This Year's Special Guests:
Lamar Giles: Lamar Giles is an author, speaker, and founding member of We Need Diverse Books (weneeddiversebooks.org), a non-profit dedicated to changing the face of publishing. His love of stories and storytelling began at an early age in his hometown of Hopewell, Virginia. After graduating from Hopewell High School in 1997, he attended Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. It was at ODU where he decided to pursue writing as a career, making his first professional short story sale at the age of 21. His debut Young Adult novel, FAKE ID, sold to HarperCollins in 2011, and since its publication in 2014 has gained national acclaim. Among the many accolades are a 2015 Edgar® Award nomination from the Mystery Writers of America, and inclusion on the Virginia State Reading Association’s 2015-2016 Readers Choice List. Lamar has spoken and taught at a number of middle schools, high schools, and for prestigious conferences and organizations like Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Virginia Children’s Book Festival, BookExpo America, and his work has been featured on NPR, CNN, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Flavorwire, Mother Nature Network, etc.
His books for young readers are represented by Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and he lives in Chesapeake, Virginia with his wife.
His books for young readers are represented by Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and he lives in Chesapeake, Virginia with his wife.
Clay McLeod Chapman: Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session The Pumpkin Pie Show. Publications include: rest area, miss corpus, and The Tribe trilogy--Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins (Disney). Film: The Boy (SXSW 2015), Henley (Sundance 2012) and Late Bloomer (Sundance 2005). Theatre: Commencement and Hostage Song (w/ Kyle Jarrow). Comics: Edge of Spider-Verse, American Vampire, The Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Vertigo Quarterly: SFX and Self Storage. He is a writing instructor at The Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University. Visit him at: www.claymcleodchapman.com
Bird Cox: Bird is the Executive Director of Richmond Young Writers, a fiction writer, a mother of a magical 2-year-old elfling boy and an avid weaver of tall tales. She teaches fiction, poetry and screenwriting workshops to kids at RYW and autobiographical fiction workshops to adults at Life in Ten Minutes. After receiving her English degree from the University of Virginia, Bird wrote regular food and art columns for C-ville Weekly and Brick Weekly and taught creative writing courses at the Visual Arts Center and VMFA. Currently hard at work on her second full-length screenplay, she also offers editorial and copy consultant services. She loves writing of any kind, but creating secret worlds of her own filled with strange and wonderful (and sometimes horrible) creatures is closest to her heart. Her years as a student at UVA's Young Writers Workshop made a distinct impression, helping her to prioritize creative insight and exploration above all else. That desire - to look deeper and continually sharpen perspective - is what she aims to share with all of her students.
Lana Krumwiede: Let’s get this out of the way first: Lana’s first name rhymes with banana, and she pronounces her last name KRUM-widdy, as in a clever bread fragment. But don’t worry too much because she’s not touchy about it. In third grade, Lana wrote in her autobiography that she wanted to be a mother, a writer, and the church organist. Her work has appeared in Highlights, High Five, Spider, Babybug, The Friend, and Chicken Soup for the Child’s Soul. Her first novel, Freakling was released in 2012. That book became the first of a trilogy, The Psi Chronicles, and was followed by Archon in 2013 and True Son in 2015. Also in 2015, her first picture book was released, a quirky retelling of the itsy bitsy spider entitled Just Itzy. As the founder of Richmond Children’s Writers and member of the board of directors for James River Writers, and a former chair for the James River Writers Conference, Lana is active in the local writing scene. She lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and youngest daughter. Her three older children (and one grandchild!) are off having adventures of their own. Lana has tried psi many times, especially in association with cleaning house, but could never make it work. She does have a few mildly supernatural abilities, which include untying knots, peeling oranges, and dominating in board games.
Kaylie Jones: Kaylie Jones’ latest novel, The Anger Meridian, was published in July 2015.
She is the author of the acclaimed memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me (2009). Her novels include A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, which was released as a Merchant Ivory Film in 1998; Celeste Ascending (2001); and Speak Now (2004). She has written numerous book reviews and articles for The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, Salon, WOW, Huffington Post, Confrontation Magazine, and others. She is the editor of the anthology Long Island Noir (2012).
Kaylie has been teaching for more than 30 years, including at Southampton College’s MFA Program in Writing, and in the low residency MFA Program in Professional Writing at Wilkes University. She co-chairs the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which awards $10,000 yearly to an unpublished first novel. Her latest endeavor is her imprint with Akashic Books, Kaylie Jones Books, a writer’s collective in which the authors play a fundamental part in their own publishing process.
She is the author of the acclaimed memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me (2009). Her novels include A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, which was released as a Merchant Ivory Film in 1998; Celeste Ascending (2001); and Speak Now (2004). She has written numerous book reviews and articles for The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, Salon, WOW, Huffington Post, Confrontation Magazine, and others. She is the editor of the anthology Long Island Noir (2012).
Kaylie has been teaching for more than 30 years, including at Southampton College’s MFA Program in Writing, and in the low residency MFA Program in Professional Writing at Wilkes University. She co-chairs the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which awards $10,000 yearly to an unpublished first novel. Her latest endeavor is her imprint with Akashic Books, Kaylie Jones Books, a writer’s collective in which the authors play a fundamental part in their own publishing process.
J. Patrick Redmond: J. PATRICK REDMOND was born and raised in southern Indiana and recently returned to his home state after sixteen years of living in South Florida and teaching for the Miami-Dade County Public School System. Patrick holds a BA in English from Florida International University in Miami and an MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University in Southampton, New York. He is a contributing blogger for the Huffington Post, and his writing has appeared in the NOH8 Campaign blog, the Southampton Review, and in the Barnes & Noble Review’s Grin & Tonic. He is also the 2012 recipient of the Deborah Hecht Memorial Prize in Fiction. Some Go Hungry is his first novel, and when asked about it, Patrick says, “It’s about God, guns, gays, and green beans.”
Patricia Smith: Patricia (Patty) Smith has been teaching American Literature and Creative Writing at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, VA since 2006. A native New Englander, she received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her nonfiction has appeared 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); Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009) and One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium: LGBT Teachers Discuss What Has Gotten Better…and What Hasn’t (Beacon Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in such places as Salon; Broad Street: A New Magazine of True Stories; Prime Number: A Distinctive Journal of Poetry and Prose, Gris-Gris, An Online Journal Of Literature, Culture, and the Arts;The Tusculum Review, and So to Speak: a journal of feminist language and literature. The Year of Needy Girls is her first novel.
John S. Blake: John S. Blake reaches inside his students. He loves teaching. He loves writing. He is poetry's biggest fan. You can see it in the way he can't sit still in a classroom or during a writing workshop. He can't stop reading poems or assuring the novice writer "if I can get clean, you can write that poem". John almost let the world against him win; heroin laden project houses on the lower east side of Manhattan, his drug addicted parents, the racist perspective of the 70's against his half-white half-Black existence, the gangs, the poverty. When his father was diagnosed with AIDS and his mother was convicted of manslaughter, John fell into the chaos of chemical dependency. By the time John was in his mid-30s, he lost his entire family to the streets; illnesses tied to addiction (HIV, Hep C, Cancer), prison, psychiatric institutions, and hopelessness. Upon deciding to die at the tip of a needle, John discovered a poem. The poem, so moving, convinced Blake it was time to do something different. Something better. He began writing, and never looked back. Now studying Creative Writing and African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, a finalist at the National Poetry Slam (2007 Austin TX), no one can deny the miracle. After being published in ARDOR, Naugatuck River Review of Narrative Poetry, Adobe Walls Literary Journal, Two Bridges Review, Red Fez, Malpais Review, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, John S. Blake published his first full collection of poems titled Beautifully Flawed (Urban Publishing, NYC). Since being nominated for a "Champions of Change" Award issued by the White House, he's traveled the United States, reading his work and teaching at universities.
Kristen Green: Kristen Green grew up in Prince Edward County, Va., the only community in the nation to close its schools for five years rather than desegregate. She attended an all-white academy, which was founded in 1959 by her grandparents and other white leaders when the public school doors were locked. The private school did not admit black students until 1986, when she was in the eighth grade. Kristen has worked for two decades as a journalist at newspapers including The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Boston Globe. Kristen has a bachelor of arts from University of Mary Washington, which will use the book as its campus read in the 2016-17 school year. She also has a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is her first book. It was a New York Times bestseller in race and civil rights and in education, and it was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The Washington Post recognized it among notable nonfiction for 2015. Kristen and her husband, Jason Hamilton, and their two young daughters live in Richmond, Va.
Jon Pineda is the author of the novel Apology, winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the memoir Sleep in Me, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the poetry collections Little Anodynes, winner of the 2016 Library of Virginia Literary Award in Poetry, The Translator’s Diary, winner of the Green Rose Prize, and Birthmark, winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry Open Competition. A recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, his work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. He is a core faculty member in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte and teaches creative writing at the University of Mary Washington.
Chop Suey books will be selling books by all of our special guests at Writers' Fest! ⇩