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
Lawayne Orlando Childrey
Lawayne Orlando Childrey is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. His autobiography, Peeling Back the Layers: A Story of Trauma, Grace and Triumph, was selected as one of the top six autobiographies of 2015 by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. In this book Childrey demonstrates how he endured some of the most horrific trauma imaginable, including childhood sexual abuse, depression, a crack cocaine addiction and an HIV diagnosis. He finally found fulfillment through his faith in God’s grace. Reviewers have called Peeling Back the Layers: A Story of Trauma, Grace and Triumph a masterpiece…so personal, so inspiring, so intimate.
Childrey is also the co-author of Self-Publishing & Selling Your Book, a step-by-step manual that explains the entire process from start to successful finish.
In addition, Childrey is also a recipient of the national Edward R. Murrow Award for Journalistic Excellence. He has won numerous Mississippi Associated Press awards for his reporting with Mississippi Public Broadcasting, a statewide affiliate of National Public Radio. In 2014 the Alabama Community College System selected Childrey as its most outstanding alumnus in the institution’s 50-year history. The ACCS awarded a $5,000 scholarship in Childrey’s name to a deserving Alabama high school senior. During the same year, Childrey was named alumnus of the year for Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham. He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee where he serves on the executive committee of the Nashville Regional HIV Planning Council. He is also an executive board member of The Excell Group, a mentoring program for at risk youth in Pembroke, Illinois.
Childrey is currently in demand as a speaker, inspiring many different kinds of audiences with his incredible story.
He also works as a freelance journalist, national voice over artist and HIV/AIDS advocate.
Lawayne joins the faculty for #MVWC 2017 as an advocate for telling your story. He will facilitate a workshop highlighting the importance of autobiographical storytelling during the 2017 Mountain Valley Writers Conference.
Balancing the Truth of Your Heart with the Exposure to the World
Everyone has a story to tell and a lesson to teach.
From a legacy perspective, we tell our stories for ourselves and as a gift to future generations. This presentation highlights some of the many ways telling those stories, both good and bad benefit us all. It also demonstrates how difficulties arise not because we have a story, perhaps a very sad or painful story, but because we become attached to our stories and make them an essential part of our very selves. Telling our stories is not an end in itself, but an attempt to release ourselves from them, to evolve and grow beyond them. We tell our stories to transform ourselves; to learn about our history and tell our experiences to transcend them. During this presentation we will learn to use our stories to make a difference in the world; to broaden our perspective to see further than normal; to act beyond a story that may have imprisoned or enslaved us; to live more of our spiritual and earthly potential.
Everyone has a story to tell and a lesson to teach.
More about the Speaker
Favorite book: Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris. This is the first book that I actually saw myself on the pages. I felt like Harris was telling my story and I read it in a day.
Favorite quote: To Thine Own Self Be True
When I was a kid growing up my mom would drill this in my head. However, it wasn’t until I became an adult that I began to fully appreciate its meaning. “Thanks mom and William Shakespeare, I get it.”
Random Fun Fact: I got to hang out and shoot hoops with the world famous Harlem Globetrotters when I was 10 years old.
Where to Connect with the Speaker
Video: http://www.pbs.org/video/2365762197/
Website: www.lawaynechildrey.com
Facebook: Lawayne Orlando Childrey and Lawayne Childrey, Author,
Twitter: @LChildrey
Instagram: lawaynechildrey