Confirmed Speakers
Brian Panowich is an award winning author, a Georgia firefighter, and a father to four incredible children. His first novel, Bull Mountain (Putnam Books) topped the best thriller list of 2015 on Apple iBooks, placed in the top twenty best books of 2015 on Amazon, and went on to win the International Thriller Writers Award (2016) for Best First Novel, as well as the Pat Conroy Award (2016) for Best Mystery. The book was also nominated for the Barry Award, the Anthony Award, The Georgia Townsend Book Prize, and was a finalist for the 2016 LA Times Book Prize. Bull Mountain was also selected for the coveted 2016 Books All Georgians Should Read list by the Georgia Center of the Book. His second novel, Like Lions, released on February 5th, 2018.
Christopher Golden is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Tin Men. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of two cult favorite comic book series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcasts Three Guys with Beards and Defenders Dialogue. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated eight times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Christopher is also Senior Creative Executive and Development Editor at Gramarye Media, an Atlanta book publisher and film studio. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com
James A. Moore is the bestselling and award winning author of over forty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy and his most recent novels, The Tides of War series (The Last Sacrifice, Fallen Gods and the forthcoming Gate of the Dead). In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, the British Invasion anthology for Cemetery Dance Publications.
His most recent novels include the forthcoming Boom Town and Predator: Hunters and Hunted, Along with Golden and Jonathan Maberry he is co-host of the Three Guys With beards podcast. Additionally, James serves as an Incubation Mentor for Gramarye Media. More information about the author can be found at his website: jamesamoorebooks.com.
Lou Aronica has spent more than twenty years working for major book publishers, including Deputy Publisher of Bantam Books and Publisher of Berkley Books and Avon Books. He has worked with a tremendous range of industry professionals, including the great Ray Bradbury, the inestimable Ian Ballantine, the remarkable people at Lucasfilm, and brilliant writers far too numerous to mention – romance writers, science fiction writers, thriller writers, literary novelists, thought leaders, and great entertainers.
His first novel, The Forever Year, was published in 2004. Twenty-six books have followed, including the New York Times bestsellers The Element and Finding Your Element, and the national bestsellers The Culture Code, Blue, When You Went Away, The Journey Home, Anything, and Leaves.
Along with literary agent Peter Miller, Lou launched the independent fiction house The Story Plant, which has grown into a multimedia operation, working in books, film, and theatre, with more enterprises on the way. Lou serves as an Incubation Mentor for Gramarye Media. In addition to appearing on panels, Lou will be available for one-on-one sessions as a representative of Story Plant.
Eddy Webb (with a “y,” thank you) is a writer, design consultant, and game and narrative designer for video games and RPGs. He’s worked on over a hundred books and games during his career. He has created unique game universes, such as the world of Pugmire. He’s also partnered with companies to work on established properties like Futurama, Firefly, Red Dwarf, the WWE, and Sherlock Holmes. He’s even won a few awards over the past decade or so. In his spare time, he advocates for more inclusion of people with hearing loss. He can be found at pugsteady.com and eddyfate.com.
Jonathan Rabb is an American novelist, essayist, and writer. He is the author of five novels, including The Berlin Trilogy (Rosa, Shadow and Light, and The Second Son), a critically acclaimed series of historical thrillers. Rosa won the 2006 Director’s Special Prize at Spain’s Semana Negra festival, and was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2005. Rabb has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the 92nd Street Y, and is currently a professor in the writing department at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His latest novel, Among the Living, is a finalist for the 2018 Townsend Prize for Fiction.
Nic Stone was born and raised in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about one. After graduating from Spelman College, she worked extensively in teen mentoring and lived in Israel for a few years before returning to the US to write full-time. Growing up with a wide range of cultures, religions, and backgrounds, Stone strives to bring these diverse voices and stories to her work. Her debut novel, Dear Martin, was released in October 2017. You can find her goofing off and/or fangirling over her husband and sons on most social media platforms as @getnicced.
Jackson Pearce currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a slightly cross-eyed cat and a lot of secondhand furniture. She auditioned for the circus once, but didn’t make it; other jobs she’s had include obituaries writer, biker bar waitress, and receptionist.
Jackson began writing when she got angry that the school librarian couldn’t tell her of a book that contained a smart girl, horses, baby animals, and magic. Her solution was to write the book herself when she was twelve. Her parents thought it was cute at first, but have grown steadily more concerned for her ever since. She is the author of more than a dozen novels. Visit her online at www.jacksonpearce.com.
Lauren Morrill is the author of four YA novels, including Meant to Be (Delacorte) and the forthcoming Better Than the Best Plan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Spring 2019). When she’s not writing, she’s busy stalking the shelves of the bookstore and the library in Macon, GA, where she lives with her husband and two sons.
In her lifetime she has worked as a cashier at Target and at a grocery store, as a khaki-folder and greeter at the GAP, a balloon-animal making, face-painting clown, a receptionist at a real estate agency, a (failed) babysitter, a curatorial assistant at the world’s largest children’s museum, and a hostess and busser at an Irish pub. She is now proud to call herself an Author. With a capital A.
Stacia Pelletier is the author of Accidents of Providence and The Half-Wives, both short-listed for the Townsend Prize in Fiction. She earned graduate degrees in religion and historical theology from Emory University in Atlanta. A two-time fellow of the Hambidge Center, located in the mountains of North Georgia, she currently lives in Decatur, Georgia, and works at Emory University’s School of Medicine.
Booker T. Mattison is an author and filmmaker who wrote and directed the film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s The Gilded Six Bits, which aired on Showtime. Mattison’s novel Snitch received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. His debut novel Unsigned Hype was nominated for a South Carolina Book Award. Mattison received his Master of Fine Arts in film and television from New York University. He teaches film production and screenwriting at the University of Georgia. Website: bookertmattison.com
Trudy Nan Boyce received her Ph.D. in community counseling before becoming a police officer for the City of Atlanta. During her more-than-thirty-year career she served as a beat cop, homicide detective, senior hostage negotiator, and lieutenant. Boyce retired from the police department in 2008 and still lives in Atlanta. She was awarded both a Georgia Author of the Year Award and a Pinckley Prize for her debut, Out of the Blues.
The Wall Street Journal described Trudy’s most recent novel, The Policeman’s Daughter, as a “captivating prequel.” Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times calls the protagonist of The Policeman’s Daughter “…our favorite street cop.”
Cherry Weiner grew up in Australia, lived in Europe for three and a half years and moved to American when she married her husband Jack. She has been agenting since 1977, when she was fired by her boss the well-known Robert P. Mills.
Mills’ famous clients (she will not any drop further names, but might tell you about it, if you ask her), took two years to convince her to open her own agency. They did this by inundating her with new authors and their manuscripts.
She started out by handling science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She now handles all genres of fiction. She handles a number of fairly well-known authors in the field of Horror, Romance, Mystery, Westerns, Native American novels and Historical novels covering all the various genres each category can break out into. Only once in a very special situation has non-fiction crept into the mix but no poetry, no children’s fiction and almost no Young Adult works. If there is Y.A., then it is science fiction, fantasy or horror, and only by the authors she already handles in adult fiction.
In addition to her one-on-one sessions, Cherry will present for an “Ask the Agent” session, at which time attendees will have the opportunity to ask any question they may have about the process of finding an agent.
Kristy Hunter joined The Knight Agency in April 2014. A product of the Columbia Publishing Course, Kristy worked for Grove/Atlantic and Random House Children’s Books before deciding it was time to make the move back down south. She now takes advantage of her new surroundings by being outside as much as possible with her French bulldog, Gummi.
Kristy is currently accepting submissions from a wide variety of genres, including women’s fiction, mystery, historical romance, romance, young adult, and middle grade. Having spent significant time in the south and New York City, she particularly likes books set in these regions. She also enjoys books that feature horses, boarding schools, sisters, and sororities—to name just a few.
John Adcox is the CEO of Gramarye Media, Inc and the author of Blackthorne Faire. Over the course of a 20-year career in advertising, marketing, and new media John Adcox has held a number of titles including Executive Producer, Vice President of Digital Media, Creative Director, Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services, and CEO.
Though submissions are currently closed to the public, Gramarye is extending an opportunity to attendees of the Broadleaf Writers Conference to pitch your best manuscript proposal! Don’t miss out on this special opportunity! Gramarye is interested in: Fantasy (high, epic, or urban), paranormal/paranormal romance, science fiction, procedural mystery, cozy mysteries, and thriller (spy, action, etc.).
The Story Plant was founded in 2008 by two long-term industry professionals, Lou Aronica and Peter Miller. From the start, the company has been dedicated to publishing quality fiction and to developing authors. Though we’re always trying to improve, we feel that we’ve delivered on both. Our books regularly receive rave reviews (click on any of our titles to check for yourself) and since our launch, nearly a third of our novels have appeared in the top 100 of one major bestseller list or another – and often several at once.
In 2013, The Story Plant was acquired by Studio Digital CT, LLC, a limited liability company headed by Lou Aronica. With this, Mitchell Maxwell came on board to add his unparalleled blend of creativity, passion, and business acumen.
The Story Plant has an absolute dedication to its authors. Both Aronica and Maxwell are novelists as well, and they understand the desires, needs, and insecurities of writers at the most personal level. We want The Story Plant to be a good home for those who write for us, and we want it to be a place where readers can be assured that everyone involved in bringing these books to them cares deeply about what they’re doing.
Please keep in mind that, right now, The Story Plant is only publishing fiction.
*speaker list subject to change
Moderators
Ian Campbell is Associate Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta. His primary research interest is Arabic-language science fiction: his monograph on the genre’s formative decades will come out in print this September from Palgrave Macmillan. Under the name Julian Cage, he also writes fast-paced, character-driven, trashy mystery-thriller fiction set in Atlanta; his collection of short stories Too Busy to Hate: Tales of Murder from the Streets of Atlanta is available on Amazon.
Daniel Lamb is an Atlanta-based author, copywriter and musician. He holds a B.A. in writing from Georgia State University. His scholarship, creative writing, literary and theatre criticism have been featured in Atlanta Studies, Paste Magazine, The Fanzine, The Five Hundred, Dear Bear Wolf, Write Club Atlanta and Edge Media Network. He is the co-founder of Gutwrench Journal. Currently, he’s working on a story collection and an album to be released together in late 2018.
Carmen Tanner Slaughter has been a moderator at the Broadleaf Writers Conference for the past two years. She was chairperson for the Canton Festival of the Arts Literary Celebration for seven years and has been emcee for GospelFest, an ecumenical service celebrating Black History Month, since 2009. Carmen has also been a featured storyteller at many of Atlanta’s literary events including Carapace, Stories on the Square, and the Peach State Storytelling Festival. In addition, Carmen has served as emcee and presenter at the reading series, A Novel Idea, and she has been a panelist at Berry College’s Southern Women Writers Conference. She was recently selected as co-moderator for the Southern Region of the online community What Would Virginia Woolf Do? She lives in Canton, GA.
Alayna Huft Tucker is a writer living in Decatur, GA whose work has appeared in The Five Hundred and Gutwrench Journal as well as on air during City Lights for WABE Atlanta. She is a frequent performer for Atlanta literary events such as Write Club, Bleux Stockings Society, Transgression, and others. She is also the author of a cookbook: The Japanese Pantry.
Lauren Vogelbaum is a writer, editor, and performer around Atlanta and the internet. You can hear her work on the podcasts FoodStuff and BrainStuff, plus at live lit events throughout the city.