Susan Puckett is a James Beard-nominated food journalist and editor who has authored or collaborated on more than a dozen books. Her culinary travelogue, Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey Through the Soul of the South (UGA Press, 2013) was chosen as one of ten books all Georgians should read by the Georgia Center for the Book,  as was Turnip Greens & Tortillas: A Mexican Chef Spices Up the Southern Kitchen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), which she wrote with Eddie Hernandez, chef of the Taqueria del Sol restaurants in Georgia and Tennessee. Her most recent collaboration with the popular Alpharetta, Georgia-based blogger Suzy Karadsheh, The Mediterranean Dish: 120 Bold and Healthy Recipes You’ll Make on Repeat (Potter, 2022) will be released September 13.

Susan was the food editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for nearly 19 years and today, as a freelance writer and editor, contributes to its Food section and other media outlets. She has worked with several home cooks on self-publishing their family recipe collections and with a nonprofit, DIG Development in Gardening, on organizing mini booklets of healthy no-waste recipes for their fundraisers. For more about Susan’s work, see her website, www.susanpuckett.com.

We all know how to tell a story, yet when it comes to writing one, we often become our own worst enemy. We tell readers what to think and feel. We throw in extraneous details because we have them. We telegraph the ending. Memorable stories do not happen in the inverted pyramid of journalism school; they unfold more like the ghost tales we told as kids. In this six-week course, we’ll learn how to recapture that natural sense of storytelling. We’ll study examples, do some writing, critique each other’s work. In fact, more of the class will be a roundtable workshop as opposed to a lecture.

Each week we’ll focus on a different aspect of nonfiction writing: scene and atmosphere, creating memorable characters, conflict and complication, theme and meaning, voice and style. We’ll also explore one of the hottest topics in modern storytelling: the line between fact and fiction, discussing whether a writer can ever take poetic liberties.

This course should be useful for anyone looking to write a book, a memoir, essays, magazine articles, journalism small or large, or better blog posts. All levels of writers are welcome.

Jim Auchmutey is a veteran journalist and author in Atlanta. His most recent book is Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America, chosen as one of ten books all Georgians should read by the Georgia Center for the Book — as was his previous book, The Class of ’65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness. The latter was featured on C-SPAN and was a New York Times best-seller (briefly — you take your bragging rights where you can get them!). Auchmutey was a reporter and editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years, where he was twice named the Cox newspaper chain’s writer of the year and won a James Beard Foundation award for his food writing. He has taught narrative nonfiction writing at the Decatur Writers Studio and has lectured at Wofford College and Georgia State University. 

Writing, illustrating, and publishing a book for children is filled with obstacles and hurdles that are unique to being an author for a younger audience. Join Andrea Cassell, Dr. Surishtha Sehgal, JoAnn Dotson, and Andy Runton as these renowned children’s book authors present books for primary students (grades K-3), elementary students (grades 3-5), and middle school students (grades 5-8). Each panelist will share their own journey, creative process, and advice to those wanting to pursue writing children’s books.

The months leading up to and following a book’s publication are filled with opportunities that affect a book’s success. Roger offers his years of hard-won, road-tested experience to illustrate ways to find, create, and take fuller advantage of a wide range of these opportunities. His hands-on, how-to approach includes an examination of: (1) the pros and cons of numerous types of book promotion events and activities, and (2) the participation and planning-and-development strategies intended to give new and soon-to-be-published authors a clearer understanding of how to derive greater value from resources they devote to promoting their books.

Roger Johns is the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries from St. Martin’s Press. He is the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective-Mystery Category) and a two-time finalist for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. Since April 2016, Roger has made over 140 live appearances across the country (in-person and virtual) at bookstores, conferences, conventions, book festivals, corporate events, colleges, writers’ clubs, libraries, trade shows, community centers, senior centers, and web radio shows.

In addition to dozens of blog appearances, he has authored numerous articles and given several interviews devoted to writing and career management for new authors. His short fiction has been published by, among others, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, and Mystery Weekly Magazine. Roger is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Atlanta Writers Club, International Thriller Writers, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Along with several other crime fiction writers, he co-authors the MurderBooks blog at www.murder-books.com. Please visit him at: www.rogerjohnsbooks.com.