Meet The Team
for our Live Retreat in Gulf Shores, Alabama
October 11-15, 2024
 

Lee Ann Ward is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of 11 novels. Her young adult romance, GLIMPSES OF WILDERNESS, is an international bestseller and runner-up for YARWA's Athena Award. Her novel, SEE, was The TBR Pile's  Book of the Year in 2017. She is the former senior editor of Champagne Books and a novel-writing teacher.  She writes young adult and women's fiction, and has taught her plotting through storyboarding techniques at conferences across the country.

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Lee Ann brings her workshop PITCH PERFECT--Writing a winning pitch and query letter to the 2024 Writing Away Refuge retreat.

Joyce Scarbrough is the author of eight novels and numerous short stories featured in multiple anthologies. Joyce is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature, she was the founding senior editor for Champagne Books, and she now works freelance as an editor and book coach. Joyce was president of the Mobile Writers Guild for three years and still serves on its board of directors. She is also a member of the Southern Breeze chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, but she also writes women’s fiction. She has served on the faculty of the Mobile Literary Festival since its inception in 2016 and has given numerous workshops on characterization and editing for writers’ groups, conferences, libraries, colleges, and high schools throughout the Southeast. Joyce has lived all her life in LA (lower Alabama), she is the mother of three gifted, non-conformist children, and she’s been married for 39 years to a superhero who disguises himself during the day as a high school math teacher and coach.

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Joyce brings her workshop Integrating Research Seamlessly into Your Novel to the 2024 Writing Away Refuge retreat.

After earning a master’s degree from the University of Florida, Laurie began her career as an English teacher. She then spent over ten years working as a freelance writer and editor in desktop publishing, including serving as a Pitch Wars mentor for five years. She is proud to have worked with debut author Megan Scott on her Sunday Times Bestseller The Temptation of Magic.

In 2022 Laurie completed the Denver Publishing Institute, leading to an internship at Creative Media Agency, Inc. before stepping into her current role as an associate agent and internship coordinator.

See Laurie's complete Manuscript Wishlist here:

https://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/laurie-dennison/

Katharine Sands is a literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Recently contributed “Grey is the New Black” to Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, a nonfiction look at the cultural phenom of the bestselling novel. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.

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Katharine will be listening to pitches at Writing Away Refuge 2024. Her workshop topic will be announced shortly.

Katie Reed is a literary agent and developmental editor with Andrea Hurst and Associates. She began her career in publishing with Andrea Hurst while pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in English and has worked in the industry for over a decade. As a literary agent, Katie loves discovering new talent, building lasting connections with her authors, and working diligently to represent books readers will love.

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Katie is working on building her list with compelling, standout, projects to champion. She is especially drawn to books with deep, relatable themes that seep through the pages and make readers think about their own world in a new light. She is open for submissions in the following genres:

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• Commercial Women's Fiction, especially with a strong romantic subplot. 

• Upmarket Fiction that combines a unique, propulsive plot with poignant, introspective writing, like Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt or Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (my favorite book of 2022!)

• Historical Fiction that adds something new to the genre (think Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus).

• Women’s Suspense/Psychological Thriller with a female protagonist (a la Alice Feeny or Gillian Flynn).

• Retellings, or a modern spin on an old classic, similar to Circe by Madeline Miller or The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah.

• Voice driven YA Suspense with a fresh hook (loved The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart).

• YA Fantasy with a high concept, like the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, or anything by Sarah J. Maas. (High concept means it has an original, identifiable premise--like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins--and wide audience appeal.)

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Katie will be listening to pitches at Writing Away Refuge 2024. Her workshop topic for the 2024 retreat will be "I've Signed with a Literary Agent, now what?"

Your founder and host, Lee Ann Ward, will be delivering the keynote speech, Where Do You Find Your Motivation? 

The beauty of an in-person writing retreat is the opportunity to get to know and pitch to literary agents. Make sure your pitch is the best it can be!

In a Flash: Pint-size Stories with a Punch

MaxieJane Frazier is writer, teacher, editor, and retired military veteran from Riverside, WA. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Booth, SoFloPoJo, Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, Bending Genres, The Ekphrastic Review, The Bath Flash Fiction anthology, and other places.

MaxieJane holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and co-founded Birch Bark Editing where she is a co-editor for MicroLit Almanac.

Now MaxieJane brings her workshop

"In a Flash: Pint-size Stories with Punch" to Writing Away Refuge.

We encourage all of you to get to know our staff and attending agents, but when you choose your actual pitch sessions, please make sure that the agents you pitch represent your genre of writing. It will better your chances of getting read requests. Thank you, and we look forward to meeting you soon!