ADVICE FOR WRITERS

Sean Murphy - the founder of the non-profit 1455 Literary Arts and directs the Center for Story at Shenandoah University, talks technology for writers including AI. His work has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, AdAge, and PopMatters, where he’s been a longtime columnist. 

Junot Díaz - The Artist and Their Critical Self  or How I Wrote My Novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." 

Junot is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist.

Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Andrew Fitzgerald is a native of Ireland and now resides in Oceanside, California. He’s the author of How Did I Get Here? 

Andrew faced many challenges and fears. In his book and in this video sesison he talks about resiliency and how he faced adversity.

 A father, husband, and author, Andrew speaks on what it takes to be successful and how to overcome health crises and other losses. His experiences allow him to show others how to recover in order to flourish and thrive with resilience.

Nicola Pierce - author of historical fiction for children describes her writing journey, her books and how she works. 

Nicola published her first novel, Spirit of the Titanic, to rave reviews. She went on to bring her knowledge of this great ship, and all who sailed in her, to a non-fiction work: Titanic: True Stories of Her Passengers, Crew and Legacy. Nicola’s latest book, a history of Dublin’s O’Connell Street, arrives in book shops in September 2021. 

Geraldine Brooks talks about her favorite novel from her own acclaimed list, about character development in her novels, provides advice for writers and talks about how the pandemic affected us as writers. 

Geraldine worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. Geraldine was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March. Her novels, Caleb’s Crossing and People of the Book, were  New York Times best sellers. Her first novel, Year of Wonders is an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages and currently optioned for a major motion picture starring Andrew Lincoln. She is also the author of the nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence and The Idea of Home. 

Heather Richardson - writer and lecturer, will talk about Teaching Creative Writing Online. Heather Richardson draws on the Open University’s expertise in teaching Creative Writing online, and considers the benefits for teachers and learners in a post-COVID world. 

Heather is a Belfast-based multi-genre writer. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies in Ireland, the UK and Australia. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University. 

And Phil Featherstone - on his addiction to writing.