Category: WilWrite26 Brian U Garrison

  • 10 – 11AM Sunday Belmont A: Ask the Experts

    Neuroscience? Law? AI? Bring your questions and the experts will share their knowledge, expertise, and skills with you. Remember, this is a chance to learn from the experts — save your healthy debate for after the panel!

    Faculty

    • Brian U. Garrison
      Brian U. Garrison, he/him, is President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). Check out his Etsy shop to see wall art that combines his words with visuals from collaborators. His chapbook Micropoetry for Microplanets (Space Cowboy Books) earned 3rd Place in the 2025 Elgin Awards. He lives under a tall, leafy tree… Read more: Brian U. Garrison
    • Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito
      Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito is the founder of Demagogue Press. When she’s not rolling a d20 and playing with meeples, she’s reading or writing SF/F/H/genre-busting stories. Her writing has appeared in several venues including Nightmare Magazine, Flame Tree Press’s Asian Ghost Stories and Immigrant Sci-fi Stories, Mother:Tales of Love and Terror, Death’s Garden Revisited, and Unquiet… Read more: Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito
    • Kagan Tumer
      Kagan Tumer is a science fiction author and professor of Robotics and AI. He attended seven schools in five cities in four countries, all before reaching high school, and is steadily moving west, from Virginia to Texas to California to Oregon. Along the way, Kagan worked as a food server, registrar’s office clerk, print shop… Read more: Kagan Tumer

  • 4 – 5PM Saturday Windsor C: Break This Line

    Can a paragraph become poetry? Join poet Brian Garrison in a conversation on ways to use line breaks as we tinker with words. You’ll experiment with transforming ordinary sentences into lyrical, expressive lines that capture rhythm, emotion, and meaning.

    Faculty

    • Brian U. Garrison
      Brian U. Garrison, he/him, is President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). Check out his Etsy shop to see wall art that combines his words with visuals from collaborators. His chapbook Micropoetry for Microplanets (Space Cowboy Books) earned 3rd Place in the 2025 Elgin Awards. He lives under a tall, leafy tree… Read more: Brian U. Garrison

  • 12:30 – 2:30PM Friday Belmont A/B: First Page Critique Sponsored by Scrivener

    Does your opening hook your readers? Bring 5 copies of your first page and find out. Published authors and industry professionals will sit down with you to critique your work and help you learn what makes a first page shine.

    Faculty

    • Alle C. Hall
      Seattle author Alle C. Hall (pronounced AL-lee) is a veteran essayist and short-story writer (Dale Peck’s Evergreen Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Seattle Times). Alle’s debut novel—As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back— earned 16 honors, including two #1 Kindle rankings and a nomination for The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Book Award.… Read more: Alle C. Hall
    • Brian U. Garrison
      Brian U. Garrison, he/him, is President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). Check out his Etsy shop to see wall art that combines his words with visuals from collaborators. His chapbook Micropoetry for Microplanets (Space Cowboy Books) earned 3rd Place in the 2025 Elgin Awards. He lives under a tall, leafy tree… Read more: Brian U. Garrison
    • Christopher Diaz
      Christopher Diaz (he/him) is an indigenous CHamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan. As a writer, performer, and photographer, he’s been featured by NBC News, Poets & Writers.org, and more. Recently he was awarded a fellowship with Indigenous Nations Poets and an artist grant from the Washington State Arts Commission. In 2025, he was the… Read more: Christopher Diaz
    • Dana Haynes
      Dana Haynes is the author of 14 mystery and thriller novels from such publishers as Minotaur Books, St. Martin’s Press, MacMillan Publishing, Blackstone Publishing and Bantam Publishing. Under the pen name James Byrne, he has written four thrillers featuring Dez Limerick for Minotaur Books, including 2026’s STORM WARNING and CHAIN REACTION, nominated for best series… Read more: Dana Haynes
    • Emmett Wheatfall
      Emmett Wheatfall is an American poet, Oregon Poet Laureate nominee, and recipient of the prestigious Oregon Poetry Association Patricia Ruth Banta Award. His poetry has been published in several books, collections, anthologies, and one of them, As Clean as a Bone, was a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist and a da Vinci Eye award finalist.… Read more: Emmett Wheatfall
    • Lara C. Jones
      Lara joined Emily Bestler Books in 2015. Prior to joining the imprint, she held an editorial position at Europa Editions, working on a wide range of critically acclaimed and bestselling novels in translation. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Lara is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course and Seattle University, where she studied English and Italian.… Read more: Lara C. Jones
    • Melissa Hart
      Melissa Hart is the author of several nonfiction books and novels; her latest is Find Your Nature: 40 Ways to Deepen the Connection to Your Flora, Fauna & Community. Her short-form writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, CNN, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Nat Geo Kids, Orion, and numerous… Read more: Melissa Hart
    • Suzy Vitello
      Suzy Vitello’s award-winning short pieces have appeared in The Rumpus, The Southampton Review, Mississippi Review and other journals. Her next novel, Griftopia, releases May 05, 2026. Her recent release, The Bequest, has been called “a riveting, fast-paced crime caper.” Other novels include Bitterroot, Faultland, The Moment Before, The Empress Chronicles, and The Keepsake. She works… Read more: Suzy Vitello