The Mountain Valley Writers Conference will feature speakers and presentations that will help provide the tools to writers that are working in the industry or those writers that are seeking to build their own platform for writing success.
Speaker Highlight
William Thornton
William Thornton is the author of “Set Your Fields on Fire,” which won the 2015 Aspiring Author Contest with WestBow Press and the Parable Group. His comic Christian novel is distributed by HarperCollins. He is a native of Gadsden, Alabama and an award-winning reporter with the Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He has been in journalism for 28 years, with his work appearing in The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, the (Mobile) Press-Register, The Tuscaloosa News and The Gadsden Times, along with national publications. His previous novels are “Brilliant Disguises” and “The Uncanny Valley.”
He lives in Southside, Alabama with his wife Donna and daughter Sophie.
He writes on classic and contemporary literature, music, movies and pop culture.
Here’s a link to the first chapter of “Set Your Fields on Fire.”
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.
William will be joining the Mountain Valley Writers Conference as a session leader. He has been learning the ropes of self-promotion and will share all his secrets and special tips for how to market your book without losing all your friends.
Learning Self-Promotion (without Ending up Friendless): You’ve written a book! (or you want to write a book! Or maybe not?) You mean to change the world, one blessed word at a time! But yet, how will they know? You hear about social media, but you’re not at all sure about this whole thing. Does it involve words? Then again, you like the Interwebs, but how much is too much? How can I break the cycle of cat videos, political memes, and get them reading? And what about other media? Does anyone care? Make them!
More about the Speaker
Favorite book: It changes periodically, but always seems to swing back to “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Proves a great book doesn’t have to be long to be important, can be funny but serious, can be lyrical and still tell a story.
Favorite quote: E.L. Doctorow on writing: “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
One thing to know: It was working as a reporter that convinced Bill he could write a novel. A reporter on a beat can easily turn out two pages a day. Keep that pace up for three months, and you’ve got the first draft of a book.
Fun fact: Because Bill made (what he thought was) an innocuous comment about a 40-year-old movie, the actor William Shatner blocked him on Twitter.
Where to Connect with the Speaker
Website: Brilliant Disguises
Twitter: @billineastala
Facebook: william.thornton.56