Literary Roundtable
Pat Conroy
Best selling author of noted books such as Prince of Tides, My Losing Season, The Great Santini.
Pat Conroy uses stories to explore the great themes of life. His honesty and his remarkable command of the language of the heart have won him devoted readers around the world.
Cassandra King
Best selling author of The Sunday Wife, The Same Sweet Girls and more. Cassandra King is a best-selling novelist whose fiction has won the hearts of readers everywhere, especially in the American south.
Often through the use of first-person narration, her novels portray strong and memorable characters who struggle with the same timely issues and dilemmas that readers face in their own lives.
Molly Giles
Noted author of Iron Shoes and two short story collections, Creek Walk and Other Stories, which won the Small Press Award for Short Fiction, and Rough Translations, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Tomie dePaolo
Tomie is best known for his books for children. He's been published for 40 years and has written and/or illustrated over 200 books, including 26 Fairmount Avenue, Strega Nona, and Meet the Barkers. Tomie and his work have been recognized with the Caldecott Honor Award, the Newbery Honor Award and the New Hampshire Governor's Arts Award of Living Treasure.
Jane Yolen
Author of children's books, fantasy, and science fiction, including Owl Moon , Devil's Arithmetic , and How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? She is also a poet, a teacher of writing and literature, and a reviewer of children's literature. She has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the twentieth century. Jane Yolen's books and stories have won the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Award.
E. Lynn Harris
Author of I Say a Little Prayer, A Love of My Own, and Anyway the Wind Blows to name just a few. All of Harris's books have been bestsellers. Harris's writing has also appeared in American Visions, Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, Savoy, The Advocate, and the award-winning anthology Brotherman:The Odyssey of Black Men in America, Go The Way Your Blood Beats. His novella, "Money Can't Buy Me Love" was published in Got To Be Real: Four Original Love Stories (December 2000). In fall 2002, his short fiction appeared in Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writers (Harlem Moon), a collection he also co-edited with writer Marita Golden.
C.D. Wright
C.D. has published ten volumes of poetry including Steal Away: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon, 2002); Deepstep Come Shining (1998); Tremble (1996); Just Whistle (1993); String Light (1991), which won the Poetry Center Book Award; Further Adventures with You (1986); and Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues (1981). She has also published two state literary maps, one for Arkansas, her native state, and one for Rhode Island, her adopted state. Among her numerous honors are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, as well as awards from the Lannan Foundation, the Witter Bynner Prize, and a Whiting Award. In 1994 she was named State Poet of Rhode Island, a five-year post. With poet Forrest Gander she edits Lost Roads Publishers. Wright teaches at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block is a prolific author. His novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder (All the Flowers are Dying) to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar on the Prowl), while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner (Tanner On Ice) and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit List).
He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ , and The New York Times , and 84 of his short stories have been collected in Enough Rope.
In 2004, he became executive story editor for the TV series TILT. Several of his novels have been filmed. His newest bestsellers are All the Flowers are Dying (February 2005 in hardcover), the sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, and The Burglar on the Prowl , his tenth Bernie Rhodenbarr novel now available in paperback.
Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of both MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and most recently, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy.
The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is a program of the Communication Arts Institute.
