Our Team & Presenters
Great craft starts with great craftspeople
Leadership
Sharla Yates
Sharla Yates is the CRAFT TALKS Program Director and previously Director of Education at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, where she ran a weekly webinar series and online writing program. She is also a writing instructor and a multi-genre writer.
Allison K Williams
Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to publishing deals with Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, and St. Martin’s Press as well as hybrid and independent presses.
Frequent Presenters
Dinty W. Moore
Author of the memoirs Between Panic & Desire and To Hell With It, and the writing guides Crafting the Personal Essay and The Mindful Writer. Known for his thoughtful approach to craft and “the Invisible Magnetic River” of story, Dinty teaches for retreats and workshops around the world.
Jane Friedman
A widely respected expert with 25+ years working in the publishing industry, focusing on business reporting and author education. Jane’s The Business of Being a Writer (The University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal and is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs.
Beth Kephart
National Book Award finalist, Pew Fellow, NEA grant recipient, and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant winner. Beth is the author of more than three dozen books in multiple genres (memoir, middle grade and young adult novels, picture books, a corporate fairytale, an autobiography of a river); and a co-founder of Juncture Workshops.
Heather Sellers
Poet, writer, and the author of two popular textbooks, The Practice of Creative Writing and How to Make Poems: Form and Technique. Heather’s memoir, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, was featured in O, the Oprah Magazine and an O book-of-the month club pick, and Editor’s Choice at the New York Times.
Peter Mountford
Novelist, short story writer, and essayist as well as a popular writing coach with clients all over the world, including two recent New York Times bestsellers. His personal essays and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times’ Modern Love and New York Times Magazine, The Sun, Granta, The Guardian and Writers Digest.
Ethan Gilsdorf
Writer, teacher, performer, and the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Esquire, Wired, Salon, O the Oprah Magazine, Brevity, Electric Literature, Poetry, The Southern Review, and named “Notable” by The Best American Essays. He leads the Essay Incubator program at GrubStreet in Boston.
Darien Hsu Gee
M.F.A., author of five novels published by Penguin Random House. Her collection of micro essays, Allegiance, received the Bronze IPPY award in the Essays category. She teaches creative nonfiction at UCLA Extension and Hugo House, and on her teaching platform, Writer-ish.
Katie Bannon
Katie Bannon is a memoirist, editor, and writing coach based in Central Massachusetts. She offers online editing services and coaching to emerging and established writers of memoir and personal essay.
Brenda Miller
Brenda Miller lives in Bellingham, Washington, where she teaches at Western Washington University, dotes on her puppy, sings, and occasionally writes books. Her latest essay collections are Telephone: Essays in Two Voices, which she wrote with Julie Marie Wade, and A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form.
Laraine Herring
Laraine Herring holds an MFA in creative writing and an MA in counseling psychology. Her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in national and local publications, including The New York Times. Her fiction has won the Barbara Deming Award for Women and her nonfiction work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.