Pensacon: Pensacola Comic Con 2015

Andrew Metzger (one of my clients) and I would give a panel on how to world build in the various spec fiction genres, using our joint science and writing and publishing backgrounds.  This would be an interactive panel.  Another idea is Creating Credible Characters for Spec Fiction.  This is a version of a character building workshop that I have done many times, for SCBWI, for the North Carolina Writers Network, for the Burnaby Writers Society, for the Vancouver Writers Festival, and even for the Escambia County School District.  Again, an interactive panel in which I teach the skills necessary to build characters that your readers will come back to time and again.  Two professional panels I could offer would be on the role of a literary agent in today's publishing world, and also -- with Andrew Metzger -- a panel on the future of spec fiction in publishing.

I have been an editor and literary agent since 1981.  I have represented such authors as David Gerrold, Samuel R Delany, and David Bischoff.  Currently I am the only literary agent in Northwest Florida.  I specialize in representing writers of speculative fiction for adults and children, as well as other genres in fiction.  I am a member of Sisters-in-Crime and SCBWI.  I am a writer for Smash Entertainment in Orlando, and I have written for Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, the SBWI Newsletter, various newspapers, as well as having written a children's science book and A Million Sherds, a Star Trek novel currently under consideration with CBS.  I have taught creative writing and publishing seminars at Duke University and Simon Fraser University, as well as community college in North Carolina and Canada.  I have taught writing workshops at Hofstra University for SCBWI, with the North Carolina Writers Network, at Wildacres Writers Conference, for the Burnaby Writers Society, and for the Vancouver Writers Festival.