LEIGH MICHAELS
Leigh Michaels is the author of more than 100 books, including contemporary romance novels, historical romance novels, non-fiction books, and local history.
More than 35 million copies of her romance novels have been published. Six of her books have been finalists for Best Traditional Romance novel in the RITA contest sponsored by Romance Writers of America. She has received two Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times (RT Book Reviews). Her work has been translated and published in 120 countries in more than 25 languages.
She received the Johnson Brigham Award, presented by the Iowa Library Association to an Iowa author for outstanding contributions to American literature, in 2003.
She is the editorial director of PBL Limited, a small publishing firm that specializes in local history books and niche-market non-fiction. She teaches writing online at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and more than fifty of her students have sold their work to commercial publishers. She is also a writing coach.
She serves as chair of the Advisory Council for the University of Iowa Libraries and is a member of the board of trustees of the Ottumwa Public Library and of the Ottumwa Public Library Foundation.
Topics
- To Market, To Market — The Down and Dirty of Self-Publishing. Publishing your own books isn’t rocket science, but it can cause nail biting and hair pulling. Advice and a workable plan from an author of more than 100 books who used to be traditional and now is totally indie.
- Our Town: Local history is a popular topic in every city and town — and the rewards of creating history books for your local area can be immense. You, too, can enjoy the satisfaction of preserving and sharing the stories and photos of your town (and the profits can be pretty good, too). How to think through, plan, organize, write, and publish YOUR local history. Leigh has published more than 50 volumes of local history about southeast Iowa towns and counties through her small publisher, PBL Limited (www.pbllimited.com)
- Writing Between the Sexes: Female writers tend to create men who sound like girlfriends, while male writers tend to create women who sound like tough guys. We’ll explore why, but more importantly we’ll talk about how to create gender-different characters who are convincing but not stereotypical.
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