2023 Conference faculty

Keynote Speaker: 

Matt Mason - Nebraska Poet Laureate

(Also Presenting Faculty)

Matt Mason has run poetry workshops in Botswana, Romania, Nepal, and Belarus for the U.S. State Department and his  poetry has appeared in The New York Times. Matt is the Nebraska State Poet and has received a Pushcart Prize as well as  fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska Arts Council. His work can be found on  NPR’s Morning Edition, in American Life in Poetry, and in several hundred other publications. Mason's 4th book, At the  Corner of Fantasy and Main: Disneyland, Midlife and Churros, was released by The Old Mill Press in 2022.  Find more at: https://matt.midverse.com/ 

Presenting Faculty:

Angie Hodapp

(Also Accepting Pitches for Nelson Literary Agency)

Angie Hodapp is the Director of Literary Development at Nelson Literary Agency. She holds a BA in English and  secondary education from the University of Northern Colorado and an MA in English and communication development  from Colorado State University. A graduate of the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver, she has worked in  professional writing, editing, and education for more than twenty years. A frequent presenter at writing conferences  and events, and the author of Query Craft and Do You Need a Literary Agent, she loves helping writers improve their  craft and learn about the ever-changing world of publishing.  

Bill Downs

William Missouri Downs started as a script secretary on the NBC show Moonlighting (Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd)  and worked his way up to staff writer on the NBC sitcom My Two Dads (Paul Reiser). He also sold episodes of Amen (Sherman Hemsley) and Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (Will Smith). In addition, he sold a movie to Ron Howard’s Imagine Films  and optioned a TV pilot to Hollywood producer Meryl Poster. William is also a playwright - Orlando Shakespeare, San  Diego Rep, The Kennedy Center, and Berkeley Rep are a few of the over 300 theatres in the US that have produced his  plays. He has had international productions in Spain, Canada, South Africa, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, Austria,  Israel, India, and South Korea. He’s won numerous playwriting awards, including rolling premieres from the National  New Play Network and he’s twice been a finalist at the Eugene O’Neill. In addition, he’s published 12 plays and four  books, including The Art Of Theatre (Cengage), Screenplay: Writing the Picture (Silman James), and Naked Playwriting (Silman James). He has two MFAs, one in screenwriting from UCLA and one in acting from the University of Illinois. He’s  directed over forty plays and acted in twenty-five. 

Bernadette Soehner

(Also Accepting Pitches for 5 Prince Publishing)

Bestselling author Bernadette Marie began writing in the eighth grade. She sent off her epic family saga at the age of  sixteen, but it was years before she would publish, finding her home in contemporary romance, and at the top of the  charts. 

The married mother of five sons promises romances with a Happily Ever After always…and says she can write it because  she lives it. She also claims that her books are the antidote to anything heavy you might read. 

Obsessed with the art of writing and the business of publishing, chronic entrepreneur Bernadette Marie established her  own publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, in 2011 to bring her own work to market as well as offer an opportunity for  fresh voices in fiction to find a home as well. To date she has published the works of over sixty authors. 

When not immersed in the literary world, Bernadette Marie can be found spending time with her family, traveling, and  running multiple businesses. An avid martial artist, Bernadette Marie is a second degree black belt and certified  instructor in Tang Soo Do. A lover of a good stout craft beer, she might also have an unhealthy addiction to chocolate.

Nina McConigley

Nina McConigley was born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming. She earned her MA from the University of  Wyoming, and her MFA at the University of Houston. Her short-story collection Cowboys and East Indians was  the winner of the 2014 PEN Open Book Award and a High Plains Book Award. Her work has appeared in The  New York Times, Orion, O, Oprah Magazine, Parents, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short  Fiction, and The Asian American Literary Reviewamong others. She teaches at Colorado State University and  the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. In 2019-2020, was the Walter Jackson Bate fellow at the  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and is a 2022 recipient of the National  Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship.