Fiction Writing Seminar

Saturday, February 28, 2009
George Mason University, Johnson Center, Campus Cinema

Register online at www.aiwriters.org, by telephone to (202) 775-5150 or by FAX to (202) 775-5810.

AIW Members $119, Non-members $189, and Students $69.

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1:30-2:45 p.m. New Media and Publishing Creative Writing

Literary publishing and marketing are currently going through a rapid transformation with rise of New Media and the reduction/evaporation of traditional media outlets. How do writers find their ways among these changes? Panelists will discuss new models for publishing, book reviewing and promotion (including social networking), as well how short fiction is evolving in response to a new generation of readers on the screen. This panel will probe assumptions of fiction being a commodity and the conventions associated with that.

Moderator Reb Livingston is the editor of the online poetry magazine No Tell Motel (www.notellmotel.org) and publisher of No Tell Books (www.notellbooks.org ). She's the author of YOUR TEN FAVORITE WORDS (Coconut Books) and co-editor of THE BEDSIDE GUIDE TO NO TELL MOTEL anthology series. Her poems have appeared in THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2006, The American Poetry Review, Coconut and other publications. During the '90's she worked as a programming manager and producer for America Online. She blogs at www.cacklingjackal.blogspot.com.

Mark Athitakis is a D.C.-based writer and editor who has spent more than a dozen years contributing news, features, and reviews to daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, and magazines. His book reviews and author interviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, among other publications. He maintains a blog, American Fiction Notes (markathitakis.com), that features regular commentary on books and trends in the publishing world, as well as a schedule of upcoming literary events in the greater Washington, D.C. area. He can be reached via e-mail at mathitak@gmail.com or via Twitter (twitter.com/mathitak).

Bernadette Geyer is a freelance writer and poet in the DC area. She has founded and manages five web sites and three blogs. Her articles, book reviews and poems have appeared in Go World Travel Magazine, Freelance Writer's Report, Sustainable Development International, 32 Poems, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. She publishes a monthly electronic newsletter on energy issues and tracks energy funding opportunities for one of her blogs.

Laura Ellen Scott teaches fiction writing in the undergraduate program at George Mason University. Her fiction can be found in print and online in Ploughshares, Mississippi Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Identity Theory, Hobart, Plots with Guns, Ink Pot Special Edition Short Story & Flash Fiction, Eclectica’s Best Fiction, Storyglossia, elimae, Behind the Wainscot, and Juked. Stories are forthcoming in Barrelhouse and the Paycock Press anthology GRAVITE DANCERS: MORE FICTION BY WASHINGTON AREA WOMEN. Her writing blog is http://probablyjustastory.blogspot.com.