As chair of the books track for the ASJA 2024 conference, I’m honored that we have such a prestigious writer and publisher as a keynote speaker, Krishan Trotman, who’s been called the “Beyonce of Books.”
In Trotman’s talk, she’ll offer ways that we writers–as individuals and an influential group–can increase diversity and be literary allies in an industry that remains unfairly and overwhelmingly white.
Trotman’s talk kicks off the Sept. 24-26 conference. She will speak on Tuesday, Sept 24, at 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, immediately after ASJA President Emily Paulsen welcomes attendees.
Registration for the conference is open through Sept. 20, and is $299 for ASJA members and $329 for nonmembers. Register here.
More About Keynote Speaker Krishan Trotman
Trotman is the publisher of Hachette Book Group’s social justice imprint Legacy Lit. As a publishing vice president and executive editor celebrated in The New York Times, Forbes, New York Magazine and Essence, Trotman has worked with bestselling authors John Lewis, Stephanie Land, Marisa Renee Lee, Linda Garcia, Mika Brzezinski, Scott Shigeoka, Al Roker, Zerlina Maxwell and Devin Allen.
When Trotman spoke to the New York Times for this February 2024 article about the ongoing lack of diversity in publishing, she was one of only two Black publishers at Hachette. “It has been harder for brown folks in publishing to find mentors at the executive level,” she told the Times.
Trotman is also the author of the four-book Queens of Resistance series, “a celebration of the rebellion against the oppression of women and the embracement of the new in the U.S. government,” published by Plume, and mom to her son Bleu.
More on 2024 Conference Books Sessions
The 2024 conference will offer seven exciting panels to help you in all stages of book writing and publishing. The panels include:
- It Takes a Village To Write a Book: How do I Find Mine?
- Building the Dreaded Author Platform
- Landing the Impossible Book Deal
- The Secrets of Getting a Literary Agent
- How to Pay Bills While Writing Your Book
- Genre Fluidity: How Switching Genres Might Turn a No Into a Yes
- Three Pages Can Change Your Life
Panel speakers and moderators will offer honest, counterintuitive, offbeat strategies and takeaways that will inspire and reinvigorate your writing career. Among the luminaries speaking at book sessions are:
- Literary agent Ryan Harbage
- Counterpoint editor Dan Lopez, a published novelist himself
- Independent editor Holly Baxter, author of the debut novel “Clickbait”
- Novelists Jennifer Belle, and Ruth Bonapace, who just sold her first book, “The Bulgarian Training Manual,” at age 70
- Acclaimed memoirists Hyeseung Song, Laura Cathart Robbins, Banning Lyon, Aquilino Gonell, Tiffanie Drayton, Aileen Weintraub and Raj Tawney
Also spilling the secrets of their success will be children’s book authors Rebecca Morrison, Cathy Linh Che, Orlando Mendiola, Lexie Bean, Christina Wyman, and Jeff Henigson, as well as journalist/authors Amy Klein, Jodi M. Savage, Tyler Kelly, Gabrielle Selz, and Mark Jason Williams.
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Susan Shapiro is an award-winning journalist, writing professor, and long-time ASJA member. She freelances for the NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, LA Times, and NY Magazine, and is the bestselling author or coauthor of 18 books that her family hates. She lives with her scriptwriter husband in Manhattan where she’s taught writing and publishing classes at The New School, NYU, Columbia University, and now teaches in private classes online.
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