privately.

Your Book into Film

with Ken Sherman & Jim Abell

 

Ken has made a career of adapting books for successful films and TV shows. Today with the rise of Netflix, Amazon and others, the opportunities to take your book to the screen are both greater and more complex than ever. In this class, Ken will draw upon a multitude of examples showing what worked, what didn’t, and the reasons—often subtle and non-obvious—for both. He will ask students to provide excerpts from their own writing and examine them in class, focusing on their potential for film and TV and what you can do to improve it.

Jim Abell is a legendary writer of comedies for TV. He has written for Lily Tomlin, Phyllis Diller, and Rowan and Martin, among others. He will present eye-opening stories about how he made his way into this exclusive club, and offer insider insights into what it takes to write and adapt material for TV. These days, TV has vastly expanded its scope to include platforms such at Amazon, Netflix and others. Some of the best cinematic writing is now created not just for movies but for the new world of television. Jim will naturally also focus on bringing humor into your work. 

Topics will include:

  • How to optimize your book for the screen
  • What the studios are looking for
  • Best points of entry for a writer hoping for success in film and TV
  • Successes that came from following rules and from breaking rules

Ken Sherman has been an agent for more than twenty years. Ken is also a popular and accomplished speaker, having taught and lectured extensively at venues including UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount University, both in New Orleans and Los Angeles, The Santa Barbara Writers’ conference, the American Film Institute, The San Francisco Writers Conference, The Maui Writers Conference, The University of Oklahoma, Sherwood Oaks Experiment College, The Santa Fe Writers Conference, The Novelists, Inc. Conference in San Diego, The Aspen Institute, the Aspen Summers Words Writers Conference and The Eugene International Film Festival where he just received a lifetime achievement award.

Since graduating from the University of California-Berkeley with a major in psychology, Ken has returned numerous times to the classroom to teach his course, “The Business of Writing for Screen, Television and the Publishing Worlds,” at both USC and UCLA. He also co-taught a screenwriting class for many years at the Eugene International Film Festival.

Ken maintains strong community involvement as well, serving as an Arts and Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of West Hollywood, is a founding member of the British Academy of Film and Television/Los Angeles (BAFTA), and is a member of both the Academy of Television Arts and Science and the International Advisory Board of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.

 

Jim Abell is a comedy writer of some of the most popular television ever written. As a staff writer for two seasons of LAUGH-IN, Jim made people crack up not only all over America, but on Canadian, English, Australian, German and Japanese TV. Paramount / ABC ’sLOVE, AMERICAN STYLE hired Jim and CHET DOWLING to write the blackouts that fit betweenthe stories.

Jim was hired to write the pilot for BLACK OMNIBUS hosted by JAMES EARL JONES, and insisted the series needed a Black writer tofor the variety series, and hired LEROY ROBINSON to write with him. The pilot sold and Robinson continued on as the series head writer. In all, Jim has written over a hundred hours of PRIMETIME SPECIALS, PILOTS and SERIES for NBC, ABC and CBS.

JIM ABELL has been nominated for AN EMMY AWARD for writing LAUGH-IN, which received the EMMY AWARD for BEST COMEDY, MUSIC OR VARIETY SERIES. Jim has also received the WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA “101 BEST TELEVISION
SHOWS EVER WRITTEN” AWARD in 2016.

Jim looks forward to helping writers create a comedic element to their projects, when appropriate.

Delicious and varied breakfast and lunch buffets are included during the conference,
and are available for an extra cost each day of the master classes.

2019 Event Schedule

Four days of close personal guidance in small groups with living masters of their genres. Choose from Fiction, Memoir, Screenwriting, Poetry and others.

Friday, November 8th, 2019

 
Time Kauai Ballroom 2 Kauai Ballroom 1 Puna Classroom 1 Puna Classroom 2
7:30 – 9:00

– BREAKFAST –

Puna and Kauai Courts

(Registration table open 7:30 by Puna Ballroom)

9:00 – 9:30 WELCOME AND BLESSING
Kumu Sabra Kauka
and her hula halau
     
9:30 – 10:30 Meg Wolitzer,
Christina Baker Kline,
Greg Iles
Sources of Inspiration
Moderated by Kevin Larimer
     
10:45 – 11:45 Mike Robbins
The Power of Authenticity
Joshua Mohr,
Nicholas Delbanco
What makes good writing good? 
   
12:00 – 1:00

– LUNCH –

Puna and Kauai Courts

1:15 – 2:15   Greg Iles
Workshop: Plot Structure
Richard Bausch
Workshop: Short Story
Ken Sherman
Workshop: Screenwriting & adapting books to film
2:30 – 3:30 Amy Ferris,
Linda Schreyer
Workshop: Memoir
Anne Perry,
Victoria Zackheim
Workshop: Story Arc
Laura Lentz
Workshop: Writing about Sex
Meg Wolitzer,
Katie Davis
Workshop: Writing for Young Adults –
Oh, the People You’ve Been! Accessing Your Younger Self When Writing YA
3:45-4:45 Téa Obreht
The Tigers Wife: the inside story
     
6:00 – 9:30 – LUAU –
Dinner followed by Punua Family performance

At the Luau Gardens under the tent.

 

Saturday, November 9th, 2019

 
Time Kauai Ballroom 2 Kauai Ballroom 1 Puna Classroom 1 Puna Classroom 2
7:30 – 9:00

– BREAKFAST –

Puna and Kauai Courts

9:00 – 10:00   Christina Baker Kline,
Amanda Eyre Ward
Workshop: Creating Emotion on the Page
David Henry Sterry,
Arielle Eckstut
Four Paths to Getting Published
Mark Kurlansky
Workshop: Nonfiction
10:05 – 11:05 Paula McLain, Priya Parmar,
Whitney Scharer,
Amanda Eyre Ward
The writer’s path
with individual breakout sessions
     
11:10 – 12:05 Greg Iles
How and why I write
  Joshua Mohr
Plaracterization:
The kiss between plot and character
 
12:15 – 2:15 BEACH SIDE LUNCH – Poetry Reading with Jane Hirshfield
“A Larger Yes: Poetry as a Vessel of Discovery, Mindfulness, Expansion and Engagement”
12:15 – 1:15 Lunch | 1:15 – 2:15 Poetry Reading
Under the tent at the Kalapaki Beach Luau Grounds
2:30 – 3:25 Women’s Voices
Amy Ferris,
Linda Schreyer,
Anne Perry,
Victoria Zackheim,
Brooke Warner
Paula McLain
The Exquisite Risk: Inviting mystery, uncertainty and vulnerability into the creative process
Katie Davis
9 Actionable Tools to Get Your BIC (Butt in Chair)
Carrie Feron,
Lisa Sharkey
What Harper Collins looks for in fiction and nonfiction
3:35 – 4:25 Tea Obreht
Reflections on authenticity of voice and subject matter
Nicholas Delbanco
Elena Delbanco
Lastingness:
Writing in our Latter Decades
Kevin Larimer
The craft and business of journalism
Anne Perry,
Victoria Zackheim
The Art of the Crime Thriller
4:35 – 5:25 Christina Baker Kline
Creativity (multimedia presentation)
Brooke Warner
She Writes Press: A Model for Alternative Publishing Channels
Richard Bausch
Workshop: Short Story
Mark Kurlansky
Non-fiction: Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary
8:00 – 9:30 – CONCERT –
Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar

Very special guest to be announced​
Under the tent at the Kalapaki Beach Luau Gardens

 

Sunday, November 10th

 
 
Time Kauai Ballroom 2 Kauai Ballroom 1 Puna classroom 1 Puna classroom 2
9:00 – 11:00

 

– COURTYARD BRUNCH –
With tables hosted by participants with unique stories
Puna and Kauai Courts

11:00 – 12:30

 

– PITCHAPALOOZA –
David Henry Sterry, Arielle Eckstut
A quick pitch competition

 


 

– Our Writing Process –
Tea Obreht, Meg Wolitzer, Paula McLain

 

12:45-1:45 Greg Iles
Workshop: Character Development
  Joshua Mohr
Workshop: Finding & Honing Your Voice
Stephanie Cabot,
Susan Golomb,
How agents evaluate your work
1:55-2:55 Whitney Scharer,
Priya Parmar
Workshop: Historical Fiction
  Ken Sherman
Does your book have film or TV potential? Some unlikely examples.
Andy Ross,
Lisa Sharkey,
Carrie Feron
Alia Habib,
Michelle Tessler
Surviving and thriving in today’s new publishing landscape
3:05-4:05 Stephanie Cabot,
Priya Parmar
The Author/Agent Dynamic
Nicholas Delbanco
Workshop: Voice & Point of View
Katie Davis
Picture Book Pacing: How To Get It Right
Roger Jellinek,
Kevin Larimer,
Brooke Warner
Many Paths to Publishing Success
4:15-5:00 Meg Wolitzer
Write What’s Important To You
     
5:00-5:20 Closing Ceremony      

 

After the phenomenal success of the 2018 Kauai Writers Conference, we surveyed all attendees to ask how they liked the event. The great majority gave it five stars out of five (average rating 4.5.)

So what did folks who found room for improvement want to see changed? The number one request was for more workshops on craft. We’ve taken this to heart. This year, we will offer an expanded slate of master classes focusing on specific aspects of craft.

 

2019 MASTER CLASSES

 

The Art of Short Story

Richard Bausch

Turning Life Into Art

Christina Baker Kline

Paula McLain

Meg Wolitzer

Bringing the Past Alive

Whitney Scharer

Priya Parmar

Plot & Character

Greg Iles

Breathing Life Into Your Novel

Anne Perry

Victoria Zackheim

The Art of Non-Fiction

Mark Kurlansky

5-Sense Psychology

Joshua Mohr

Masters of Modern Fiction

Nicholas Delbanco

Cutting and Polishing

Elizabeth Rosner

The Power of Words

Amy Ferris

Linda Schreyer

Getting Ready for Publication

Andy Ross

Brooke Warner

Your Book into Film

Ken Sherman

Jim Abell

Putting Your Passion into Print

Arielle Eckstut

David Henry Sterry

 

PUBLISHING

The second most requested change was for more agents interested in a diversity of topics. We’ve increased the roster of agents to include:

 

Pitch & Critique Sessions with Literary Agents & Editors

 

Susan Golomb

Writers House

Stephanie Cabot

The Gernert Company

Alia Hanna Habib

The Gernert Company

Elizabeth Kracht

Kimberly Cameron & Associates

Andy Ross

Andy Ross Literary Agency

Ken Sherman

Ken Sherman & Associates

Brooke Warner

She Writes Press

Arielle Eskstut

The Book Doctors

Levine Greenberg Rostan

Kevin Larimer

Poets & Writers Magazine

David Sterry

The Book Doctors

Michelle Tessler

Tessler Literary Agency

 

 

SPONSORED BY: