Writers Weekend

Guest Instructors include top names in the industry. 

We’ll be gathering at Coppertoppe Inn from 7-9 PM on Thursday, April 25 for a social get-together. You never know who might be there!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we’ll be meeting in small and large (but not too large!) groups to have conversations about writing craft, the industry (both trade and independently published), and how we can energize our work now and in the future.

Registration ends March 31, 2019. We are taking reservations to be in a group of 6 to have your work critiqued by editor Moshe Feder. Please register soon to be included in that group. Email stories to WritersWeekend@hotmail.com.

You may also pitch your manuscript to agent Beth Marshea of Ladderbird Literary Agency by appointment.

Your Registration donation of $200 will help to cover the expenses of putting on this event, including airfare for speakers, hotel rooms, snacks, and website hosting.  Lodging and meals are extra, talk to Sheila for details. All of our staff are volunteers.

Coppertoppe Writers Weekend Guest Instructors

**For those who wish to have a formal critique of a chapter or story by top editor Moshe Feder, please email us at WritersWeekend@hotmail.com and send your story or chapter by March 31, 2019. The critiques will be Milford-style and that group is limited to 6 writers – all will read and critique all 6 stories or chapters. We will have other programming and conversations, as well as time for writing,  scheduled all three days — 9 am to 9 pm. Seating for the weekend workshop is limited to 24 writers total.

Elizabeth Hand

Elizabeth Hand is the bestselling author of thirteen genre-spanning novels and four collections of short fiction. Her work has received the World Fantasy Award (four times), Nebula Award (twice), Shirley Jackson Award (twice), International Horror Guild Award (three times), the Mythopoeic Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, among others, and several of her books have been New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. Her recent, critically acclaimed novels featuring Cass Neary, “one of literature’s great noir anti-heroes” [Katherine Dunn] — GENERATION LOSS, AVAILABLE DARK, and the forthcoming HARD LIGHT — have been compared to those of Patricia Highsmith. With Paul Witcover, Hand created DC Comic’s early 1990s cult series ANIMA, whose riot grrl superheroine dealt with homeless teenagers, drug abuse, the AIDS epidemic and racial violence, and featured DC Comics’ first openly gay teenager (the series also once guest-starred Conan O’Brien). Her 1999 play “The Have-Nots” was a finalist in London’s Fringe Theater Festival and went on to play at the Battersea Arts Center. She has written numerous novelizations of films, including Terry Gilliam’s TWELVE MONKEYS, and a popular series of STAR WARS books for middle grade children. She is a longtime critic and book reviewer whose work appears regularly in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Salon, the Boston Review, among many others, and writes a regular column for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her books and short fiction have been translated into numerous languages and have been optioned for film and television. Hand teaches at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing, and recently joined the faculty of the Maine College of Art. She divides her time between the coast of Maine and North London, and is working on the fourth Cass Neary.

Ms. Hand will be leading an informal chat about publishing and her work —  on Saturday evening at dinner.

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Moshe Feder

A time traveler in training, an alien spy, or merely an aspiring renaissance man, Moshe Feder acquires and edits bestselling Science Fiction and Fantasy as a Consulting Senior Editor for Tor Books, a division of Macmillan long located in New York’s landmark Flatiron Building and soon to be moving to the landmark Equitable Building. 

Moshe began his editorial career while still in college when he worked part time as Assistant Editor for the magazines Amazing and Fantastic. Later, he was an SF&F reviewer for Publishers Weekly and Science Fiction Chronicle, Assistant Editor of the SF Book Club, Editor in Chief of the Military Book Club, a reviewer for Asimov’s SF Magazine, and an Associate Editor at Tor Books. He has been a judge for the World Fantasy Awards and a member of the Sidewise Awards jury. His first, and so far only, short story appeared in Damon Knight’s Orbit 16 in 1975.

 

He has worked with such authors as Gene Wolfe, Isaac Asimov, Paul Park, Scott Westerfeld, Harlan Ellison, Hal Clement, F. Paul Wilson, Charles Stross, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Robert J. Sawyer, and Eric Van Lustbader. He has brought Tor Books such authors as Dan Wells, Robert Silverberg, David Levine, Gary K. Wolf, Phillip Jennings, and Michael Haspil. His current list includes Brandon Sanderson, David Gerrold, and Michael Moorcock.

A 2011 nominee for the Best Editor Hugo Award, he had his first #1 New York Times bestseller with 2014’s Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. In 2015 he was honored by NESFA with the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award (known as “the Skylark”).

Moshe is a proud native New Yorker who roots for the Mets, Yankees, Giants, and Jets. He also barracks for the Collingwood Magpies of Melbourne, Australia. His diverse interests include classical music, Broadway theatre (especially Sondheim and Stoppard), physics, astronomy, cognitive science, the histories of Judaism and Christianity, architecture and design, New York City, food and cooking, railroads and mass transit, space exploration, world’s fairs, cats and Komodo dragons, progressive politics and human rights, jazz, singer songwriters, SF fandom, mimeography, and photography. He also talks to cats, whistles, advocates the Oxford comma, and requires chocolate.

Moshe lives in Flushing, NY with his cat Nemo. He’ll be happy to explain why you’ve probably never eaten bagels and lox, even though you’re sure you have.

Note: Mr. Feder has agreed to read and critique a chapter or short story for participants. We’ll do this Milford-style, so all of the people in the group will submit their pages in advance, we’ll all read them, and then the group will join in a critique session led by Mr. Feder, who will also add his comments. Milford style means that each person is silent while the others give their critique. Mr. Feder will decide if questions or comments are welcome by each writer after their story is ‘up’. If you would like to be in this small group of no more than 6 total writers, please let us know at Realreaderfest@gmail.com.

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Gregory Norris

Gregory L. Norris is a full-time professional writer, with work appearing in numerous fiction anthologies, national magazines, novels, and the occasional TV episode (and, so far, one produced feature film — Brutal Colors, which appeared on Amazon Prime in 2016). He once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s Star Trek: Voyager series and is a former writer for Sci Fi, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel (before all those ridiculous Ys invaded). Three times now, he’s garnered mentions in Ellen Datlow’s Best Of The Year books, and two of his paranormal romance novels were published by Home Shopping Network for their “Escape With Love” line, the first time HSN has offered original novels to their global customers. He won Honorable Mention in 2016’s The Roswell Award in short SF fiction, and last year saw the publication of INTO INFINITY: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, which he was hired by Anderson Entertainment in the UK to pen based upon the classic Gerry Anderson TV movie (and which he watched when he was eleven). Next month, his original sequel, INTO INFINITY: PLANETFALL, releases. with a third novel planned for the franchise in 2019. Follow his literary adventures at: www.gregorylnorris.blogspot.com.

If you want to know what it takes to be a full-time professional writer, Mr. Norris will be leading conversations and talks over the weekend about how to make it in the industry.

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Ashley Lauren Rogers

Ashley Lauren Rogers is an award winning writer and trans rights activist. Her work has been performed at Dixon Place, MITF, the Brick, and Joe’s Pub and others. Her short play “Becky’s Christmas Wish,” was a finalist for the City Theatre National Short Play Award, in Miami, and her work has been produced in Wisconsin, Cincinnati, New Jersey, Detroit, and Minneapolis. Ashley was featured on Fusion TV’s Peabody Award Nominated Sex.Right.Now, panels for Revry.TV. Written for Cosmopolitan, The Mary Sue, is the creator of the Is It Transphobic Podcast. Photo Credit to Alexandra Photography.

Robyn Bennis

Robyn Bennis has done research and development involving human gene expression, neural connectomics, cancer diagnostics, rapid flu testing, gene synthesis, genome sequencing, being so preoccupied with whether she could that she never stopped to think if she should, and systems integration. She wrote most of The Guns Above within sight of Hangar One at Moffett Airfield, which was once the West Coast home to one of America’s largest airships, the USS Macon.She currently resides in Madison, WI, where she has one cat, two careers, and an apartment full of dreams.

Zig Zag Claybourne

Zig Zag Claybourne’s essays on sci fi, fandom, and life in general have appeared in Apex, Strange Horizons, and other genre venues. His fiction has been described as “effortlessly cool”. His most recent novel is The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan, with the sequel, Afro Puffs Are the Antennae of the Universe, due in 2019. His short story collection Historical Inaccuracies once topped a collection from Neil Himself on Amazon for about 3 seconds. He grew up watching The Twilight Zone and considers himself a better person for it. You can find his work scattered throughout the web, but if you really want to get to know him the door’s always open at www.writeonrighton.com.

Dan Szczesny

Dan Szczesny is a long-time journalist, author and speaker living in New Hampshire.He’s written several books of travel memoir (The Adventures of Buffalo and Tough Cookie, Mosquito Rain), fiction (Sing and Other Stories) and poetry (Invincible One, Poems). His book, The Nepal Chronicles, about a month long trek to Everest Base Camp and marriage in Kathmandu, won the 2016 New Hampshire state library award for Outstanding Work of Non-Fiction.

Dan is also the Editor of Murder Ink, a series of New England-based Pulp Fiction anthologies set in or around the newsroom. Volume Three is set for release in Feb.2018.

His short story, “White Like Marble” was a finalist in the 2017 Ernest Hemingway Foundation Short Shorts Contest, out of the Hemingway Birthplace in Oak Park, Ill.

Dan’s latest project is The White Mountain. From the vaulted heights of New England’s highest peak, Dan spent a year exploring the very heart of the White Mountains. But Mt. Washington—home of the world’s worst weather—is more than just a Rock Pile, it’s the cultural and natural soul of climbers and tourists from around the world. From car races to bird watching, from bikes to motorcycles, from the railroad to the stars to a centuries old observatory, Mt. Washington speaks to the adventurer in all of us, and Dan turns his veteran journalist’s eye toward capturing it all in his new book, The White Mountain. www.danszczesny.com

Beth Marshea

Ladderbird is a boutique literary agency out of the Boston area run by agent Beth Marshea. Beth has a long love of literature, which started as part of a family of bookworms. After obtaining an undergraduate degree in literature, Beth earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration. As she worked with small presses and authors, she became determined to find a way to merge her business passion and her love of literature, which is how Ladderbird was born. 

Beth is excited by writing that pushes genres and boundaries and challenges the reader to accept new points of view. She is also highly interested in new takes in nonfiction, especially related to business, self-help, psychology.