October 18-19, 2024
J Eric Miller is a professor of Creative Writing at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he is faculty advisor to the MSU Roadrunner Review. His short story collection, Animal Rights and Pornography was published by Soft Skull Press and has since been translated and published in France, Spain, Russia, and Turkey. His novel Decomposition has been translated and published in France, Spain, and Italy. The film rights are also presently under option.
His fiction and personal essays have appeared or are scheduled to appear in a variety of journals, including The Threepenny Review, The Cincinnati Review, American Short Fiction,
Eclectica, decomP, Semaphore, Starry Night Review, Clementine Unbound, The/tEmz/Review,
Litbreak, The Scarlet Leaf Review, eFiction, Pindelyboyz, Clean Sheets, Manera, Burning Word,
Ink Pot, and Outsider Ink. One of them, “Invisible Fish”, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
https://sites.msudenver.edu/roadrunnerreview/
J Eric Miller will be presenting the following topics:
Writing Creative Non-Fiction
Turning Fiction into Creative Nonfiction. How to realign elements of fiction for non-fiction
writing.
The Personal Essay: A Connect-the-Dots-Portrait
Each essay is a moment—a small passage of time, with a complete arc in and of
itself—and all may be lined up to create the story of a life, a kind of connect the dot
portrait. Talking about ‘dots’ this way, frees the writer from the idea of starting with ‘I
was born…’ We think of an interesting movement, write it out, have a dot. Write
another. Usually, we string a couple together and send it out as a personal essay.
String a few of these together and we have a memoir. The idea is to focus on crafting
the small parts.
Sara Megibow (she/her) is the Senior Literary Agent at Megibow Literary Agency in Broomfield, Colorado. She has worked in publishing since 2006 and represents New York Times bestselling authors including Rebecca Roanhorse, Margaret Rogerson and Jason M. Hough. Sara specializes in launching debut authors and working on long-term career development and profit strategy with them. She is a graduate of Northwestern University with degrees in Women’s Studies, Gender Studies and American History. Always LGBTQIA+ Friendly!
Sara Megibow will be presenting the following topics:
Behind The Scenes in Traditional Publishing 2024
It’s October 2024 and readers are reading, bookstores are selling, publishers are
acquiring, agents are hunting and writers are writing…let’s look behind-the-scenes at
what is making this year special. This presentation with literary agent Sara Megibow will
discuss the specifics of distribution, formats and subsidiary rights as they apply to
traditionally published books. These three aspects of publishing are the cornerstones of
profitability for authors. Any writer can evaluate their work through the lens of profit
when deciding if and when and how to pursue publication.
Literary Agents 101
Traditional publishing is one way to get your books in front of readers. Typically, a writer
needs a literary agent in order to submit to traditional publishers so…how does a writer
find a literary agent? This presentation will cover the ground rules for finding agents,
evaluating agents, polishing a query letter and submitting to agents. What works? What
doesn’t work? Q&A included!