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.

SIBA 2009 in Greenville South Carolina

Today I end my blog book tour for Gone From These Woods by stopping by Eddie Suttles' blog, Georgia Books and Water. Click on the link to visit Eddie's blog and read an all-new question and answer about writing and publishing my debut children's middle grade and YA novel. And don't forget to come back here to Winterville Writer on Friday, October 2, to read my review of author/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba's brand new children's picture book, Soap, Soap, Soap. This will be the last stop on her blog book tour and I'll be giving away a signed copy of her beautiful new book.

Here's another date to mark on your calendar. On Sunday, October 4, 2009, Elizabeth and I will be participating in a children's author and illustrator's panel at the Athens, Georgia Borders Bookstore. The panel will be held from 1 - 2:30 PM and will include Donna Bowman, Robyn Hood Black, Gene Fehler and Margo Candelario, as well as Elizabeth and myself. This event is part of Borders' Educator Days but is open to the public.


This weekend I had the pleasure of participating in my first ever Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Trade Show! The location was the huge Carolina First Convention Center in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina. My traveling companion, daughter Jenny, and I had a pleasant car trip up to Greenville, about 100 miles from my home in Winterville, Georgia. When we got there Thursday, we checked into our motel and then headed to the convention center to check everything out.
Things were winding down for the day when we arrived but we got a chance to see the set up and where we'd be the next day.

On Friday morning we headed back to the Carolina First Center and at 11 AM, I participated in an author's panel called "Writing the South," along with four other authors. This was the panel line up: Moderator: Karen Zacharias, Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide? Cause I need more room for my plasma TV (Zondervan); Batt Humphreys, Dead Weight (Joggling Board Press); Karen White, The Girl on Legare Street (NAL Trade Paperback); Donny Seagraves, Gone From These Woods (Delacorte Press); Amanda Gable, The Confederate General Rides North (Scribner). I can't say enough good things about our moderator, Karen Zacharias. She arrived with our books in her arms and had read them all! Her questions were excellent and tailored to each of our books. Thank you Karen and thanks to Batt, the other Karen on our panel, and Amanda for an enjoyable hour spent talking about the South and our books.

After the panel I had the pleasure of eating lunch with some of the independent booksellers who were in the audience, including Janet Geddis of Athens, Georgia, who is in the planning stages of opening a brand new bookstore. I'm excited about Janet's plans and enjoyed meeting her and her mother at this author's lunch. Speaking of authors, our luncheon speakers included bestselling all-star authors: Patricia Reilly Giff, Richard Peck, Silas Read and Rick Yancey. Each in turn told us about their new book and talked about writing and publishing. No children's author could ask for a better meal! I also enjoyed chatting with Patricia after lunch. Seems we share an editor in common, Michelle Poploff.

Later in the afternoon, I enjoyed meeting more booksellers as I autographed and handed out the books my publisher, Random House, so graciously donated for this event.

GONE FROM THESE WOODS: CHAPTER ONE

The official publication date, August 25, 2009, is only 19 days away! Today I'm going to talk about chapter one. In my original version of chapter one, the final scene was much less clear. My editor suggested that, rather than obscuring the action, which is very shocking, I rewrite and allow the reader to "see" what happens. Doing this required me to actually reenact the scene with a friend, Kathleen McGuire. Then I recruited Eric Pozen, our former police to give me a gun lesson and re enact the scene yet again. It took me quite awhile to get this final scene just right, just as it was extremely hard to "be" an eleven-year-old boy throughout a 40,000 plus word book. I think I did okay. Tell me what you think after you read the book.

Gone From These Woods Booksigning at HAWC

My very first booksigning will be Saturday, July 18, 2009 from 5:45pm to 6:45pm at the Harriette Austin Writers Conference at the Georgia Center in Athens. The booksigning is open to the public. Hope to see you there!