Lisa Mangum has worked with books ever since elementary school, when she volunteered at the school library during recess. She worked for five years at Waldenbooks while she attended the University of Utah, graduating with honors with a degree in English. She has worked in the publishing industry since 1997. In 2014 she was named the Editorial Manager for Shadow Mountain.
Besides books, Lisa loves movies, spending time with her family, and trips to Disneyland. She lives in Taylorsville, Utah, with her husband, Tracy.
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She is the author of four award-winning books: the Hourglass Door trilogy and After Hello.
J. SCOTT SAVAGE
LISA MANGUM
KAREN E. HOOVER
BRIAN CARTER
ABBY FINCH
JACLYN WEIST
TED FINCH
J Scott Savage is the author of 17 published novels, including the Farworld series, the Case File 13 series, and the Mysteries of Cove series. He lives in a canyon of the Rocky Mountains. He has four children, five grandchildren, and an awesome wife. He loves camping, reading, playing games, and of course WRITING! He has met lots of cool authors, including: Rick Riordan, James Dashner, Shannon Hale, and many others.
He has had lots of jobs including plumber, CEO of an internet company, French Chef, radio talk show host, and mall Santa Claus. His favorite food is fried chicken and corn on the cob, his favorite color is blue, and his favorite super hero is Iron Man.
LEE FALIN
Karen has loved the written word for as long as she can remember. Her favorite memory of her dad is the time he spent with Karen on his lap, telling her stories for hours on end. Her dad promised he would have Karen reading on her own by the time she was four years old … and he very nearly did. Karen took the gift of words her dad gave her and ran with it. Since then, she’s written two novels and reams of poetry. Her head is fairly popping with ideas, so she plans to write until she’s ninety-four or maybe even a hundred and four.
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Inspiration is found everywhere, but Karen’s heart is fueled by her husband and two sons, the Rocky Mountains, her chronic addiction to pens and paper, and the smell of her laser printer in the morning.
Jaclyn is an Idaho farm girl who grew up loving to read. She developed a love for writing as a senior in high school, when her dad jokingly said she was the next Dr. Seuss (not even close, but very sweet).
She met her husband, Steve, at BYU, and they have six happy, crazy children who encourage her to keep writing. After owning a bookstore and running away to have adventures in Australia, they settled back down in their home in Utah.
Jaclyn now spends her days herding her kids to various activities and trying to remember what she was supposed to do next.
Her books include Ring of Truth, A Christmas Worth Billions, Fashioned for Love, Change in Harmony; Endless: A Modern Cinderella Tale; The Princess and the Prom Queen, The Princess and the Sorceress; Magicians of the Deep; the Luck series--Stolen Luck, Twist of Luck, Best of Luck, More Than Just Luck, No Such Luck, and Just My Luck, a novella.
Brian Carter is a producer of film, video, sound for film, and music for Brigham Young University-Idaho and for the his independent production company, The Sound Refuge. A native of Sacramento, California, Brian was raised in Southeastern Idaho.
Brian has produced 8 full length albums, hundreds of film shorts, documentaries, narratives, and the feature film, In Convenience. He has worked as a sound for film artist on productions such as Errand of Angels and Mormon Scientist. In recent years, he has devoted himself to exploring concepts and techniques of script writing and the importance of structure in storytelling. He places equal energy into film directing and cinematography.
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In July of 2016 Brian released the space rock opera entitled “Transmission From Orions Belt” under the pseudonym DESERT WILL. He is currently writing two full-feature films, and a series of short works in various mediums and stages of production.
Ted is a storyteller. It doesn't matter whether it is a novel, poem, short story, or screenplay, he just love's telling a good story. He enjoys creating characters and worlds to help provide and escape, but also to make readers think about life and how it is always better to look up.
He also loves helping other writers succeed and grow. That is one of the reasons he started this conference.
Lee Falin is the author of Half Worlder, a YA Science Fiction novel about a young girl fighting to save her friends from space pirates while struggling to find her place in a universe determined to despise her for what she is - a half worlder; and Science Fictioned, which takes ideas from cutting-edge, scientific research papers and turns them into science fiction and fantasy stories.
Lee first fell in love with science while watching old Star Trek episodes with his mother. After completing a PhD in bioinformatics, he realized that real science wasn't at all like Star Trek, so he turned to writing and teaching.
His favorite books include any good science fiction or fantasy story he wouldn’t be embarrassed to let his grandmother read, and anything written by Jane Austen. He has an amazing wife that he met while serving as a volunteer missionary in Brazil, and together they homeschool their five awesome kids.
ANNIE BAILEY
Annie Bailey is a children’s writer, songwriter, wife, and mom to four boys. She loves laughing, reading, playing the piano, soccer, biking and baking. Eagle Springs Records released Annie’s first children’s album, “There Is Joy,” in 2008.
Annie enjoys serving as a volunteer for the SCBWI Utah/Southern Idaho region, Snake River Writers (an Eastern Idaho writing organization) and the 2015/16 Rhyming Picture Book Award Committee. Annie lives in rural Idaho in a renovated farmhouse complete with her very own train car. (Which, of course, has time traveling capabilities.)
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Annie is represented by Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency.
MINDIE ERB
Mindie spends her life searching for joy. Often she finds it in the things she works the most with, especially when they turn out to be of great worth. Her children for example, have become little gems of joy. It happens every time they make a good choice, say something funny, or just show their goodness inside.
Writing is much the same way. She finds joy in the finished story and frustration in the incomplete. She wouldn't dare base their worth on monetary value, for that way lies madness. Rather, their worth is found in the journey. What it takes to understand her characters and how those characters succeed or fail.
Her favorite thing about life is National Novel Writing Month where she gives her writing permission to be free of the inner editor. It’s like easy joy. Her writing genre is Christian Steampunk. It doesn't actually exist, but by golly is should.
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Mindie also loves Dragon Spice tea with cucumber sandwiches.
During the day, Krista writes the stories of her imaginary friends. At night, she goes by the name 'Hey Nurse.' She's a simple Japanese-American girl who married the Bolivian she met in Spain.
Right now, she's a CO-ML for NaNoWriMo's Rexburg Region, and this will be her third year at the helm. She loves working with new writers, and encouraging them as they discover their own processes.
KRISTA QUINTANA
Her most recent accomplishment started in the summer of 2015 when she debuted as an author. She is the 2016 local chapter president of A.N.W.A. (American Night Writers Association) the Snake River Writers, won NaNoWriMo and loves Storymakers.
Teya has been writing for as long as she can remember. At a young age she lived on a street she affectionately named Hill Street Blues. Her father would always be and will continue to be her inspiration, even after his untimely death in 2006.
She loves sitting in her soft chair next to the fireplace and watching the sun rise out a big living room window.
She met the love of her life in the loft of a barn. Yep, that set up teasing from her father. They have been happily married since 2003, and have four children-all love and support her. Teya, however, refuses to comment on the trolls in the closets and under the beds. She is also fluent in sarcasm.She is active in her church and loves all life brings.
TEYA PECK
Abby Finch is a teen who loves to write, read, and do all things creative. She has loved writing since she was a little kid. Her two favorite series she's read in the past year are The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer and The steel heart series by Brandon Sanderson.
Her hogwarts house is Ravenclaw. In addition to being a lover of English, Abby is also a lover of history, which explains why her current work in progress is set in the 1960s.
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Even though she's new to writing novels, she loves helping other teen writers.
ALYSON PETERSON
Alyson Peterson lives in a mountainside gully—of all places—in Northern Utah with her neurotic, shed-tastic dog, two ninja kids and superhero husband. She spent the majority of her life climbing rocks, riding horses, chasing cattle, hiking, biking, chucking snowballs at cars and making grass whistles.
Alyson received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Utah State University only to never put to use four years of art school and, instead, began writing full time. She goes through a lot of aspirin. Alyson is also an enthusiastic martial artist, specializing in swords and hand-to-hand combat.
Speakers
Can you say awesome presenters? Look below to read about our new and returning presenters.