Scenes from BWC 2009

The 2009 Baltimore Writers' Conference featured Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, and dozens of other panelists and speakers mingling with more than 100 publishes, aspiring or up-and-coming writers. We had a great time, and we hope you did, too, and that we'll see you again for the expaned BWC 2010, featuring a Friday night reading on Nov. 19 and the main conference on Nov. 20.

Bowden discussed the nature of truth in war reporting during his keynote speech.

The quick critiques allowed participants to have their work evaluated by published writers.

Elissa Weissman, author of Standing for Socks and The Trouble with Brent Hopper, shared her insights of the Young Adult market.

Novelist and dramaturge James Magruder, author of Sugarless, gave tips for playwriting.

Michael Salcman answered questions about poetry during his craft lecture.

Welcome writers to BWC 2009!

The bookcase, the writing desk, the clock--
chiseling out of this some beautiful and mournful ritual.

-- from the poem "Requiem" by Jane Satterfield, BWC 2009 featured poet.

Parking for the BWC

Folks attending the Baltimore Writers Conference will be able to park for free at the Towsontown garage off University Avenue on the Towson University campus. From there, the University Union, site of the conference, is a short jog south along Union Avenue.

The Union garage, which is closest to the conference site, will be closed. So don't try to park there. Click here for an interactive map.

Bowden's latest

Mark Bowden, keynote speaker for BWC 2009, writes in the October issue of the Atlantic about the ways political operatives feed news to the networks.

"Cutting-edge" sensation to lead fiction session

BWC 2009 will feature a craft lecture in fiction writing from novelist and short story writer Elise Levine. Originally from Toronto, Levine was named by Margaret Atwood as one of Canada’s most important emerging women writers. Reviewers have called her “a cutting-edge literary sensation” and “a sensitive, cagey dominatrix of literary form and human psychology." Her books include the story collection Driving Men Mad and the novel Requests and Dedications.

Award-winning poet to appear at BWC 2009

Jane Satterfield, a poet and nonfiction writer, will lead the BWC 2009 craft session on poetry. Satterfield is the author of two books of poetry and has just published a memoir called Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of Year in Britain and Beyond. She is also the literary editor for the Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering. Her work has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Towson University, and the Maryland State Arts Council, among others.

A BWC success story

Word comes to us from Peggy Rowe, who attended the BWC 2008 edition, of a publishing success. Her essay about her mother, "An O's Fan to the Last Pitch" appeared in the Baltimore Sun for Mother's Day. Peggy, a former school teacher from Perry Hall, writes:

Last fall I attended the Baltimore Writers Conference at Towson. The presentations on Freelance Writing and Creative Nonfiction were especially helpful to me. At the end of the day, I took advantage of a one-on-one critique session. I had brought an essay I’d recently completed, and received some very beneficial feedback. I took the suggestions, and my essay was recently printed in The Baltimore Sun.

I plan to attend the Baltimore Writers Conference again this fall. I’m hoping there will be a presentation on writing humor, my particular area of interest.

Have you attended a BWC and gone on to publish? Let us know your story with a comment to the this blog, and we'll post it here.

Black Hawk Down author to offer keynote address

Mark Bowden, award-winning journalist and author of Black Hawk Down, will be the keynote speaker at the 2009 Baltimore Writers’ Conference. His most recent book is The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL.

From Bowden’s biography on the Philadelphia Inquirer web site:

Mark Bowden is the author of the bestselling books Guests of The Ayatollah, Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, and an occasional contributor to National Public Radio.
Black Hawk Down was a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award, and Killing Pablo received the Overseas Press Club’s Cornelius Ryan Award for the best book of 2001. Bowden worked as a consultant and screenwriter on the film version of Black Hawk Down. He is currently adapting Killing Pablo for the screen and is writing an original screenplay for Imagine Entertainment.
He has also written for The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, among other publications. Bowden teaches journalism and creative writing at his alma mater, Loyola College of Maryland.