Seaside Writers Conference Announces Headliners and Details

 
The Seaside Writers Conference (SWC) includes a full week of intensive writing workshops, one-day seminars, agent consultations, school outreach programs and social events. The conference, which takes place in the Academic Village in Seaside, Fla, provides an opportunity for beginning, intermediate and advanced writers to celebrate writing, to network and to hone their craft.
 
Headlining authors Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, Townie) and Elizabeth Stuckey-French (The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady, Mermaids on the Moon) will each lead a seminar and reading while guest literary agents Alex Glass (Glass Literary Agency) and Duvall Osteen (Aragi, Inc.) will offer one-on-one consultations with attendees. 
 
“When we were able to get a writer of the caliber of bestselling author Andre Dubus III for our relatively new conference, we knew we were onto something,” said SWC co-founder, author and faculty member Matt Bondurant. “However, we do have a secret weapon. There is no other writers conference that allows you to step out of intimate workshops with national award-winning authors and agents directly onto the white sand of the Gulf of Mexico.  Our writers love that, and they also appreciate the people and culture of the community.”
 
Bondurant (The Wettest County In The World, made into the film Lawless; The Night Swimmer; The Third Translation) and conference co-founder and poet Seth Brady Tucker (Mormon Boy; We Deserve The Gods We Ask For), are joined by visiting faculty member Rebecca Makkai, the Chicago-based author of The Hundred Year House (winner of Chicago Writers Association’s Novel of the Year Award) and recipient of a 2014 NEA fellowship, to lead intensive workshops throughout the week. Registrants may choose one of two genres of workshop study, either Fiction led by Bondurant and Makkai or Poetry led by Tucker. 
 
“The caliber of our special guests this year is a testament to our growing brand,” said Seth Brady Tucker, “but the feedback we get from our attendees is just as important to us. Matt, Jonathan and I started this conference with three key goals in mind:  create a personal experience for our writers, give them a beautiful place to write and discuss literature and writing with great teachers and good people, and to give back to the local community.  I think we have accomplished these goals, and I know our attendees feel the same way.”
 
Other components of the conference are the Scholars and Fellows Program, including the Robert & Daryl Davis Scholar in Fiction and the Sundog Books Scholar in Poetry, and the public school outreach program organized by conference co-founder and Seacoast High School Principal Jonathan D’Avignon in which Scholars and Fellows work directly with 8^th and 11^th grade writers in their schools. Some of the students go on to read their work publicly as part of the conference alongside a headliner.
 
The Seaside Writers Conference is produced by the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County and sponsored by the University of Mississippi, Visit South Walton, Sundog Books, The Seaside Institute, Stetson University MFA, Bud & Alley’s, Great Southern Café and Cabana Man Beach Service.
 
“The Cultural Arts Alliance is proud to have partnered with the SWC Founders to produce this conference,” said CAA Executive Director Jennifer Steele. “Attendance doubled from year one to year two, and we know it will continue to grow as word spreads of the special nature of SWC.  The conference fulfills the CAA’s partial mission of bringing literary programming to the community while providing opportunities for hands-on literary arts enrichment in our public schools. We are grateful to the partners that have made the conference possible.”
 
Participants who pay the early bird rate for the full conference tuition ($500 up until March 20^th, $575 thereafter) will be able to take part in an intensive workshop and all daily activities, including special events, receptions and dinners.  A la carte pricing is available for classes, workshops, consultations and events. Accommodations can also be secured through the registration process by paying the all-inclusive fee of $1500.  Visit seasidewritersconference.com to register and for more information.

About Andre Dubus III:
Andre Dubus III is the author of six books:  The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog (a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly), The Garden of Last Days (soon to be a major motion picture) and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times "Editors’ Choice.” His work has been included in The Best American Essays of 1994 and The Best Spiritual Writing of 1999. His new book, Dirty Love,  has been listed as a New York Times “Notable Book,” a New York Times Editors’ Choice,” a 2013 “Notable Fiction” choice from The Washington Post, and a Kirkus “Starred Best Book of 2013.” Mr. Dubus has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, Two Pushcart Prizes, and he is a 2012 recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His books are published in over twenty-five languages, and he teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
 
 About Elizabeth Stuckey-French:
Elizabeth Stuckey-French is the author of two novels, The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady and Mermaids on the Moon, as well as a collection of short stories, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa. She is a co-author, along with Janet Burroway and Ned Stuckey-French, of Writing Fiction: A Guide to the Narrative Craft.  Her short stories have appeared in The Normal School, Narrative Magaine, The Atlantic Monthly,Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Five Points, and The O'Henry Prize Stories 2005. She was awarded a James Michener Fellowship and has won grants from the Howard Foundation, the Indiana Arts Foundation, and the Florida Arts Foundation. She teaches fiction writing at Florida State University.
 
About Alex Glass:
Alex started Glass Literary Management in 2014 after an eighteen-year career in book publishing. For the previous thirteen years he was a literary agent at Trident Media Group, where he built a diverse list of successful authors.  His novelist clients writing for adults and children are international bestsellers and have won awards such as the PEN/O’Henry, the Edgar, and the Newbery. He is drawn to original, often transgressive voices and authors who take chances. Along the way, he has been able to follow his interests into other areas of publishing, and his client list includes bestselling authors in health and wellness, sports, history, business, narrative nonfiction, memoir, celebrity, and popular culture. Alex has represented eleven New York Times bestsellers and numerous other national and international bestsellers. His books have been published in over two dozen languages around the world, and many have been optioned for film and television, including Matt Bondurant’s The Wettest County in the World, which became the feature film LAWLESS, directed by John Hillcoat; and Chad Kultgen’s Men Women & Children, which became the feature film of the same name, directed by Jason Reitman. Alex is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the MFA program at American University. 
 
About Duvall Osteen:
Duvall Osteen began her career as a foreign rights associate at Trident Media Group before joining Aragi Inc., where she's had the opportunity to work with a long list of literary authors, including Junot Díaz, Nathan Englander, Edwidge Danticat, Denis Johnson, and Anne Carson. She represents fiction, narrative memoir, and select humor projects. Her literary interests include writing rooted in place, especially the South, multigenerational storytelling, music, literary suspense, and humor.  Duvall holds an MA in Southern Cultural Studies from the University of Mississippi.
 

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