The Harriette Austin Writers Conference is Back!

Harriette Austin

I'm delighted to tell you this fantastic news: the popular Harriette Austin Writers Conference is back! The 2011 HAC will be held July 22 - 23, 2011, at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the University of Georgia campus. This year's conference has a great line up of speakers and critiquers and the deadline for manuscript critiques is June 20.

I'll be presenting my "Finding Fiction in Your Own Backyard" writing workshop. Other presenters include: Terry Kay, Janell Walden Agyeman, Robert Alan Black, Doris Booth, Tony Burton, Evelyn Coleman, Dac Crossley, Paige Cummings, Susan Dansby, Wally Eberhart, John Fristoe, John Gilstrap, Judy Iakovou, Amanda Luedke, Rebecca McClanahan, Susan Mary Malone, Jackie Lee Miles, David Oates, Kevin O'Brien, Susan Olson, Chuck Sambuchino, and Beverly Varnado.

Authors Evelyn Coleman and Donny Bailey Seagraves at the 2009 HAC.

My association with the Harriette Austin conference goes way back to the beginning. A call went out to present and former students for writing contributions to a fund-raising calendar that helped finance the first HAC. I contributed a short story, "Dear Delores," to that calendar and also attended the first conference. "Dear Delores" has been published and republished many times in magazines, including Seek and The Roswell (NM) Literary Review.  I've attended many of the HACs, served on a nonfiction panel at an early conference and presented two workshops at the 2009 HAC, which took place about the same time as the publication of my debut novel, Gone From These Woods. I've learned much from HAC presenters and even acquired my literary agent at a Harriette Austin conference. I've also enjoyed seeing Harriette herself, a quiet, encouraging presence at the conference with her name.

All the pertinent conference info is here. Check it out. Sign up. Submit your manuscript. See you there.