Donald Maass, Guest Instructor, July 2019
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Donald Maass founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York in 1980. His agency sells more than 150 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas.
He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), and Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and most recently, The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2016). He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. |
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Robin Burcell, Guest Instructor, July 2019
Author Robin Burcell
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Robin Burcell spent nearly three decades working in law enforcement as a cop, hostage negotiator, and as an FBI-trained forensic artist. She is the award-winning author of the Kate Gillespie police procedural series, the Sydney Fitzpatrick thriller series, a Streets of San Francisco novel, and is now writing thrillers with Clive Cussler. Burcell currently co-writes with international best-selling author Clive Cussler on the Fargo series. Pirate, their first co-written book, was released in 2016. The Romanov Ransom, next in that series, came out in 2017, followed by The Gray Ghost.
Burcell was the first female officer for her department. Her badge read "Policeman" and her locker room was actually a converted storeroom. While she'd always wanted to be a writer, her childhood dream was to be an Olympic ice skater. Unfortunately she didn't seriously start skating until her early twenties and by then it was too late. That hobby, however, was instrumental in allowing her to easily pass the physical agility test to get into the police academy. |
Burcell has appeared on several true-crime television episodes as a commentator and even did a "forensic" sketch from a witness's description of "Baby Big Foot" for the Icon Films television series, Bigfoot Files, which appeared on BBC and Bigfoot: The New Evidence, which appeared in the U.S. on the National Geographic channel.
Every book in her first police procedural series starring San Francisco Police homicide inspector Kate Gillespie was nominated for the Anthony Award (with two winners), two were nominated for Barry's (with one win), and one for the Macavity.
The first book in her second series, Face of a Killer, starring Sydney Fitzpatrick, FBI agent and forensic artist, received a starred review from Library Journal. The fifth book in that series, The Kill Order, was named by Library Journal as one of the best thrillers of 2014.
The Last Good Place, released November 2015, is a continuation of the 1970s series by the late Carolyn Weston, whose novels were used as the base for the hit television show The Streets of San Francisco.
Every book in her first police procedural series starring San Francisco Police homicide inspector Kate Gillespie was nominated for the Anthony Award (with two winners), two were nominated for Barry's (with one win), and one for the Macavity.
The first book in her second series, Face of a Killer, starring Sydney Fitzpatrick, FBI agent and forensic artist, received a starred review from Library Journal. The fifth book in that series, The Kill Order, was named by Library Journal as one of the best thrillers of 2014.
The Last Good Place, released November 2015, is a continuation of the 1970s series by the late Carolyn Weston, whose novels were used as the base for the hit television show The Streets of San Francisco.
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Carol Dougherty
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Jason Sitzes
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Arianne "Tex" Thompson
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Carol, also known as Doc, is the director of Wake Up and Write Writer's Retreat Workshop and Writers Retreat Workshop, and teaches writing practice and much of the curriculum developed by the late Gary Provost.
Doc began her association with Writer’s Retreat Workshop and Gail and Gary Provost in the early 90’s, attending the workshop four times between 1991 and 1994. After Gary’s death in 1995, she taught his curriculum at WRW from 1998-2000. In 2000, she changed her focus from writing fiction to writing as a Zen practice with Natalie Goldberg. She lived and worked for San Francisco Zen Center, was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest, and earned a Master of Divinity at Naropa University. She is the author of a political thriller, The Santiago Inheritance, and a nonfiction work on theatre, How Full of Briers: The Organizational Structure of the Non-Profit Theatre Corporation. |
Jason attended his first Writers Retreat Workshop in 1998 and was awarded the Gary Provost Scholarship for the year 2000. He joined the staff in 2001, and assumed the title of Director for the 2003 workshop, and continued in that role until May 2017. Jason began freelancing as a writer and editor and has a creative writing degree from the University of Tennessee. He is the author of award-winning short fiction.
Jason has edited dozens of manuscripts for published and not-yet-published writers, and worked one-on-one with hundreds of writers through workshops and classes (including serving as staff editor for literary agent Donald Maass's Breakout Novel Intensive workshops). Jason also works as a ghostwriter of both fiction and nonfiction. Other non-fiction projects include work with Alt Weekly newspapers interviewing local leaders, musicians, and comedians. He is schooled in all aspects of writing, with a particular focus on the process itself—how we work and how our choices work for us. |
Arianne "Tex" Thompson is a ‘rural fantasy’ author, egregiously enthusiastic speaker, and professional ruckus-raiser. She is the author of Children of the Drought – an internationally-published epic fantasy Western series from Solaris, as well as an instructor for the Writers Path at SMU and ‘chief instigator’ of WORD – Writers Organizations ‘Round Dallas. Now she’s blazing a trail through writers conferences, workshops, and fan conventions around the country – as an endlessly energetic, catastrophically cheerful one-woman stampede. Find her online at thetexfiles.com and wordwriters.org!
Now a professional speaker and creative writing instructor at SMU, Tex is blazing a trail through writers conferences, workshops, and fan conventions around the country – as an endlessly energetic, relentlessly enthusiastic one-woman stampede. Find her online at www.TheTexFiles.com and on Twitter as @tex_maam! |
