JRW Conference 2008
Speaker and Moderator Bios

Chuck Adams has worked in publishing for more than thirty years, primarily at Dell/Delacorte and Simon & Schuster. Currently at Algonquin Books, he has edited a range of both fiction and nonfiction, with an emphasis on commercial titles, most recently Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, Golfing with God by Roland Merullo, and Tab Hunter Confidential by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller. www.algonquin.com

Stacy Hawkins Adams is a nationally acclaimed author, speaker and freelance journalist whose novels help readers laugh, heal and seek to lead more meaningful lives. She is the author of three novels, including Speak To My Heart, her debut novel, which has been used in the English Department curriculum at James Madison University. Stacy was named 2004 Best New Multicultural Christian Fiction Author by Shades of Romance Magazine. Black Expressions Book Club dubbed her a literary "Rising Star." A former reporter and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Stacy now freelances for a variety of mainstream and faith-based publications. Her work has appeared in the AARP Bulletin, Gospel Today and Heart & Soul magazines,and on www.Crosswalk.com.

Taylor Antrim's first novel, The Headmaster Ritual, was named one of Booklist's top ten debut novels of 2007. Born and raised in Richmond, Antrim is a senior editor at Men's Vogue, and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

David Baldacci was born in Virginia, in 1960, where he currently resides. He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Mr. Baldacci practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., as both a trial and corporate attorney. David Baldacci has published seventeen novels, including Absolute Power, Total Control, Wish You Well, and most recently, The Whole Truth. He has also published a young adult series, Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive! and Freddy and the French Fries: The Adventures of Silas Finklebean, as well as a novella for the Dutch entitled Office Hours, written for Holland's Year 2000 "Month of the Thriller." Baldacci authored a short story, "The Mighty Johns," as part of a mystery anthology published in 2002.

Nancy Wright Beasley has been a personal columnist and a contributing editor for Richmond magazine for the last 10 years. Beasley's journalistic career spans 30 years, beginning with seven years as a state correspondent for The Richmond News Leader. A recipient of a master's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Mass Communication, Beasley is currently pursuing a master of fine arts in children's literature at Hollins University. Beasley's first nonfiction book, Izzy's Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust, was published in 2005 and was a finalist for the People's Choice Award. Her second, Reflections of a Purple Zebra: Essays of a Different Stripe was published in 2007. She is currently working on a young adult historical novel.

Bill Blume was chair of the organizing committee for the 2007 JRW Conference, and he currently serves on the JRW Board of Directors. He is a fantasy writer whose short stories have been published in Spinetingler Magazine.He is also the creator of the online comic strip "The Wildcat's Lair," and he is a member of the Ten Page Club.Bill earned a BA in Journalism from University of South Carolina and worked as a news producer for WTVR-TV in Richmond until 2001. Blog: wildcatslair.blogspot.com

After practicing law for ten years, Ellen Firsching Brown is now pursuing a career in writing. She has had articles appear in numerous legal publications and recently began writing features for magazines such as Fine Books & Collections and Modernism. She also enjoys writing fiction and has been published in Sweetbay Review. She serves on the organizing committee for the 2008 James River Writers Conference.

Libby Brown, co-founder of This End Up Furniture and Fowl Cay Resort, has been on a regional speaking circuit since the release of her self-published book, Making Waves, in January 2007. She grew up around the world as the child of a Navy pilot and graduated from UNC in 1966. She's been married for 40 years to Stewart Brown and they have a daughter, a son and four grandchildren. Libby and Stewart spend 80% of their time in the Bahamas. Currently building a family compound in the islands, Libby is working on two new writing endeavors...one fiction and one non-fiction.

Mary Burton’s eighteenth novel is the single title suspense Dead Ringer. She's written 12 historical westerns for Harlequin, four short contemporary romantic suspenses for Silhouette Romantic Suspense and the best selling I'm Watching You for Kensington. She is also the author of the non-fiction book, The Insider's Guide to Direct Marketing.

Duane Byrge, an 18-year member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and guest on numerous TV shows, including "E!," "NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw," and Fox TV, has served as news editor, senior film critic, and feature writer for "The Hollywood Reporter."  Most recently, Byrge, whose credits read like the trailer credits of a hit film, compiled and edited a series of star interviews for Private Screenings, published by Turner Publishing and re-released by the American Film Institute.

James Campbell is a native of Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and three daughters. He has written stories for Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Military History, WWII magazine, Islands, Backpacker, Audubon, and many other magazines and newspapers. For his first book, the award-winning The Final Frontiersman, he logged hundreds of miles on foot and snowshoe across Arctic Alaska. His fascination with New Guinea and the war in the South Pacific led him to the story of the 32nd Division, the Ghost Mountain Boys, and his book of the same name. In 2006, he followed the route of the Ghost Mountain Boys across New Guinea -- a journey that historians describe as "one of the cruelest in military history" -- and shot a documentary film in the process. His story, "Chasing Ghosts," about that expedition, which appeared in the May 2007 issue of Outside magazine, was chosen for The Best American Travel Writing 2008.

Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session The Pumpkin Pie Show. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel. He teaches writing at The Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University.

Shawna Christos has written manuals, booklets, and papers for a variety of companies, including a local Fortune 500 company, and earned intercompany recognition and awards for graphics, art, computer, and database work. She is currently working on novels and other projects, and is a founding member of the Ten Page Club, and an active volunteer with JRW.

Barbara Clark formed the Barbara Clark Literary Agency in 2007 after a long career as an editor. She began her professional life at Doubleday, then moved on to Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Viking Studio Books, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, and Reader's Digest Select Editions (a.k.a. Condensed Books). She has worked on everything from literary fiction and biography to divination kits and cookbooks. Her agency clients include the novelist and photographer Richard Snodgrass; Bill Connington, the best-known American teacher of the Alexander Technique; and essayist, TV writer, and blogger Sheila O'Malley.

Susann Cokal is the author of two critically praised novels, Mirabilis and Breath and Bones, and of numerous short stories. She holds PhD's from Berkeley in comparative literature, and from Binghamton University in creative writing. She has published critical work on writers such as Jeanette Winterson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Georges Bataille, and she also reviews fiction for The New York Times Book Review. She moved to Richmond in 2004, where she teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a member of the JRW Board of Directors.

Andrew Corsello has been writing and editing for GQ Magazine for 13 years. Many of his stories there have explored the nature of creative genius (liver transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl; teen electrical engineering genius Ryan Patterson) and salvation (evangelical Christianity in the NFL; the transformative power of church singing; the human sou''s need for testosterone). Four of Corsello's stories have been nominated for the National Magazine Award, with "The Other Side of Hate," his feature about racial and spiritual reconciliation in Zimbabwe, winning in 2007.

Constance Costas is editor of skirt! magazine's Richmond edition. A former staff writer for Self magazine, she has also covered health, fitness, medical, and parenting topics for Redbook, Health, Fitness, Shape, Ladies Home Journal, Working Woman, and Harper's Bazaar. Her essays have appeared in skirt!, where she has also been a contributing editor and columnist. She serves as co-chair of the James River Writers Board of Directors.

Jim Daab, a member of the JRW Board of Directors, has been involved in professional theatre for more than 30 years. As a performer, Jim has worked at theaters throughout the country, toured nationally as Oscar the Grouch with Sesame St. Live!, and participated in a special holiday performance for President Reagan's staff in the East Room of the White House. He has directed and choreographed productions on both the educational and professional levels, including industrial shows for such clients as Watkins Products, Cargill, and Red Baron Pizza. He and his wife, Laura, moved to Richmond 12 years ago where they own and operate Mystery Dinner Playhouse. Jim is now in the process of writing his 33rd play since moving to Richmond.

Over the past 20 years, Anthony award-winning and New York Times best-selling author Diane Mott Davidson has produced the culinary mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Goldy the caterer. Each book includes original mouthwatering recipes. Diane began writing in 1982 and became active in Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) in 1987. In 1988 she sold her first novel, and in 1990 was named the RMFW Writer of the Year. Since then Diane has written 14 Goldy mysteries. Her next book, Fatally Flaky, will be published in the spring, 2009.

Joni Davis began her legal practice, which serves authors, entertainers and
visual artists, when she developed a program offering free legal advice to
artists in area coffee shops. She writes a legal column for artists in Urge
magazine, and has published articles in the American Bar Journal, Resolutions,
and the Atlantic In-House Counsel, and just finished co-authoring her first
novel, Feng Shui Love.

Marcel Desaulniers is the chef and owner of the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia.A 1965 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Marcelhas received several national awards, including Food and Wine magazine's Honor Roll of American Chefs, Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America, the 1993 James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic States, and the 1999 James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef.Marcel is the award winning author of 10 cookbooks.His most recent book, I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas, was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in October of 2007.

Thom Didato is the publisher and founding editor of the award-winning online literary and arts magazine failbetter (www.failbetter.com). He has published stories in many literary journals and is co-editor of the widely used classroom text, The Fiction Gallery (Bloomsbury USA). The former Program Manager at The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, Thom currently serves as the Graduate Programs Coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as on the Advisory Board of James River Writers.

Kirk Ellis served as writer and co-executive producer for the seven-part HBO miniseries, John Adams, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography and starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.  The series picked up 23 Emmy nominations (the second most-nominated miniseries in TV history after Roots) including two for Ellis as writer and co-executive producer. He also received an Emmy nomination and won the Writers Guild of America and Humanitas Awards for the ABC miniseries Anne Frank. He received the Western Writers of America's Golden Spur Award for Best Drama Script for Hell on Wheels. Following John Adams, Ellis will continue his association with David McCullough and the American Revolution as writer and co-executive producer of 1776, based on McCullough's book.

Claudia Emerson, recently named the poet laureate of Virginia, received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her third book of poetry, Late Wife. Her poetry has been published in a variety of magazines and journals including The Southern Review, The Louisville Review, Poetry and Crazyhorse. Claudia is currently an associate professor of English at UMW.

Colin Fox is a Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster, handling both fiction and nonfiction. The list of bestselling novelists with whom he has worked includes Richmond's own David L. Robbins, along with authors such as Stephen Hunter, Matthew Reilly, Omar Tyree, David Baldacci, Robert Dugoni and Donald E. Westlake. On the nonfiction side, Colin has worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Chris Rose, New Yorker humorist Paul Slanksy, Billy Crystal, Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Henry Louis Gates, Andrew Ferguson and comedian David Cross. www.simonsays.com

Jeanne Fredericks has run her own literary agency since 1997 when she purchased the assets of Susan P. Urstadt, Inc. where she had been an agent and acting director. Previously she rose up the editorial side of trade book publishing while earning an MBA at night at N.Y.U. Graduate School of Business Administration. She was the first female managing editor at Macmillan Publishing's Trade Division, an acquisitions editor there, and then editorial directory of Ziff-Davis Books where she managed five book clubs and an in-house list of special interest books. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College magna and as a member of Phi Beta Kappaand earned a certificate from Radcliffe Publishing Procedures before entering the publishing world. Her agency specializes in quality adult nonfiction, usually of a practical nature and by experts in their fields. www.jeannefredericks.com

Jenny Gardiner is the author of the award-winning novel Sleeping With Ward Cleaver. Her work has been found in Ladies' Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR's Day to Day. She honed her fiction writing skills while working as a publicist for a US Senator. Other jobs have included: an orthodontic assistant (learning quite readily that she was not cut out for a career in polyester), a waitress (her highest-paying job), a TV reporter, a pre-obituary writer, and a photographer (claim to fame: being hired to shoot Prince Charles -- with a camera, silly!). She lives with her family in Charlottesville.

Lee Gimpel covers business, technology and the intersection thereof for such publications as Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc., Worth and BusinessWeek SmallBiz. In addition, he writes a regular biz-and-tech column for the in-flight magazine Go. His articles about culture, lifestyle, travel and history have appeared in such publications as Budget Travel, Executive Traveler, Best Life, Las Vegas, Men's Journal and The Washington Post. His first book, Fighting Wars, Planning for Peace, recounts the life of Gen. George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan. He is currently working on a book about his travels through emergent India. He serves as Treasurer of James River Writers.

Hugh F. Gouldthorpe, Jr.'s business card reads "Head Cheerleader." His signature neckties say "high creative." And his smile and handshake say the rest. H.F. "Goldie" Gouldthorpe is a gifted motivational speaker, writer and teacher in leadership, sales, marketing, communications, teamwork and customer service. He is the author of I've Always Looked Up to Giraffes and How to Make a Giraffe Smile, books that focus on leaders and organizations that stand head and shoulders above the crowd. He is the senior vice president of Quality and Communications at Owens & Minor, the nation's largest supplier of branded medical and surgical supplies. He extends his time and talents to the community and is on numerous boards. Hugh is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute.

Valley Haggard, a freelance writer and editor in the Richmond area, has been Style Weekly's book editor since October 2004 and currently serves on the James River Writers Board of Directors. She has worked at Waffle House, on a dude ranch and a cruise ship, as a button maker and a stained-glass maker's assistant. She has a three-year old son, a husband, a dog, a cat, three fish and a Beetle. She is at work on her first novel. Visit her bookish blog at www.valleyhaggard.blogspot.com.

Megan Holley was named one of Variety's "10 Screenwriters to watch" in 2005. Her screenplay, 'Sunshine Cleaning,' was a 2003 winner of the Virginia Governor's Screenwriting competition. The script was made into a film starring Amy Adams and Alan Arkin and screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Megan also has feature film projects in development at Fox 2000 and Paramount Vantage and is developing a television project for Warner Brothers. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Evans D. Hopkins grew up in Danville, Virginia and divides his time between there and Richmond, where he works as a freelance writer. His pieces have appeared The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Slate, NERVE.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, In These Times, and Southern Exposure, among others. His writing has been anthologized in several volumes, including the Prentice Hall Reader, Gray Wolf Press's The Private I, and The Best of Nerve.com. Life After Life is his first full-length book.

Kate Jacobs earned a Bachelor's degree in journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa and a Master's degree at NYU. She worked at a handful of unpaid internships, then got a spot as an assistant to the Books & Fiction Editor at Redbook magazine. It was here that Kate answered multiple phones, read a ton of slush (getting to know some wonderful writers-to-be), and began to experience the impact of sharing women's stories. She was an editor at Working Woman and Family Life and was later a freelance writer and editor at the website for Lifetime Television. Exploring the richness of women's relationships is a key focus of her novels, The Friday Night Knitting Club and Comfort Food.

Emyl Jenkins, a member of the JRW Board of Directors, wrote a dozen non-fiction books, a monthly column for Art & Antiques, a syndicated antiques column, and countless magazine articles before turning her hand to fiction. Her first novel, Stealing With Style (Algonquin, 2005), follows a Virginia antiques appraiser as she uncovers the greed and duplicity that heirlooms and cultural icons can inspire among thieves, antiques professionals, and just nice people. Stealing With Style received a starred review from Booklist, was a Mystery Guild Book Club selection, has been translated into Japanese and Korean, and is available in large print. She is at work on her new book, A Taste for Fine Things. She is Co-Chair of the 2008 JRW Conference Planning Team.

Kelly Justice joined JRW's own Board of Directors in 2008. She owns Fountain Bookstore in Richmond's Shockoe Slip.

Caroline Kettlewell is both a JRW Advisory Board member and editor of the JRW e-newsletter Get Your Word On. She is the author of two critically praised non-fiction books: the memoir Skin Game (St. Martin's, 1999), and Electric Dreams (Carroll & Graf, 2004). Electric Dreams has been optioned for feature film by Participant Productions (Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Murderball). Kettlewell is a freelance writer and regular contributor of travel, adventure, and other stories to the Washington Post, and her work has appeared in two anthologies. She maintains a blog, Welcome to the Hinterlands, dedicated to narrative nonfiction.

A Richmond native, Dean King (www.deanhking.com) is the award-winning author of the forthcoming Unbound: The True Story of the Women Who Walked 4,000 Miles with Mao (Little, Brown, 2009) and eight other works of non-fiction, including Patrick O'Brian: A Life and the national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara. The subject of a History Channel documentary, Skeletons is currently being developed in London as a feature film. Dean's writing has appeared in Esquire, Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, the Daily Telegraph, and the New York Times.  A founding member of the JRW Board of Directors, he currently sits on the JRW Advisory Board. 

A graduate of the VCU Department of Film, Lucas Krost is a Richmond-based writer, director, and producer of feature films. His short documentary "One Nation Under Guard" was the grand-prize winner of Current TV and Al Gore's Seeds of Tolerance Contest. His short film and 48-Hour Film Project Showdown 2008 entry, "Feels Like Drowning," was selected for screening at Filmapalooza and Cannes. His most recent project was the feature-length Border Town.

Jon Kukla (www.jonkukla.com) aims to present first-rate historical scholarship to a general readership. His recent books, Mr. Jefferson's Women (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) and A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), were selections of the History Book Club and the Book of the Month Club. From 2000 to 2007 he was executive director of Red Hill -- The Patrick Henry National Memorial in Charlotte County, Virginia. He now lives, writes, and serves on the JRW Board of Directors in Richmond, where he is working on a fresh narrative of the American Revolution. He also serves as Co-Chair of the 2008 JRW Conference Planning Team.

Mark G. Lazenby is executive communications director at Dominion Resources, a $26 billion national energy company. Mark has directed company programs in the U.S., Latin America and Great Britain. Publications and speeches written by him or under his direction have won national awards and been used in university classrooms and professional writing seminars. Prior to his service at Dominion, Mark was a journalist for United Press International and for dailies in North Carolina and Virginia. He is also a member of the James River Writers Board of Directors.

Marc Leepson is a journalist, historian and author who specializes in writing about American history. He has written for many newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, Washington Post Magazine, Smithsonian, Military History, The New York Times, Baltimore Sun,and USA Today. He is the author of six books, including Desperate Engagement: How a Little Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C. and Changed American History; Flag: An American Biography; and Saving Monticello. He edited the Webster's New World Dictionary of the Vietnam War and is a contributor to The Dictionary of Virginia Biography.He teaches U.S. history at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, Virginia, and lives in Middleburg, Virginia.

Jann Malone has been the food writer of the Richmond Times-Dispatch since January 2008. She has worked for the paper for 32 years, including three years from 2005-2008 as the paper's book editor. Earlier, she covered state and local government, including the General Assembly and Richmond City Council. She was food editor of the paper from 1981-1992 and a columnist from 1992-2005. Her published fiction includes the paper's 2004 Christmas story, designed for families to read out loud together on Christmas Eve, as well as a 20-part children's story, Pais, about the adventures of a dog and cat.

Cathy Maxwell is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than seventeen historical romance novels. Her latest is In a Highlander's Bed from Avon Books. Cathy is also one of the moderators of Books! a radio program on WZEZ 100.5 Richmond radio or through the internet at www.wzezradio.com from 8 to 9 a.m. the first and last Monday of every month. The show allows Cathy to not only indulge her passion for books but have a great time doing it.

Judi McCoy has been writing romance novels for over twelve years. She leads the Romantic Times aspiring authors' course at their yearly convention, and has mentored many new writers. Her first book, I Dream of You, won Waldenbook's Best-selling Debut Romance of 2001. Since then, her novels have consistently garnered four stars from Romantic Times Book Club and numerous online review sites. Her May 2003 release, Heaven in Your Eyes, won Fallen Angel Review's Best Contemporary award.

Elizabeth Seydel Morgan is the author of four books of poetry: Language, a limited edition with prints by artist Laura Pharis, and three collections from Louisiana State University Press: Parties (1988 and recently released in a new edition), The Governor of Desire (1993), and On Long Mountain (1998), a finalist for the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize. She has won the Emily Clark Balch Award from the Virginia Quarterly Review for her fiction. Her translation (with Christopher Pelling) of Euripides' Electra is included in the Penn Greek Drama Series; and her screenplay, Queen Esther, won the 1993 Governor's Award for Screenwriting at the Virginia Film Festival. Poems from her new manuscript have been published in The Southern Review, Five Points, Shenandoah, New Virginia Review, and The Cortland Review and currently appear on the Library of Congress Poetry website, Poetry180.

Kendra Bailey Morris served as a restaurant critic for Style Weekly magazine and has created a cookbook with Hamilton Beach Proctor-Silex. Recent articles include, "Preserving Our Past: One jar at a time," "Beans and Cornbread: Feeding souls a mile deep" and "Fish Tales of the Other While Meat" for National Public Radio. Kendra is the author of White Trash Gatherings: From-Scratch Cooking for Down-Home Entertaining (Ten Speed Press, 2006) which has now gone into a second printing. Kendra is also highly experienced with recipe development, recipe testing, food styling, and photography. Currently, Kendra has a weekly food column, The Accidental Chef which appears every Sunday in the Flair section of The Richmond Time Dispatch.

Sherrie Page Najarian, a member of the JRW Board of Directors, is a freelance writer, essayist, and registered nurse. Her essays have appeared in Richmond Magazine, skirt!, Virginia Adversaria, and various Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and she is a regular contributor to All About Kids Magazine. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Yale University, she works as a school nurse at St. Catherine's in Richmond, and has recently completed her first YA novel.

James O'Connor and Lynda O'Connor run the public relations firm O'Connor Communications, Inc. (www.oconnorpr.com), specializing in authors and business-to-business clients. Jim started the firm in 1989 after working in corporate communications for four Fortune 500 companies. In 1993, his wife Lynda O'Connor joined as the head of new business development and media relations. She earned three awards for the best publicity campaign in the country for James's first book, Cuss Control, The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing (Three Rivers Press, 2000). Currently, publishers are considering Jim's novel, Another Man's Treasure while Lynda spearheads the firm's promotional activities.

Howard Owen is the author of eight published novels (by Villard, HarperCollins and The Permanent Press). He and his wife, Karen, live in Fredericksburg, Va., where both are editors at The Free Lance-Star. Owen's first novel, Littlejohn, was nominated for the Abbey Award (American Booksellers) and Discovery Award (Barnes & Noble) for best new fiction. Turn Signal and Rock of Ages, two of his other novels, were Book Sense selections. Owen is working on his ninth novel and is contributing a story to Richmond Noir.

Virginia Pye (2008 Co-Chair of James River Writers Board of Directors) is a fiction writer and poet. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines including The North American Review and recently her stories received honorable mention awards from Glimmer Train. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Wesleyan and has taught writing and literature at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania. She is at work on a new novel about three generations of an American family in China.

Shannon Ravenel was a member of Houghton Mifflin Company's trade editorial department for eleven years. She has edited thirteen volumes of The Best American Short Stories plus the retrospective Best American Short Stories of the Eighties. In 1982, she joined Louis Rubin to establish Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (now a division of Workman Publishing) where she served as Editorial Director from 1992 to 2001. In January 2001, she created and directed a new imprint for the company -- Shannon Ravenel Books. The first titles under that imprint were published in Spring 2001. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband of 40 years. www.algonquin.com/about

Kathleen Reid (www.KathleenReid.com) had a career in corporate marketing in Washington, D.C. and New York City before she began writing full-time. Her first book, Magical Mondays at the Art Museum, was a children's book based on the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and was followed by her first novel, Paris Match. Her second novel, A Page Out of Life, was released in April 2008 by Berkley Books. She lives in Richmond with her husband and two daughters.

David L. Robbins (www.davidlrobbins.com) was born in Richmond and received his undergraduate and Juris Doctorate degrees from the College of William & Mary, where he currently teaches as writer-in-residence. He has published eight novels, including his most recent, The Betrayal Game, released in February 2008. He is a founding co-chairman of James River Writers and currently serves on the JRW Board of Directors. At present, David is at work on his ninth book, a novel set in the Philippines during World War II.

Josh Robertson attended St. Christopher's School in Richmond and Duke University. After time spent as an editor at Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and a freelance writer for publications such as Maxim and FHM, he was hired to edit "After Hours," the front section of Playboy magazine. His primary tasks are writing, assigning and editing pieces for that section, as well as writing pictorial copy and features.

Carol Roper, owner of Literati Design, has over 20 years of experience in professional graphic design and art direction and currently specializes in book design. She has received many design awards, including PRSA Gold Award, Arc Award, Nicholson Awards, CASE Grand Award, PICA, PIVA and Gold Award from the National Council for Community Foundations. Carol is currently revising her first book, a metaphysical mystery. She also writes stories about flying with her fiancé in his Grumman Tiger, and had her first story published in September 2007 in Aviator's Guide magazine. She is a member of the James River Writers Board of Directors.

Kirk Schroder is a partner in the Richmond-based law firm of Schroder Fidlow, PLC. www.schroderfidlow.com. A nationally recognized lawyer in the field of entertainment and art law, he is a lecturer in Entertainment Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and is the Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association Entertainment and Sports Law section. Kirk was named to the 2008 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the field of entertainment law. His clients in the entertainment field come from all over the United States and the world. He serves on the JRW Board of Directors.

Andrea Sisco is a former Twin City television host of Book Talk, an author interview program. She is the co-owner of www.ArmchairInterviews.com, a review site that had two million views in 2007. Armchair Interviews has been named as one of Writer's Digest Best 101 Websites for Authors in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Andrea is the author of A Deadly Habit: A Penelope Santucci mystery which will be released in 2009. She is currently working on a book intended to help authors get from the bottom to the top of the interview/review slush pile.

Charles Slack is the author of Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century, named one of the New York Public Library's twenty-five "Books to Remember" for 2002, and Blue Fairways: Three Months, Sixty Courses, No Mulligans. His writing has appeared in many national magazines. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Barbara, and their daughters, Natalie and Caroline.

Patty Smith, a member of the JRW Board of Directors, teaches creative writing and American literature at the Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts and Technology in Petersburg, VA. Her short fiction appears in such places as So to Speak: a journal of literature and the arts, and The Tusculum Review. Her essays appear in the anthologies One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories (Alyson Publications, 1994), Tied in Knots: Funny Stories from the Wedding Day (Seal Press, 2006) and will be forthcoming in the anthology Women's Wonderlands (University of Wisconsin Press). She holds a BA from Wesleyan University, an MA from Middlebury College, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives in Richmond and is at work on her first novel.

Ron Smith is Writer-in-Residence at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, and teaches courses in poetry at University of Richmond. He is the author of two books of poems, Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery (University Presses of Florida) and Moon Road (LSU Press). A winner of the $10,000 Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry, he is now one of the Curators for that prize. His prose appears in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, and Blackbird, which also hosts his poetry column "Red Guitar."  He has served on the JRW Board of Directors since 2005

In lieu of a law degree, Jason Tesauro pursued wine school and his affection for Viognier. By day, he serves as marketing director for Barboursville Vineyards. By night, Tesauro is coauthor of The Modern Gentleman: A Guide to Essential Manners, Savvy & Vice (Ten Speed Press, 2002) and The Modern Lover: A Playbook for Suitors, Spouses & Ringless Carousers (Ten Speed Press, 2004). He pens a wine & spirits column for The Sunday Paper (Atlanta, GA) and Richmond magazine, as well as manners/dating/sex/relationships columns for Maxim, Men's Health, Cosmopolitan, and Match.com. With his wife and two tots astride, Tesauro is presently scribbling his first novel ... with chubby crayons. In his free time, he serves on the JRW Board of Directors.

Adriana Trigiani is beloved by millions of readers around the world for her hilarious and heartwarming novels. Adriana was raised in a small coal mining town in southwest Virginia in a big Italian family. She chose her hometown for the setting and title of her debut novel, the critically acclaimed and bestselling Big Stone Gap, followed by the sequels Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon. Since 2000, Adriana has delivered a novel a year to her devoted fans. Lucia, Lucia, The Queen of the Big Time, and Rococo were all instant New York Times bestsellers.

Logan Ward (www.loganward.com) is a member of the James River Writers Board of Directors. A freelance writer for more than a dozen years, he is currently a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics, Cottage Living, New Old House and Southern Accents, where he covers architecture, design and technology. His book, See You in a Hundred Years: Four seasons in forgotten America (BenBella, 2007), is the story of his family's quest to become turn-of-the-century dirt farmers in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Logan lives in Staunton with his wife and two children.

Steve Watkins is the author of a young adult novel, Down Sand Mountain (Candlewick Press 2008), a short story collection, My Chaos Theory (SMU Press), as well as the award-winning non-fiction book, The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American Corporate Empire (University of Georgia Press). Watkins teaches Ashtanga yoga and works as an investigator and advocate for abused and neglected children through through the child advocacy organization CASA. He is a member of the English faculty at the University of Mary Washington where he teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature. He lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with his wife, Janet, and four daughters.

The newest agent at Lowenstein-Yost Associates, Natanya Wheeler is actively seeking to build her list. She would love to find narrative nonfiction in the areas of memoir, women's issues, alternative energy or green living, politics -- and anything to do with birds. She's also aggressively looking to build her fiction list with strong writers who have original and confident voices. She's particularly interested in literary fiction that touches on current events or multicultural issues, women's fiction of all kinds, dark, edgy character-driven thrillers, moody mysteries, young adult and single title graphic novels. She does not handle poetry, horror, or science fiction. www.lowensteinyost.com

David Wojahn's most recent collection of poetry, Interrogation Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004, was published by Pittsburgh University Press in 2006, and was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Book Award, and the Society of Midland Authors' Award. He has also received several fellowships, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Presently, he is Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, and is also a member of the program faculty of the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of the Fine Arts.

Ken Wright of Writers House (www.writershouse.com) is particularly interested in nonfiction such as popular science and popular history. For fiction, he likes Young Adult and prefers literary to thrillers and mysteries.

Irene Ziegler's

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