Clarksville Writers’ Conference Learns about Creative Nonfiction from Keven McQueen
July 1, 2012
Clarksville, TN – Keven McQueen is not your average author with an elevated impression of himself. Here’s what he has to say about his life as he introduces himself on his web page, “I have degrees in English from Berea College and Eastern Kentucky University. I have been an instructor of composition and literature in the Department of English and Theatre at EKU since 1989. English is my wife but history is my mistress, especially politically incorrect history which presents uncomfortable challenges to what “everyone knows” or assumes to be true.”
He goes on to add, “For a while I worked as a night watchman at a funeral home, a job that dovetailed well with my sense of humor….I am the author of five books: a biography of a nineteenth-century Kentucky emancipationist, Cassius M. Clay, Freedom’s Champion; two books featuring biographies of bizarre and eccentric figures from Kentucky history, Offbeat Kentuckians and More Offbeat Kentuckians; a hybrid of the Kentucky history and true crime genres, Murder in Old Kentucky, and the brand-new Kentucky Book of the Dead, which concerns ghosts, giant skeletons, premature burial, monsters and other strangeness. I have another Kentucky-based true crime book on the way, Cruelly Murdered.”
Keven McQueen at the 2012 Clarksville Writer’s Conference
Marshall Chapman Rocks the House during the 2012 Clarksville Writers Conference
June 28, 2012
Clarksville, TN – Marshall Chapman, born in a prominent South Carolina family and groomed to become a socialite, bolted from her confining future to make waves in the world of rock ‘n’ roll during and after her years at Vanderbilt University. Some of her 250 songs have been recorded by people like Jimmy Buffet, Emmylou Harris, Olivia Newton-John, Wynonna Judd, Sawyer Brown, Conway T witty—and the list goes on and on. Her “Rode Hard and Put Up Wet” was featured in the movie Urban Cowboy.
Marshall Chapman spoke and sang at this year’s writers’ conference in honor of her dear friend, William Gay, who died this past February. The conference itself was dedicated to William, who had been a central speaker at the conference for the past several years. Marshall told her stories and sang her songs with intimate details of her friendship with William and introduced songs from her new album, Big Lonesome, named by The Philadelphia Inquirer “Best Country/Roots Album of 2010.”
Clarksville Writers’ Conference – Children’s Author Tracy Barrett Gives Rules for Publication
June 20, 2012
Clarksville, TN – Recently resigning from teaching at Vanderbilt University where she taught Italian, Women’s Studies, English and Humanities, Tracy Barrett can now devote her time to creating more children’s and young adult books. Her scholarly interests resulted in her Bachelor’s degree in Classics-Archaeology from Brown University and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. In Medieval Italian Literature from the University of California at Berkeley.
A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study medieval women writers led to the writing of her award-winning young-adult novel, Anna of Byzantium (Delacorte). Her most recent publications are King of Ithaka, a young-adult novel based on Homer’s Odyssey; and the fourth book in The Sherlock Files, The Missing Heir (both Henry Holt). In September, Harcourt will publisher her young-adult retelling of the myth of the Minotaur, Dark of the Moon.
Tracy Barrett at the 2012 Clarksville Writer’s Conference
Eighth Clarksville Writers’ Conference 2012: A. Scott Pearson Wins Benjamin Franklin Award for Mysteries
June 16, 2012
A. Scott Pearson
Clarksville, TN – This was Dr. A. Scott Pearson’s second appearance at a Clarksville Writer’s Conference. He debuted his first book, Rupture, in 2010. Just before the 2012 Conference in Clarksville, Dr. Pearson’s Benjamin Franklin Award for Mysteries was announced by the Independent Book Publishers Association at a ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on June 4. This was awarded for his second novel, Public Anatomy, his second novel, introduced in March, 2011. Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), is the largest not-for-profit representing independent book publishers.
A surgeon on the faculty and staff at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Dr. Pearson also is a member of the Interdisciplinary Group at the Robert Penn Warren Center for Humanities. Dr. Pearson teaches a class entitled “Narrative Medicine: Stories of Illness and the Doctor-Patient Relationship” to teach medical students this patient-centered concept when they enter the fast-paced, technological race that defines today’s medicine.
Clarksville Writers’ Conference: What Chuck Sambuchino Had to Say about Creating Your Writer Platform
June 10, 2012
Clarksville, TN – Listening to Chuck Sambuchino at the Eighth Annual Clarksville Writers’ Conference was like getting the inside scoop on how to become famous. His expertise as an editor and writer at Writer’s Digest Books gives him the right to tell it like it is.
Editing the Guide to Literary Agents and Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market would be a full time occupation for most people, but Chuck has just signed the option for a movie deal for his first humor book, How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack (2010) and is about to publish Red Dog/Blue Dog: When Pooches Get Political.
Chuck Sambunchino at the 2012 Clarksville Writer's Conference
