1455 Summer Literary Festival - 2nd Annual - Saturday, Track 1

July 18 - Track 1 - Agenda

Inspiration & Advocacy

9:00 AM

Liz Stein: You Had Me At Hello

Speaker(s):

Liz Stein

It’s harder than ever to connect in an increasingly virtual world. With fewer and fewer reporters being hired due to industry downsizing, the amount of pitches they’re getting has grown exponentially. Ever wonder why some pitches break through and others never get read? Liz Stein will take you through an interactive exercise to help you discover and tell your story in a succinct way. You will learn tips to reach your target audience and get your message heard.

10:30 AM

Touring Today's Publishing Options

Speaker(s):

Chris Register, Libby McNamee

Getting published has never been easy, but once upon a time the protocol was at least straightforward: writers would focus mainly on searching (and searching, and searching) for a literary agent willing to introduce their manuscript into an otherwise impenetrable industry. Of course, times have changed. While the traditional approach continues to work for many authors, an ever-expanding universe of publishing options has made ‘straightforward’ a thing of the past. Is your head buzzing with terms like .epub & .mobi, print-on-demand, audiobook AAX, offset run, and indie press? Join Virginia authors and publishers Chris Register (CONVERSATIONS WITH US) and Libby McNamee (SUSANNA'S MIDNIGHT RIDE: THE GIRL WHO WON THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR; DOLLEY MADISON & THE WAR OF 1812: AMERICA’S FIRST LADY, forthcoming)for a ground-level survey of the decisions faced by today’s authors, illustrated with examples and lessons from their own winding journeys through the process.

12:00 PM

Writing Through A Pandemic

Speaker(s):

Robert Anthony Siegel

If you're like me, writing feels more important than ever--but also harder than ever. The world is upside down, the economy is uncertain, and your writing friends are staying home. What do you do? How do you make yourself productive again? This short talk offers some approaches. I'll discuss creating a writing routine, setting achievable goals, and building a sense of community--and I'll offer you some focused writing prompts to help you explore your imagination and jump start the creative process.

1:00 PM

Telling Our Stories

Speaker(s):

Jeanne McCulloch

Story is essential to understanding the world and making sense of it, and in light of current events, we need to hear each other’s stories, and to share our own, now more than ever. Writing personal memoir is essentially a design/build project, one in which we use the stuff of life—our memories and our stories--as the raw building material we shape into a narrative arc. 

Sharing prompts and strategies, and citing examples from published memoirs, Jeanne will discuss various aspects of the craft and answer questions about the art of writing about ourselves, and the urgent need to do so in our world today.

2:30 PM

Day Eight Presents: Poetry in Education - A Discussion & Reading

Speaker(s):

Kim B. Miller, Jeffrey Banks,

Antwone Ross, Shaquetta Nelson

Join poets Kim B. Miller, Jeffrey Banks, Antwone Ross, and Shaquetta Nelson for a discussion of poetry in public school education. The poets are performer educators in the non-profit Day Eight’s DC Poets for DC Schools program, which brings past finalists and winners of the DC Poet Project competition to work with area youth. Each poet will share a poem or two that they bring to the schools to foster discussion of the broader questions and challenges of poetry in education.

The non-profit Day Eight was founded by Robert Bettmann. The DC Poet Project is an annual open-to-all poetry competition designed to surface exceptional poets. The winner’s manuscript is published by the non-profit Day Eight. The 2020 DC Poet Project reading series and competition was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wells Fargo Community Foundation. To learn more about Day Eight visit www.DayEight.org.

4:00 PM

The 10 Commandments for Becoming a Writer

Speaker(s):

Karen E. Bender

How do you start to write? What are some successful practices, both psychological and practical, that keep you writing, day after day? Karen E. Bender will explain her 10 Commandments for Becoming a Writer, a guide intended to give both beginning and advanced writers some basic tips to get them started and keep them going. Karen wil also read and expand on her essay “If you have these traits, you may be a writer!”. There will be time for Q&A following Karen’s remarks.

5:00 PM

Keynote Author: Adrienne Miller

Speaker(s):

Adrienne Miller, Bethanne Patrick

1455 is honored to host Adrienne Miller as our Keynote Author for the 2nd annual Summer Literary Festival.

Adrienne was the literary and fiction editor of Esquire from 1997-2006. She is author of the novel THE COAST OF AKRON (FSG), and has taught writing at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, and Bryn Mawr. She lives in New York City with her husband, son, and Italian Greyhound.

Please join Bethanne Patrick (AKA @TheBookMaven), who will discuss Miller's new memoir, IN THE LAND OF MEN. With this year's Festival theme of Storytelling, Miller's insightful (occasionally amusing, occasionally appalling) book could hardly be more relevant or vital.