Monday, June 23
6:30-9:30pm

Workshop on Writers Wearing Two Hats: Journalism and Fiction Dawn Turner Trice, columnist Chicago Tribune, author, Only Twice I’ve Wished For Heaven and An Eighth of August.

Thursday, June 26
6:30-9:30pm

Workshop on Literary Agents and Fiction Writing — Timothy Seldes, president, Russell & Volkening New York Literary Agency and Susan Richards Shreve, author, A Student of Living Things and 12 other adult novels and 30 children’s books, including The Lovely Shoes.

Tuesday, June 24
6:30-9:30pm

Workshop on Popular Nonfiction Robert Kurson, author, Crashing Through and Shadow Divers.

Saturday, June 28
9:30am-12:30pm

Workshop on Writing Musicals and Plays with Music — John Sparks, author and lyricist, Hans Brinker, Babes in Barns, Einstein, artistic director Stages Festival of New Musicals at Theatre Building Chicago.

Wednesday, June 25
6:30-9:30pm

Workshop on Covering Politics and the Blogosphere — Rick Perlstein, author, Nixonland and blog writer of The Big Con for the Campaign for America’s Future.

Saturday, June 28
1:30-4:30pm

Comedy Writing for Stage & Screen Tim Kazurinsky, comedy writer and performer for Saturday Night Live, Screenwriter, About Last Night.

DAWN TURNER TRICE has written a column for the Chicago Tribune for the past six years, joining that paper twenty years ago. Recently she has launched a dialogue on race via a website which has attracted great attention. She also writes novels, including Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?9780385491235) which explores divisions between the Black elite and those living in the ghetto, through the eyes of an inquiring eleven year old. Her next novel, An Eighth of August, deals with the strong ties and haunting memories that bind family and friends in a community that celebrates the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation year after year. Author and prolific columnist, Dawn nevertheless admits: "Though I love writing, it still scares the hell out of me. Nothing makes my stomach seize like the blank page. Still, I can’t imagine doing anything else, in any other city."

ROBERT KURSON is the author of Shadow Divers and Crashing Through: A True story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See. "Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers, about the divers exploring sunken shipwreck off the new Jersey coast, is a gripping account of real-life adventurers and a real-life mystery," said Scott Turow, and Publisher’s Weekly predicted a best-seller with this "superlative journalistic narrative." The predictions came true. Kurson’s Shadow Divers became a critically acclaimed bestseller revealing new depths of World War II history, as well as friendship and compulsion. Kurson’s next book—Crashing Through—is another thrilling adventure, the stunning true story of one man’s heroic odyssey from blindness into sight. Robert Kurson is also a contributing editor at Esquire.

RICK PERLSTEIN is the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, just published by Scribner and already on the New York Times Bestseller List. His first book, Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. His articles have appeared in the country’s most important publications including The New York Times, The New York Observer, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Republic, the Nation, the London Review of Books, Newsday, Columbia Journalism Review and The New Yorker. Perlstein is now senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, for whom he writes the blog The Big Con.

TIMOTHY SELDES has been President of Russell & Volkening, Inc. since 1972, serving as the literary agent representing noted authors including Annie Dillard, Marian Wright Edelman, Nadine Gordimer, Jim Lehrer, George Plumpton, Howell Raines, Dan Schorr, Ntozake Shange, Anne Tyler and Eudora Welty. He has spent most of his professional life in book publishing, beginning with 17 years at Doubleday where he was the Managing Editor of the Trade Department. He was Chairman of the Board of Poets and Writers for many years. He is married to the author Susan R. Shreve and divides his time between Washington, D. C. and New York City.

SUSAN R. SHREVE is the author of thirteen novels, the latest of which is A Student of Living Things published by Viking/Penguin. A memoir published this year by Houghton Mifflin Inc. Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood, was just reprinted by Mariner books. The most recent of her thirty books for children is The Lovely Shoes, to be published next year by Arthur A. Levine Books/ Scholastic Press. She is Professor of English at George Mason University, has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Columbia and George Washington University and is a founder of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, a national literary foundation which includes among other outreaches a writers in schools program in Washington, D.C.,Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City and Atlanta.

JOHN SPARKS serves as both artistic director of the Stages Festival of New Musicals and the director of the Musical Writers’ Workshop at Theatre Building Chicago. Shuttling between Chicago and L.A., he is also Artistic Director of the Academy of New Music in Los Angeles. He is a member of the board and guest instructor with Mercury Musicals Development in London. He wrote the words and music for the popular musical Babes in Barns, wrote the lyrics for the holiday favorite Hans Brinker, collaborated on Cashel Byron, wrote the book for The Arresting Dilemma of Mister K. and collaborated on the book for the new musical about Einstein, The Smartest Man in the World.