Presenters and Faculty
for the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference

April 18 – 21, 2024 in Bellingham, WA

We are thrilled to announce our line-up of experts in marketing, book publicity, publishing, and advanced writing craft for the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference!

We will be updating this page with speaker and session info when confirmed.
Please check back often! All information subject to change.

 


D.D. BLACK – Crime Fiction Author

D.D. Black is the author of the internationally-bestselling Thomas Austin Crime Thrillers. Before he began writing full time, he was an adjunct professor of journalism at NYU and an English teacher at Northwest Indian College. He also teaches classes on writing, marketing, and publishing all over the country, including for the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, the Write in the Harbor Conference, the Royal City Literary Arts Society, the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network, the 20Books Conference, and many local libraries.

Previously, he wrote thrillers under the name A.C. Fuller, including The Alex Vane Media ThrillersThe Ameritocracy Series, and The Crime Beat. Altogether, he’s written and published over thirty books. To learn more, check out ddblackauthor.com.

D.D. Black will be presenting at CAC24

 

 


Kim Hornsby, a young white woman with blonde hair and glasses wearing a stylish yellow jacket with a blue scarf

 

KIM HORNSBY – Author, Producer, and Screenwriter

 

Kim Hornsby is a produced and multi-awarded screenwriter of everything from Thrillers to RomComs. She’s known for crafting the toe curling romance. A USA Today bestselling author, Kim adapts novels to scripts and teaches her method nationally. She lives on an island off Seattle where she writes in a forest of old growth cedar trees and owls. A former actress, Kim was once best known as the BluBlocker infomercial host. She’s worked in entertainment in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Maui, Whistler and now the Pacific Northwest where she speaks at writer conferences on story structure and the adaptation.

Her book The Dream Jumper’s Promise is scheduled to be filmed starting in late 2024.

 

 


Mark Berridge in a superman style pose for TEDx BrisbaneMARK BERRIDGE – Author, leader, and motivational speaker

By melding his professional background with the lived experience of his personal recovery journey, Mark brings his unique insights, perspective and practical tips and strategies to every custom-curated presentation he delivers.

Mark’s authenticity, openness, expertise and practicality profoundly impact the individuals, teams and organisations he presents to, helping them build the resilience they need to succeed in today’s challenging business environment.

Most recently, Mark presented at TedEx Brisbane. We’re excited to have him back for CAC24!

 

 


SUSAN V. MEYERS – Creative Writing Program Director Non-Fiction Writer and Pushcart Prize Nominee

After growing up on a carnival route, Susan V. Meyers, PhD.,  is a professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Seattle University.

Having received grants from Fulbright, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and several arts residencies, she has been nominated for The Best American Series and several Pushcart Prizes. Her novel Failing the Trapeze won the Nilsen Award, and other work has appeared in Creative NonfictionHuffington PostThe Rumpus, Hippocampus, So to Speak, New Orleans Review, and The Minnesota Review. You can find her at susanvmeyers.com.

Susan will present a session on Dynamic Dialogue: The Art of Subtext and Grabbing Your Reader and Not Letting Go

 

 


LUCAS SOUTHWORTH – Award Winning Short Story Author

Lucas Southworth’s book of short stories, Everyone Here Has a Gun, won the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s Grace Paley Prize. He has published stories in magazines such as the Pushcart Prize AnthologyConjunctionsThe Iowa ReviewAGNICopper Nickel, and many others. He has also received Grants, fellowships, and residencies from The Maryland State Arts Council, The Truman Capote Trust, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Jentel Artist Residency Program, Monson Arts, and Arteles Creative Center in Finland. Usually, he divides his time between Baltimore and Washington, where teaches fiction and screenwriting at Loyola University Maryland and at Seattle U.

Lucas will have sessions on:

  • How to Design a Smashing Screenplay: The importance of planning and outlining a story before you write
  • Key Elements of Writing the Short Story

JAYNE ENTWISTLE – Award-winning Audiobook Narrator and Actress

Jayne Entwistle is an award-winning audiobook narrator known most notably for her narration of the Flavia De Luce series by Alan Bradley. She has received the Odyssey Award, Odyssey Honour Award and Voice Arts Award for narration. In addition to several Earphones Awards, AudioFile Magazine has included her narration on their list of Best Audiobooks of the Year. When not immersed in books, Jayne can be found on-screen in television programs such as: The Good Place, Grey’s Anatomy, Winning Time, and You’re the Worst. Originally from the north of England, Jayne currently lives in the PNW.

Jayne will present:  How a Narrator Brings Your Words to Life

Behind the mic with award-winning audiobook narrator Jayne Entwistle. What goes into recording an audiobook? From receiving the manuscript to uploading finished audio files, Jayne will outline the process of creating an audiobook and how instrumental authors can be in that process. From hours of pain-staking research to decisions about accents and character’s vocal traits to the myriad ways a line can be read, get a glimpse into how a narrator brings your words to life. Q&A will be included.

She will also participate in panels.


 

CHRISTINE FAIRCHILD – Author & Book Doctor

Christine Fairchild offers 35+ years experience as a writer, editor, and book doctor. She’s conducted celebrity interviews (XFiles, SciFiMall.com), edited for technical giants (Microsoft, Hitachi), and served as a marketing/readability specialist for consumer products (DHL, Cingular, AT&T). She now specializes in Suspense fiction and helps authors take their work, and their career, to the next level through her online workshops, classes at conferences and one-on-one book-doctoring of clients’ novels. She also writes suspense and historical fiction, so she understands the challenges authors face in their craft and the publishing industry.

Christine will be leading sessions on:

Power Moves to Make Your Story UNDENIABLE
Look Out! He’s Behind You!  Effectively Using Suspense to Insure a Page-Turner Story
• And more to be announced! 

Find more of her tips & tricks at: EditorDevil.blogspot.com

 


MICHELLE COX – OVERALL GRAND PRIZE AUTHOR

Michelle Cox is the author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago’s forgotten residents.  She suspects she may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, has resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting herself back there.

Her work has received multiple Mystery & Mayhem and Clue Awards from Chanticleer as well as the Overall Grand Prize Award for Best Book for her book A Spying Eye, in addition to several top-rated reviews, plus many other accolades, so she might be on to something.  Unbeknownst to most, Michelle hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.  Also marmalade.

 

 


 

DIANE GARLAND – Your WorldKeeper – Continuity Senior Editor

Diane Garland and her editorial company Your WorldKeeper, specializes in the world of continuity. Multiple USA Today best-selling and award-winning authors in various genres rely on her system of cataloging and organizing the minutiae and rules of their story worlds. Growing up as an AF Brat, Diane traveled extensively as a child, which has fueled her passion for travel and reading. She graduated from Florida State University and is a life-long learner. She, along with her husband and two cats, have recently relocated to Columbus, Ohio from the Seattle, Washington area.

Join Diane at her sessions about the necessity, creation, and organization of a story bible along with pointers on maintaining and using it to take your author career to the next level.

 


LISA SPICER – Producer, Editor, Writer

Lisa Spicer has worked in television, film, and video production for over 30 years as producer, writer, and editor. Starting in the documentary unit at KCTS/PBS Seattle, she worked there later on the Bill Nye the
Science Guy show, earning 3 Emmys. As an independent documentary producer, she has worked in Kenya, Mexico’s Lacandon rainforest, Northern Cheyenne and Lummi Indian reservations, Boulder, Seattle,
and Bellingham. Lisa has a BA in Broadcast Journalism and certificates in Filmmaking and Screenwriting (UW). Mid-career she earned an MA in Anthropology (WWU). Integrating anthropology into documentary, she
co-produced Homeless in Bellingham, an award-winning web series and documentary, and served as Consulting Anthropologist for the feature documentary, Cheech and Chong’s Last Movie. Recently
finishing an historical novel, Radio Smokva, she’s now writing about her back-to-the-land childhood and publishing a weekly series on Substack, Collective Effervescence: Research About the Counterculture.

Lisa will lead a workshop called How to Read a Film, with a focus to enhance your fluency in the language of film. Rooted in the practice of mise-en-scene, learn how meaning is conveyed through elements such as camera angle, set design, motif (shapes), lighting, actors, sound, all of which work together in support of the narrative.

Tips and Tools with the Screen in Mind – by Lisa G. Spicer
  • Writing for the screen or with the screen in mind, whether narrative or non-fiction (documentary) film.
    • Ex: From any story, what is selected to be scripted and filmed? How is it framed (what do we see)?
    • Ex: Screenplays are written in present tense
  • As related to writing, film borrows from theater by using elements of mis en scene and motif.
    • Ex: How do theater directors use props and costume to support the narrative?
    • Writing for film or with film in mind can be informed by the craft and how films are actually made.

Ex: Basic camera terminology, used throughout entire process: writing, filming, editing.

IMPORTANT:  The schedule may change at the last minute along with presenters & panelists.

 

JANET OAKLEY – Award-Winning Author and Historian, and Community Leader

J. L. Oakley writes historical fiction that spans the mid-19th century to WW II with characters standing up for something in their own time and place. She is an award-winning author and a recipient of the 2013 Bellingham Mayor’s Arts Award; the 2013 Chanticleer Grand Prize; the 2014 First Place Chaucer Award;  an Everybody Reads and Bellingham. When not writing, she demonstrates 19th-century folkways in the schools and at San Juan Island National Park. She also has a cat who thinks she’s editing. Read pick and the 2015 WILLA Silver Award, Pulpwood Queen Book Club 2016 backlist pick for February 2016.

As a First in Category winner in the Goethe, Laramie, and Chatelaine Awards for Mist-chi-mas: A Novel of Captivity, the Chaucer Award for Timber Rose and The Jøssing Affair, the Hemingway Grand Prize Winner for The Quisling Factor and the OVERALL Grand Prize for her book, Tree Soldier, Janet will present at the 2021 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremonies (The CIBAs) on Sunday evening and recognize the finalists and announce the Grand Prize winner, and perhaps the Overall Grand Prize winner on Sunday evening.


STRIDER KLUSMAN – Award Winning Author and Host of the Author in the Headlights Podcast

An award winning, first place author of the Chanticleer International Book Awards, Strider began his writing career after twenty-five years as a fire fighter/EMT. The emotions and experiences of those calls carry themselves through every story, bringing true ‘been-there’ reality to the scenes.

With additional years as a business owner, general contractor, designer, wildland firefighter, big game guide, ski instructor, back packer and sword fighter, his wide range of knowledge is intricately woven throughout his stories.

To date, Strider has written YA (young adult), NA (New adult), and general fiction in the realm of: sci-fi western, light steampunk, dystopian (post apocalyptic), gaslight (early mechanism era) and just good fun reading.


KIANNE BURGESS – Social Media Manager for D.D. Black

Kianne works as the full-time social media manager for the Bestselling Thriller author D.D. Black, handling his presence across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. She focuses specifically on boosting sales and cementing his digital footprint through long tail digital marketing. As social media always changes, Kianne constantly is learning the newest and best ways to continue to build upon an already successful platform.
 
A writer herself, Kianne is currently working on the first book in a fantasy series. She plans on publishing her debut novel near the end of 2024. Her dream of being a writer has found a solid ground in her work with D.D. Black and allowed her to make even better inroads into the indie publishing community.

DAVID BEAUMIER – Communications and Marketing Manager at Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media

David has worked as an editor since 2013, and spent two years as the assistant publishing director at Village Books. His BA and MA in English both come from Western Washington University. He is proud to have worked for Chanticleer since 2020.

David’s focuses at Chanticleer are herding cats for the CIBAs, and managing Editorial Services, and running author events on The Roost! His favorite thing is being able to support authors in finding the services they need most to help their work thrive!

A writer in his own right, David tends to write fiction and poetry, specifically urban fantasy and modernized myths. His work has appeared in EWU’s Inroads, WWU’s Suffix, Whatcom Writes, Psaltery & Lyre, and Hamlit. He works as the the project manager for the biennial anthology The Writers’ Corner, and he now volunteers as an editor for HamLit. He has written reviews for Chanticleer Book Reviews, Village Books, and The Bellingham Review.


KIFFER BROWN – CEO and President of Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards

Kiffer-Brown-CBR-132x150.jpgKiffer is the founder of Chanticleer Book Reviews and International Writing Competitions, LLC. She also specializes in curating books with the potential to become fully actualized intellectual properties.

Her addiction is finding sparkling gems that will become tomorrow’s bestsellers. She is known for her instinct in picking winners. She also acts as an independent acquisitions editor for publishers and entertainment companies. Kiffer is known for her marketing talent and networking skills. She truly loves what she does and her passion shows!

 


Check back soon for more presenter and session announcements!

***
Speakers and schedules are subject to change.
Please check back for most current listing.
***

No refunds are available after Jan 30, 2024. However, credit for Chanticleer Services may be arranged. Please email KBrown@ChantiReviews.com for more information.

 


See CAC22’s line up of Speakers here for an idea of what’s to come!
Check back often for updates!