Participants

Wendy DeVere-Austin is the author of the novels Leave the Killing to Me and Dead on Cue. Born in Bath, England, she graduated from Exeter University and modeled for Chanel before entering the film industry in the 1970s. In the late 1980s, she moved to Virginia.

Colleen Doran is an illustrator and author of numerous graphic novels and comic books. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution. She is working on five new projects for Marvel, DC, HarperCollins, Archie and Image.

Martha Tod Dudman is the author of two memoirs, Augusta, Gone (which was made into a Lifetime Television movie) and Expecting to Fly. Black Olives is her first novel. She lives in Maine.

Gerald Duff is the author of the Fire Ants, a short story collection and Coasters, a novel. He is Provost and Dean of the College of McKendree University.

Tony Dunbar is the author of Tubby Meets Katrina, the seventh in a series of New Orleans mystery novels. An attorney, he also wrote Against the Grain: Southern Radicals and Prophets.

Nathan Englander, author of the novel The Ministry of Special Cases, first won acclaim for his short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. selected as one of "20 Writers for the 21st Century" by the New Yorker, he lives in New York.

Marc Estrin is the author of The Lamentations of Julius Marantz; Insect Dreams; The Education of Arnold Hitler; Golem Song; Tsim-Tsum; and Rehearsing with Gods, an award-winning memoir of his 35 years with the Bread & Puppet Theater.

Mark Ethridge's first novel is Grievances. A third-generation reporter,he directed the Charlotte Observer's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations of the textile industry and the PTL scandal involving Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Ethridge publishes parenting magazines and consults for a NASCAR fan magazine.

Justin Evans, is author of A Good and Happy Child. He grew up in Lexington, Virginia, and has degrees in English and business. Once a film scout for Paramount, he is now a strategy executive in New York, where he lives with his family.

Robert Marston Fannéy is the author of Luthiel's Song: Dreams of the Ringed Vale--the first part of an epic fantasy whose protagonist is a 15-year-old girl with a magical gift. He is at work on the second Luthiel's Song book, The War of Mists.

Frank Ferguson is the editor of Ulster-Scots Writing, An Anthology. He will discuss the concept of Ulster-Scots literature and language and its place within Irish, British and American literature.

Therese Fowler grew up in Illinois. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing and now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and two sons. Souvenir is her debut novel.

Jenny Gardiner's debut humorous novel is Sleeping with Ward Cleaver. Her work has appeared in Ladies Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR’s Day to Day.  She honed her fiction writing skills working as a publicist for a US Senator.

George Garrett, author of Days of Our Lives Lie in Fragments, is the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing Emeritus at UVa. Author of 32 books and editor or co-author of 19 others, he served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2004.

Francisco Goldman is the author of The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? about the political murder of Guatemalen Bishop Juan Gerardi. His novels include The Divine Husband, The Long Night of White Chickens, and The Ordinary Seaman.