Writers Conference

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She also writes the Grace Harper series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.

CRAIG PITTMAN is a Florida native and an award-winning journalist at the Tampa Bay Times. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country as well as three other books. His newspaper work has won the Waldo Proffitt Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism in Florida four times. Twice he has won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists, a national organization. He has twice won the top reporting award, the Charlie, from the Florida Magazine Assocation for freelance stories for Sarasota magazine. His book Oh, Florida! won the gold medal for Florida non-fiction from the Florida Book Awards. His fifth book, Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther comes out in January. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and two children.

Sharon Y. Cobb is a professional screenwriter and member of Writers Guild of America west. She has written several feature films including June, Lighthouse Hill and On Hostile Ground. She has also penned many award-winning short films and a novel False Confessions of a True Hollywood Screenwriter. Sharon also wrote the book, Touched by an Angel, A Christmas Miracle. Sharon owned an advertising agency and shares her knowledge of marketing and e-publishing with writers.