Christina Baker Kline

Christina Baker Kline’s brilliant new novel, The Exiles, was an instant New York Times bestseller. It tells the stories of three women among the earliest settlers of Australia. It has been universally praised as a unique and penetrating look into these challenging times.

It’s one thing to write accurately about real people and real events of the past. It’s another thing to pull a character from one’s imagination. Christina Baker Kline has shown with her best-selling books A Piece of the World (2017) and Orphan Train (2013) that she can do both at the same time.

Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth’s best-known painting, Christina’s World, rented a studio to the artist, and was his friend and confidant for 30 years. Kline breathes life into Olson by blending deep historical research, her own knowledge of Maine, and even aspects of her own grandmother, also born in 1893.

Kline worked a similar magic in Orphan Train, which shed light on the 1854-1929 practice of relocating orphaned children from East Coast slums to the rural Midwest – where some were integrated into loving families and others harshly treated as indentured servants.

Orphan Train spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, including five weeks at No. 1, has 3.5 million copies in print, and is under consideration for a movie.

Kline enraptured a capacity crowd at the 2018 Kauai Writers Festival leading a class with Alice Hoffman and Kristin Hannah. Her class for 2019 will be announced soon.

In addition to five other novels – including Bird in Hand, Desire Lines and Sweet Water – Kline has written or edited five works of nonfiction on the topics of parenting, grief, and women’s studies. She has taught at Yale, New York University, and the University of Virginia, and served as Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University. She lives with her husband and sons in New Jersey and Maine.

Poet Dorianne Laux calls Bass “a poet of the elemental, always struggling to manage the science and biology of life with the mysteries of religion, philosophy and consciousness. In doing so, she helps us to appreciate the small miracles of this common life that we often take for granted.  It’s as if she is so startled to be alive, she can’t help asking every moment to stop and let her examine it, ask it a question.”

Poetry by Bass appears frequently in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, and many other journals. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. Among her many awards are Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize, The Missouri Review’s Larry Levis Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and a Lambda Literary Award. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University and around the country at a variety of workshops. Ellen founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, Calif. jails.

Former student Cairn Findley calls Bass “one of those rare poets whose craft equals her extraordinary teaching skills. She is an advocate for all writers and displays this in her wise and compassionate feedback.”

Bass co-edited, with Florence Howe, the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks! (1973). She is also the co-author of several non-fiction books, including The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (1988) and Free Your Mind, (1996), a supportive guide for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth, and their allies.

Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir, Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me, which was described by The New York Times Book Review as:

“Exquisite and harrowing. . . . The book is so gorgeously written and deeply insightful, and with a line of narrative tension that never slacks, from the first page to the last, that it’s one you’ll likely read in a single, delicious sitting.”

Published in October 2019 by HMH Books, Wild Game’s film rights were bought by Chernin Entertainment with Kelly Fremon Craig, the director of Edge of Seventeen, attached to adapt and direct.

Adrienne has spent the past two decades of her professional life in the literary world, discovering voices, cultivating talent, and working to amplify underrepresented writers. Her publishing career began with founding the fiction magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story, with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, where she served as editor in chief from 1996-2002. The magazine has won the prestigious National Magazine Award for best fiction four times. In 2005, she became an editor at Harcourt (later, HMH Books), where she acquired and edited literary fiction and memoir. Adrienne left publishing in 2013 to become Creative Director — and later Executive Director — of Aspen Words , a literary arts nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute.

Nicholas Delbanco, making his fourth appearance at the KWF, has had a storied career as a writer, editor, teacher and literary judge. He has written 29 books of fiction and non-fiction (plus essays, short stories and reviews). He founded and led Bennington College’s writing program and is Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, where he headed its renowned MFA and Hopwood Awards programs.

Delbanco has chaired the Fiction Panel for the National Book Awards, and served as judge for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner award in fiction. He wrote the well-loved books on the craft of writing, The Sincerest Form: Writing Fiction by Imitation, and, with Alan Cheuse, the college text Literature, Craft and Voice.

Author Valerie Laken wrote of Delbanco’s role as a mentor: “He’s made a career of bringing together, supporting, and celebrating writers, and in doing that he made them all believe—not just in themselves, but in the value of literature itself.”

About his recent work The Count of Concord , Russell Banks wrote that Delbanco “brought his entire array of amazing gifts into play and has written a wonderfully sad, funny, bawdy, and intellectually adventurous novel.”

In the introduction to his non-fiction work about older artists, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age (2011), Delbanco wrote:

“This book is about tribal elders in the world of art. What interests me is lastingness: how it may be attained. For obvious reasons, this has become a personal matter; I published my first novel in 1966 and very much hope to continue.”

Amanda Eyre Ward is the author of Sleep Toward Heaven, How to be Lost, Forgive Me, Close Your Eyes, The Same Sky, and the short story collection Love Stories in this Town. Her work has been optioned for film and television and published in fifteen countries.

“Treat yourself to The Jetsetters and let Amanda Eyre Ward’s wit, poignancy, and insight take you away. You deserve it. . . . The funniest novel that ever broke your heart.”

— Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Less 

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 edited the anthology, SHADES OF BLUE, Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue (Seal Press), co-edited the anthology DANCING AT THE SHAME PROM (Seal Press), and has contributed to numerous anthologies including He Said What? The Drinking Diaries, Exit Laughing, Hillary Clinton: Love Her Love Her Not, and The Buddha Next Door. Amy has written for both film and TV. Her screenplays include Mr. Wonderful (Directed by Anthony Minghella) and Funny Valentines (Directed by Julie Dash). Her YA novel, a greater goode (yes, all lowercase) was published by Houghton Mifflin. In 2018 Amy was awarded and named one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s eNews. She is currently co-authoring a book for HarperCollins.

To learn more about Amy visit her website marryinggeorgeclooney.com

Laura Lentz is a master writing teacher, author and developmental editor. She has taught themed creative writing workshops for over a decade to artists all over the world in intimate online groups and on Kauai’s north shore.

She is the author of Story-Quest, The Writer, the Hero, the Journey. Story-Quest is workbook for writers to guide them through the twelve stages of the Hero’s Journey by offering sequential writing prompts and literary examples for each stage of the hero’s journey out of best selling memoirs and poetry.

Laura helps writers expand their body of work by offering challenging and thought-provoking exercises inspired by poetry, science, music and excerpts from literature. Intimate groups of experienced writers from all over the world gather in small online groups for live, engaging workshops that are announced privately through her mailing list at www.literatiacademy.com.

Laura is also co-founder of Literati Academy, a community and school to support, encourage and assist writers in all creative endeavors. Laura is known for her Sex on the Page writing workshop, Ancestors and Epigenetics and her annual Poetry Room, which teaches writers how to use poetic form in all writing.

Laura is also the founder of the bi-annual Speak, Kauai spoken word performances on Hawaii that showcase writers from all over the world to sold out audiences, live streams and standing ovations.

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

She was born in Fresno, California in 1965. After being abandoned by both parents, she and her two sisters became wards of the California Court System, moving in and out of various foster homes for the next fourteen years. When she aged out of the system, she supported herself by working as a nurses aid in a convalescent hospital, a pizza delivery girl, an auto-plant worker, a cocktail waitress–before discovering she could (and very much wanted to) write. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan in 1996.

She is the author of The Paris Wife, a New York Times and international bestseller, which has been published in thirty-four languages. The recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is also the author of two collections of poetry; a memoir, Like Family, Growing up in Other People’s Houses; and a first novel, A Ticket to Ride. She lives with her family in Cleveland.

“[Paula] McLain has brought Hadley to life in a novel that begins in a rush of early love. . . . A moving portrait of a woman slighted by history, a woman whose . . . story needed to be told.”

—THE BOSTON GLOBE

“The Paris Wife creates the kind of out-of-body reading experience that dedicated book lovers yearn for, nearly as good as reading Hemingway for the first time—and it doesn’t get much better than that.” 

—MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

“Exquisitely evocative . . . This absorbing, illuminating book gives us an intimate view of a sympathetic and perceptive woman, the striving writer she married, the glittering and wounding Paris circle they were part of. . . . McLain reinvents the story of Hadley and Ernest’s romance with the lucid grace of a practiced poet.” 

—THE SEATTLE TIMES

Joshua Mohr is the author of five novels, including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Fight Song and Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times. His novel All This Life won the Northern California Book Award. His first book of nonfiction, a memoir called Sirens, was recently published.

To learn more about Joshua visit his website www.joshuamohr.net

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.

Richard Russo is the author of seven novels, a memoir, and one short story collection. His fifth book, Empire Falls, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002 and was later adapted for television by HBO based on Russo’s teleplay, earning him an Emmy nomination.

He also wrote the novel, Nobody’s Fool, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed film featuring Paul Newman. Known for his insightful, often humorous depictions of gritty northeastern towns and the characters that inhabit them, Russo has said that he wants,

“that which is hilarious and that which is heartbreaking to occupy the same territory in books,” because he thinks, “they very often occupy the same territory in life, much as we try to separate them.” 

In 2016 he was given the Indie Champion Award by the American Booksellers Association; and in 2017 he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine He taught English at Colby College for many years and lives with his wife in Maine.

Helen Simonson’s bestselling first novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, has been published in 20 countries and translated into 18 languages. Helen has been awarded the 2010/11 Waverton Good Read Award, the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance, and an honorable mention for the 2011 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand carries within its deceptively charming pages a fully realized morality tale, a study of modern manners vs. well worn tradition, racial and cultural issues, religious tolerance, and the power of love to overcome all obstacles. 

In her latest novel, The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson returns with a breathtaking historical novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set. 

“So vividly drawn it fairly vibrates…nothing short of a treasure.”

— Paula McClain, The Paris Wife and Circling The Sun

Elizabeth Stark  is the author of the novel Shy Girl (FSG, Seal Press) and co-director and co-writer of several short films, including FtF: Female to Femme and Little Mutinies (both distributed by Frameline). She has an M.F.A. from Columbia University in Creative Writing. Currently the lead coach and teacher at the Book Writing World, she’s taught writing and literature at UCSC, Pratt Institute, the Peralta Colleges and Hobart & William Smith Colleges. In fall 2010, she was the Distinguished Fiction Writer at St. Mary’s College in Orinda, and in the spring, she directed the graduate students in writing their fiction theses.

Learn more about Elizabeth at elizabethstark.com

Ellen Sussman is the author of four national bestselling novels: A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons and On a Night Like This.  All four books have been translated into many languages and French Lessons has been optioned by Unique Features to be made into a movie. Ellen is also the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies, Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex and Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave.

She was named a San Francisco Library Laureate in 2004 and in 2009. Ellen has been awarded fellowships from The Hawthordnen International Retreat, The Sewanee Writers Conference, The Napoule Art Foundation, Hedgebrook, Brush Creek, Ledig House, Ucross, Ragdale Foundation, Writers at Work, Wesleyan Writers Conference and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught at Pepperdine, UCLA and Rutgers University. Ellen now teaches through Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes out of her home. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ellen is the co-founder and co-director, with Elizabeth Stark, of Sonoma County Writers Camp.

Most of Turow’s books are set in his fictional Kindle County – which feels a lot like Chicago, where he litigates white-collar crime as a partner in the Chicago office of the Dentons law firm. But Testimony shifts courtroom drama to the International Criminal Court. Author Jeffrey Toobin calls it “Turow’s most ambitious and complex work… the best kind of thriller, one that stimulates the mind as well as thrilling the heart.”

One of Turow’s non-fiction books, One L, is considered an indispensible primer on the first year of law school. Another, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing With the Death Penalty, grew out of his experiences regarding the death penalty. In 1995, Turow won a reversal in the murder conviction of Alejandro Hernandez, who was exonerated after 11 years in prison. He also has served on a commission to review Illinois’ capital punishment policy and the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission.

Turow also contributes to a variety of periodicals and plays in a rock band, the Rock Bottom Remainders (with Stephen King, Matt Groening, Mitch Albom, Amy Tan, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson), which raises funds for literacy.

Luis Alberto Urrea

Hailed by NPR as a “literary badass” and a “master storyteller with a rock and roll heart,” Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.

A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 17 books, winning numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is most recognized as a border writer, though he says, “I am more interested in bridges, not borders.”

His newest book, The House of Broken Angels, is a novel of an American family, which happens to be from Mexico. Angel de la Cruz knows this is his last birthday and he wants to gather his progeny for a final fiesta. The novel will be released in March 2018.

Last year, Urrea won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction award and his collection of short stories, The Water Museum, was a finalist for the 2016 PEN-Faulkner Award and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews, among others. Into the Beautiful North, his 2009 a novel, is a Big Read selection by the National Endowment of the Arts and has been chosen by more than 50 different cities and colleges as a community read. The Devil’s Highway, Urrea’s 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. The Hummingbird’s Daughter, his 2005 historical novel, tells the story of Urrea’s great-aunt Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as the Saint of Cabora and the Mexican Joan of Arc. The book, which involved 20 years of research and writing, won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and, along with The Devil’s Highway, was named a best book of the year by many publications.

In all, more than 100 cities and colleges have chosen Into the Beautiful North, The Devil’s Highway or The Hummingbird’s Daughter (or another Urrea book) for a community read.

Urrea has also won an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for best short story (2009, “Amapola” in Phoenix Noir and featured in The Water Museum). Into the Beautiful North earned a citation of excellent from the American Library Association Rainbow’s Project. Urrea’s first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award. Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. He has also won a Western States Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being and was in the 1996 Best American Poetry collection. Urrea’s other titles include By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time.

Kevin Larimer is editor-in-chief of Poets & Writers, the leading literary magazine in the United States. He will serve as moderator / interviewer for most sessions of KWC online, including both the sessions for writers and the Kauai Book Club. Everyone who saw his presentations at the 2019 Kauai Writers Conference recognizes what a depth of knowledge Kevin brings, along with natural warmth and humor. We are most grateful for his participation.

Kevin is the author of The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer: Everything You Need to Know about Craft, Inspiration, Agents, Editors, Publishing, and the Business of Building a Sustainable Writing Career, published by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

He has given presentations and appeared on a number of panels on publishing at events such as the Library of Congress National Book Festival, the Sozopol Fiction Seminars, the Anguilla Lit Fest, the Slice Literary Writer’s Conference, the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, Poets Forum, the Bronx Book Fair, and the Writer’s Hotel.

His poems have appeared in Poetry International, Fence, Pleiades, Verse, and a dozen other literary magazines. He has written book reviews for American Letters & Commentary, American Book Review, Chelsea, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He holds a degree in journalism and received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was the poetry editor of the Iowa Review. His latest book, The Poets & Complete Guide to Being a Writer, was written with his wife, Mary Gannon, executive director of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.