Blueprints for Creating New Worlds
Presenters: PJ Hoover, Stacy Nyikos, Mel Odom, KD Wentworth - Friday 11:15, Room 2
Join four "out of this world" authors and hear how they successfully create new worlds in the burgeoning world of sci-fi and fantasy.  Authors PJ Hoover, Stacy Nyikos, Mel Odom and KD Wentworth will provide differing viewpoints on how to write within this increasingly popular genre.

Christian Fiction for the 21st Century
Presenters: Margaret Daley, Steven Hunt, Vicki McDonough, - Friday 10:00, Room 3
Christian fiction, what it is?  Margaret Daley, Steven Hunt and Vicki McDonough, all published authors with over 80 novels combined in print, will host a panel on writing Christian fiction, one of today's fastest growing genres.  They will cover how it is different from other fiction and how things are changing in this market.

Conversation with an Editor
Presenter: Mary-Theresa Hussey, Saturday 9:00, OBU Geiger Center, Room 2
Mary-Theresa Hussey, Executive Editor for Silhouette Books, will share insight and information about the publishing world and Harlequin specifically.  What should authors know about the lines Harlequin acquires for, what makes an editor really excited about an author? What about manuscripts? - what gets them accepted or rejected. This will be an informal, conversational format and questions will be taken.  NO MANUSCRIPTS will be accepted.

Did I Imagine That? Ghost stories - Why we love' em
Presenters: David Farris, Randy Russell - Friday 3:15, Room 1
A crackling fire, roasting marshmallows and a few good ghost stories - ah, the memories of childhood, or was it last weekend's camping trip?  What is it about a scary story that keeps us coming back for more?  Red Dirt is thrilled (but not chilled!) to have authors David Farris and Randy Russell share the exciting world of folklore, ghost stories and the mysterious side of life.

Dishing the State Dirt: Deliciously true stories about famous - and infamous - Oklahomans
Presenter: Connie Cronley - Saturday 10:00, OBU Gieger Center Room 3
Movie stars, writers, champion rodeo riders and poker players, ballerinas, singers, politicians, oilmen and badmen - you will meet them all in oh-so-true tales of their glory, fame, scandals, crimes and love affairs.  Connie Cronley is an award-winning journalist and radio commentator, and she is very, very funny.  One reviewer said, "Connie Cronley has the magic of an Annie Dillard, a Phyllis McGinley, or a Robert Benchley."  Come to Dishing the State Dirt and laugh and learn!

Film Imagines Oklahoma
Presenters: Pamela Bracken, David Charlson, William Hagen, Larry Van Meter - Friday 11:15,  Room 4
Films made about or in Oklahoma or by Oklahomans reflect the variety and vitality of the Oklahoma imagination.  From the iconic fabrications of Oklahoma! to documentaries such as Banned in Oklahoma and Okie Noodling, our movies show our multiplicity. 
These films and more are discussed in the anthology Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies. The book's editor and several contributors will share their insights into the richness of how film imagines, presents, and represents Oklahoma - along with movie stills and brief clips that offer various views of the forty-sixth state in the Union.

From Imagination to Reality - writing your family story
Presenters: Mildred Dennis, Carolyn Leonard, Gloria Teague - Friday 11:15, Room 1
Everyone has a family and every family has a story.  Memoirs and biographies are hot in the publishing world.  Times seem to be changing rapidly and people long for the "good old days" where life, and the people, seemed simpler and less complicated.  Join authors Mildred Dennis, Carolyn Leonard and Gloria Teague as they challenge participants to capture those memories and characters for future generations.  They will share how to gather information, usual and unusual resources available, how to approach the "reluctant" interview and where to start.

Imagination at Play in the Fields of Memory
Presenters: Dorothy Alexander, Jennifer Kidney, Sandra Soli - Friday 10:00, Room 1
Marianne Moore defined poetry as "Imaginary gardens with real toads in them."  This quote itself conjures images and questions.  What is poetry?  Red Dirt is proud to have three esteemed Oklahoma poets, Dorothy Alexander, Jennifer Kidney and Sandra Soli who will read from their works and discuss how imagination and memory combine in the creation of poetry.

Imagine If We Wrote Our Own History
Presenters: Hannibal Johnson, Tim Tingle, Kelvin White - Friday 10:00, Room 2
Norman Pearson said, "To look back upon history is inevitably to distort it."  Noted author Hannibal Johnson, eminent story teller and author Tim Tingle and Dr. Kelvin White will discuss history and the perspective from which it is written.  Professor White, University of Oklahoma, uses social justice to examine the interconnections between social, cultural and historical contexts and the implications they have for marginalized or underrepresented communities.  Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: from riot to renaissance in Tulsa's historic Greenwood District and Acres of Aspiration: the all-black towns in Oklahoma, and Tingle, author of Walking the Choctaw Road, Crossing Bok Chitto: a Choctaw tale of friendship and freedom and others, will round out a discussion of the Oklahoma experience, how it has shaped the people that live here, and how it has been recorded or not recorded.  For as E.L.Woodword said, "History itself touches only a small part of a nation's life.  Most of the activities and sufferings of the people . . . have been and will remain without written record."

Imagine It on the Silver Screen - The Art & Craft of Screenwriting
Presenters: Diane Glancy, Andrew Horton, Dale Whisman - Friday 10:00, Room 4
Many a great book has been adapted for film - some very successfully and some that left viewers confused and disappointed.  There is an art to adapting the experience of reading and the personal imaging of the authors story in print form to portraying it visually on film.  Diane Glancy, ANdrew Horton and Dale Whisman will give aspiring screenwriters advice and information on this process.

Imagine Oklahoma As An All Black State
Presenter: Hannibal Johnson - Friday 3:15, Room 3
Imagine Oklahoma as an all black state, a state founded by nineteenth century African-Americans longing for social, political, and economic rights denied them in pre-civil rights America.  As fanciful as it might seem, the prospect of an all black state within present-day Oklahoma captured the imagination of African-Americans nationwide just after the initial Oklahoma land run in 1889.  Even President Benjamin Harris entertained the prospect in 1890.
An all black state in Oklahoma failed to materialize, but in its stead all black towns like Boley and Taft, and bustling segregated urban communities like Deep Deuce in Oklahoma City and the Greenwood District in Tulsa, emerged.  These towns and communities, like the longed-for all black state, became islands of opportunity, laboratories for entrepreneurship, and sometime sanctuaries from social and political oppression.

Imagine Oklahoma History - Without Danney Goble
Presenter: Davis Joyce - Friday 4:15, Room 3
Historians are noted more for their factual knowledge than for their imagination, but historian and author, Davis Joyce, imagines Oklahoma without something. Danney Goble is one of this state's finest historians.  And we lost him last year.  One of Goble's works, Progressive Oklahoma once elicited the comment "that's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?".  Surely worth a laugh, but also worth solemn consideration that so many people don't know of the rich progressive traditions of Oklahoma's past.  Joyce will look at Gobles's major works, his major contributions to our understanding of our history and see how much poorer our understanding of our history would be without Danney's work. 

Imagine Your Oklahoma Self: a memoir writing workshop
Presenter: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - Saturday 9:00, OBU Geiger Center Room 3
Join the author of Red Dirt: Growing up Okie in writing exercises and discussions of memoir writing.  Bring notebook and pen.

In Reckless Hands: Skinner v Oklahoma and the near-triumph of American eugenics
Presenter: Victoria Nourse - Friday 3:15, Room 2
Victoria Nourse's book focuses on the Supreme Court case that dealt the American eugenics movement its death blow: the 1942 decision in Skinner v. Oklahoma.  Nourse conveys the popular acceptance of the idea of "race betterment" in the 1920 and '30s: in the permanent Eugenics Pavilion at the Kansas Free Fair, for instance, flashing lights totled up the cost to society of the criminal and the "feebleminded." Against this background, Nourse, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, conveys the magnitude of the constitutional challenge facing Jack Skinner, an Oklahoma convict ordered sterilized pursuant to a eugenic statute aimed at 'habitual criminals.' Nourse is equally effective depicting the legal strategies and the impact of the Depression and the growing awareness of Nazi atrocities on the High Court.  America's flirtation with eugenics is a cautionary tale worth remembering. (Publishers Weekly 05/26/2008)

Master Class for Writers
Presenter: Mel Odom - Saturday 9:00, OBU Geiger Center Room 4
Professional author of more that 150 books, Mel Odom will inspire, inform and entertain authors and aspiring writers with his method of how to plot stories and novels quickly and efficiently while staying true to character and genre.  Mel show how to create a "punch list" for scenes, research and character revelation while also providing a day-by-day schedule for the working writer.

Oklahoma, Land of Migration and Exodus
Presenters: Greg Rodgers, Tim Tingle - Friday 4:15, Room 2
Oklahoma, Land of Migration and Exodus, an invocation of a people's un-rooted past, the Choctaw search for home.  Greg Rodgers and Tim Tingle present a trio of stories with songs, singly and in duet telling, of the Choctaw migration, concluding with the 20th Century movement of many Choctaws away from Oklahoma in search of opportunity and jobs.  Following, the two will lead a discussion of literature as a pathway to the diverse Oklahoma migration story.  How did we come to the land we belong to?

Opening Session with Ron Stahl
Heart of Oklahoma Expo Center, 9:00
Ron Stahl helps us imagine ourselves in Oklahoma through his work with Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, and as cohost with Jenifer Reynolds on the Integris Discover Oklahoma television series. 

Pitfalls & Opportunities of Writing Oklahoma History
Presenters: Doug Hale, David Levy, Patti Loughlin, John Lovett, B. Byron Price, Linda Reese - Saturday Luncheon, OBU Geiger Center
A panel of illustrious Oklahoma scholars and historians will provide a thoughtful assessment of the state of history-writing about Oklahoma at the present moment - its strengths, weaknesses, unfinished tasks and opportunities.

Reading Red Dirt
Presenters: Judy Day, Jenny Stenis, Lisa Wood - Saturday 9:00 & 10:00, OBU Geiger Center, Room 1
Three Oklahoma librarians and avid readers, Judy Day, Jenny Stenis and Lisa Wood will talk about some of the books written by our Red Dirt authors.  This is your opportunity to hear about the books that are for sale at the Red Dirt Book Store, decide which ones you want to purchase and have the authors sign on Friday and Saturday afternoon. 

Re-imagining Oklahoma: Putting our past to work for the future
Presenters: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Rachel C. Jackson, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish - Friday 11:15, Room 1
Oklahoma has a rich and varied material, human, and cultural history.  Many writers delve into Oklahoma historical culture as fodder for their writing.  However, Oklahoma has a future as well as a past, and that future needs to be imagined.  The panelists will address the ways in which re-imagining our past can serve as a ground from which to image our futures.

Stained Glass Window Tour
Presenter: Tom Terry - Saturday 9:00, OBU Raley Chapel
Join Tom Terry, University Archivist for OBU, on a guided tour of Raley Chapel's stained glass windows.  Potter Auditorium features 11 stained glass windows designed by artist Ruth Dunn in collaboration with President John Wesley Raley.  The windows were made by the Orco Glass Comapny of San Antonio.  The Oklahoma History window at the north end of the auditorium, depicts state historical events including explorers, Indian tribes, treaties, the land run, and the industrial development of the state.  The five windows on the west side depict Theology, World Missions, Art and Architecture, History and Government, and Science and Medicine.  The subjects of the five windows on the east side are Worship, Music and Fine Arts, Baptist History, Literature, and Business and Industry.  The OBU seal is featured in the south entry to the building.   

State of the Arts in Oklahoma
Presenter: Susan Miller - Friday luncheon  Tickets available through the Red Dirt Store.   
Susan Miller explores The State of the Arts in Oklahoma through her work as a producer for Gallery on OETA-TV. 

Taking Care of Your Favorite Author - YOU!!
Presenters:  Carol Dean Schreiner, Romney Nesbit - Friday 4:15, Room 4
Being an author - the dream job.  You work when you want to, where you want to.  There is no stress and you are creatively fulfilled.  Does this sound like the job you applied for?  Is it the one you got?  Here author and creativity coach, Romney Nesbit, and author and humorist, Carol Dean Schreiner, tell you how to take care of the most important author in your life - YOU!  This is a positive and humorous program that covers many different facets of your busy life.  Building self esteem, combating procrastination and perfectionism, eating right, setting and achieving goals, managing time and stress - this program is a first aid kit for the inner author!

Two Southwests: poetry, stories and photography from the U.S. and China

Presenters: Nathan Brown, Ken Hada, Steven Schroeder - Friday 11:15, Room 3
Two Southwests: Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Shenzhen China.  Poets Nathan Brown, Ken Hada and Steven Schroeder will present a multi-form presentation featuring a montage of poetry and photography of these two "southwests."  There will be readings of their original Oklahoma poetry and discussion of it's link to the festival theme, it's link to the photography, translations and responses from Chinese poets.  The entire presentation will be a grand "link" poem.  The audience sill be inspired with the combined effect of the poetry and photography, demonstrating the possibilities of imagination - imagination rooted in Oklahoma landscape and people, connecting them beyond our borders.

Unlocking Your Imagination and Freeing Your Authentic Voice
Presenter: Dayna Dunbar - Friday 3:15, Room 4
This program will offer writers of both fiction and creative nonfiction ways to get in touch with their natural, inborn creativity.  Too often, formal education and particularly writing classes leach the inspiration and joy out of the creative process with too many rules, formulas and have-tos.  As adults, we become overly serious and lose touch with our authentic and natural creative voice.  Having fun is last on our list of priorities if it's on the list at all.  Even though money is involved, in professional sports, the athlete is still playing a game, and  in writing, the writer is still, first and foremost, being creative.  When the athlete or the writer loses touch with the essential, childlike nature of what they are doing, they are not nearly as effective or joyful.  This program will teach you how to access your inner creativity through dialoguing, visioning and writing exercises.  You will have the opportunity to break out of the bonds of all the rules, critiques, target markets, platforms, and other creativity crushing stuff.  You will learn what NOT to even think about during the writing process so that your writing is authentic and free.  You will also learn when you should think about and deal with these same considerations.  Come and imagine and have some fun!

Vampires, Werewolves and Demons - the sexy side of paranormal
Presenters: Crystal Inman, Michele Bardsley, Steve Wedel - Friday 4:15, Room 5
Remember Nosferatu, Salem's Lot, Frankenstein?  They were scary and icky and nobody wanted to be their friend (except the guy that ate flies!)  Enter the world of paranormal fiction, a world where the vampires are the heroes, the werewolves are sexy and paranormal is posh.  Paranormal, fantasy, sci-fi, speculative fiction - call it what you will, it's HOT in the publishing world.  Come hear veteran authors Michele Bardsley, Crystal Inman and Steve Wedel talk about the phenomenon that is paranormal fiction.

What Makes a Thriller?
Presenter: Jordan Dane - Friday 3:15, Room 5
National bestseller and award winning thriller author Jordan Dane will define the thriller novel and what sets it apart from other genres.  She'll share practical tips on plotting and pacing the thriller to keep the reader turning the pages.  She'll also share her path to publication from the strike of lightening on her first 3-book sale in auction with Avon HarperCollins to her back to back 2008 releases and beyond.

Women's Roles in Fiction and Society
Presenters: Jordan Dane, Dayna Dunbar, Susan Kates, Sharon Sala - Friday 10:00, Room 5
"You've come a long way, Baby", the famous slogan from the seventies echoes today.  The roles of women in society, as portrayed in fiction, have changed dramatically in the last half century.  Red Dirt is delighted to have noted authors Jordan Dane, Dayna Dunbar and Sharon Sala, representing a wide array of genres, and Dr. Susan Kates, University of Oklahoma, discuss these changes and how they are represented in literature.

Writing the Perfect Crime
Presenters: Steven Hunt, Phil Kemp, Mark Robinson, Charles Sasser - Friday 11:15, Room 5
Mystery and crime fiction is a perennial favorite among readers.  What makes the perfect crime and is there a way to write it more successfully?  Steven Hunt, author with eighteen years of Oklahoma law enforcement experience, Phil Kemp, author and former chief toxicologist for the Medical Examiner's Office, author Mark Robinson and Charles Sasser, author with fourteen years experience as a police officer and homicide detective, will share their considerable experience and understanding of crime to help write (not commit!) the perfect crime.