WRITERS FESTIVAL PANELS & SPEAKERS
All take place at the William H. Jervey, Jr. Venice Public Library
An economics major at Sweet Briar College, Kim re Cool is the author or co-author of some 30 books. Needlework and Busies Books were written for the third largest craft book publisher in the U.S, with her needlework store business partner. Their needlepoint book was a national best seller, selling in excess of 5,000 copies per month. The two also several top selling craft books for the same company. They learned the publishing business there.
After moving to Venice, she wrote about real estate for the Venice Gondolier Sun where she has been the features editor for most of the past 22 years. During these years, she began her series of ghost stories and founded her own publishing house. As she wrote those books plus a circus history and Venice history and road trip books, She dealt with book printers in Florida, Minnesota, Hong Kong, Korea and Maryland, presented seminars on publishing tp share her knowledge. Her books are at Bares and Noble and many other book stores as well as online.
She was a charter member of the group that founded the Venice Writers Festival. She has won state, regional and national awards for her books and numerous awards in journalism. She attended the first Olympic Training Camp for Curlers and is a national judge of figure skating.
MORNING PANEL 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Who Will Buy Your Book?
Anyone can write a book but fewer than 5 percent will see any return on their investment of time and money.
Kim Cool, Features Editor, Venice Gondolier, learned the secrets from the third-largest craft book publisher where she and her business partner created books that sold thousands of copies at the big chain craft stores as well as in giant mail order catalogs. Printings topped 100,000 per title and sold in such numbers that resellers required extra discounts. Successful creators of fiction and non-fiction do the same. Kim shares the not-so-secret pathway to success.
11:00 am-12:30 pm Lunch on your own at one of the fabulous Venice eateries.
PLAYWRIGHT'S PANEL 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
How To Become a Drama Queen or King
This panel features The Hermitage Artistic Director/CEO and Tony Award-winning producer and playwright Andy Sandberg, award-winning playwright Connie Schildewolf, and Venice Theatre playwriting instructors Preston Boyd and Richard Krevolin, author of Screenwriting from the Soul. Moderated by Benny Sato Ambush.
Andy Sandberg is a writer, director, and Tony Award-winning producer. His theatrical work has been represented in New York City, London, and throughout the United States. In 2009, at the age of 25, he became the youngest producer in history to win a Tony Award.
Sandberg’s Broadway and West End producing credits include the hit revival of Hair (2009 Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Awards); the Broadway revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, starring James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, John Larroquette, Candice Bergen, and Eric McCormack (2012 Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Nominations); and Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses, a critically acclaimed new play starring Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts, and Marisa Tomei.
In addition to his Broadway credits, Sandberg’s career as a director and writer has been committed to the development and creation of new work. He wrote and directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Application Pending, a comedy about kindergarten admissions (Broadway World Award: Best Off-Broadway Play, Drama Desk Nomination: Outstanding Solo Show, Winner: Book Pipeline Prize). He directed the London premiere of Jeannette Bayardelle’s Shida, which opened to rave reviews and earned 2019 Off West End Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Director, and Best Lead Actress. He previously directed the world premiere of Shida Off-Broadway at Ars Nova (four AUDELCO Award Nominations, including Best Director and Best Musical) and at the American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA). Sandberg has been represented Off-Broadway as the director of Straight, named a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times, which cited that the production was “directed with polished finesse.” Additional world premieres that he has directed include Alan Brody’s historical drama Operation Epsilon (four IRNE Awards, including Best Play and Best Director), the Off-Broadway comedy Craving for Travel (also co-author), and the Off-Broadway musicals The Last Smoker in America, Neurosis, and R.R.R.E.D. In 2020, he directed How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for the Maltz Jupiter Theater.
In 2019, Sandberg was selected to lead the Hermitage Artist Retreat as Artistic Director and CEO, following an extensive national search. Since joining the Hermitage in January of 2020, Sandberg has guided the organization through a period of significant growth and transition, despite the challenges of COVID-19. Over the past two seasons, the organization has dramatically expanded its programming, more than doubled its fundraising, embarked on a new strategic plan, completed a campus-wide restoration, and established dozens of new collaborative partnerships throughout the region and across the country. Under Sandberg’s leadership, the Hermitage was one of the nation’s earliest and most successful adapters to find safe and innovative opportunities for live programming, creating unique outdoor and virtual experiences for artists and audiences alike.
Born and raised in New York, Sandberg is a graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in English and Theater Studies. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and the Off-Broadway League. He has served on the boards of The Browning School (NYC), the Arts & Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, the Yale Dramatic Association, the Whiffenpoof Alumni Association, and the Yale Alley Cats Alumni Organization (founder and longtime president). He recently served as President of the Browning Alumni Association.
Connie Schindewolf taught theatre, including playwriting, in the St. Louis area for 25 years before moving to Bradenton, FL where she has had more time to write. She has been involved in and won many short play festivals. In 2020, 5 Seconds, was accepted into Barrington Stage Company’s 10x10, and locally, Theatre Odyssey has produced 14 of her short plays, and she has won four of their awards including Best Play twice. Her full-length plays have appeared in many festivals and have been produced by Gulfport Community Players in Gulfport, FL and the Players Center For Performing Arts in Sarasota. In 2019 she was invited to Clamour Theatre’s Playwrights Retreat where she received help developing her full-length play, Bloodlines. Since 2007 Connie has had productions across the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and The United Arab Emirates. She’s published by Applause Books, JAC Publishing, Pioneer Drama Service, Nigel Publishing, and Smith & Kraus. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and helps lead the Sarasota Area Playwrights Society https://www.sarasotaplaywrights.com/ When she’s not writing, she’s saving sea turtles.
Preston retired from full time classroom teaching (drama and music) in 2014. Since then, he has become very active in the Sarasota-Manatee theatre community as a director, musician (guitar/banjo), and sometimes actor, as well as a freelance instructor of adult and teen theatre classes. In addition to having taught a number of playwriting courses, he also serves as a Director Emeritus with Sarasota's Theatre Odyssey, an organization dedicated to bringing new, original scripts to the stage. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts and M.Ed. in Theatre Education. Preston lives in Bradenton with his wife (and favorite stage manager) Priscilla and is the proud father of Dorian and Colin Boyd, both professional theatre technicians.
Richard Krevolin is a graduate of Yale College. Richard went on to earn a master’s degree in screenwriting at UCLA’s School of Cinema-Television, and a master's degree in playwriting from USC.
Richard has been an adjunct Professor of Dramatic Writing at USC School of Cinema/TV, UCLA, Pepperdine, Emerson, Ithaca College, University of Redlands and The University of Georgia. Under his guidance, his students have sold film scripts and TV shows to Universal, Sony-Tri-Star, WB, Paramount, Dreamworks and numerous other studios and production companies. He has also guided hundreds of students on structuring and developing their plays and novels.
He is the author of the books, Screenwriting From The Soul (St. Martin’s Press), Pilot Your Life (Prentice-Hall), How To Adapt Anything Into A Screenplay (Wiley & Sons) and Screenwriting in the Land of Oz (Adams Media/Writer’s Digest Books). He is also the writer of several young adult novels and over twenty stage plays many of which have been produced all over the country. Richard has several scripts in development in Hollywood including “SAFER” with Tom DeSanto Productions(X-Men, Transformers). He was one of the writers of the documentary, “Fiddler on the Roof: 30 Years of Tradition.” He wrote and directed the PBS documentary about theater during the Holocaust, “Making Light in Terezin.” And recently, he wrote and directed the feature film, “Attachments” starring Academy Award nominated Actress, Katharine Ross.
He was a finalist for the $500,000 Kingman Screenwriting Award, the Chesterfield Contest, the Klasky-Csupo Writing for Children Contest and the Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting Award. He won the USC One-Act Play Festival for his comedy, Love is Like Velcro. His play, Trotsky’s Garden, was a finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights' Conference. His one-man show, Yahrzeit, a finalist in the HBO New Writer’s Project, was a huge hit at the Santa Monica Playhouse, running for five sold-out months; under a new name, Boychik , it opened Off-Broadway at Theater Four in New York City in 1997 and then toured the country. He also received a Valley Theatre League nomination for best director and best play for his one-man musical RebbeSoul-O.
His play, King Levine opened at the Odyssey Theater under the direction of Joseph Bologna and after receiving rave reviews, transferred to The Tiffany. It was also nominated for an Ovation Award as Best Adaptation. In 2001, Richard had two one person plays open in L.A., The Lemony Fresh Scent of Diva Monsoon Man (starring Ruth DeSosa) at the Rose Alley and Seltzer Man (starring David Proval of The Sopranos). www.ProfK.com
Benny Sato Ambush is a veteran director, institutional theatre leader, educator, published commentator and consultant. He has been Artistic Director of Theatre Virginia (Richmond, VA) and Oakland Ensemble Theatre (Oakland, CA).
Previously, he was Associate Artistic Director of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater; Acting Artistic Director of Providence, RI’s Rites and Reason Theatre Company; Co-Artistic Director of San Francisco Bay Area Playwrights Festival; PEW Charitable Trust/TCG Director-In-Residence for Manalapan, Florida’s Florida Stage; and Associate Artistic Director of Anna Deavere Smith’s Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue at Harvard University.
In 2020, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.
Tribute to the late great David Hagberg 1:30 pm
MOTHER/DAUGHTER WRITERS PANEL 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Raising a Writer: A Conversation with a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Her Author-Mom
FEATURING
Clarissa Thomasson, local author
Lane Thomasson DeGregory, reporter at Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg
Venice Dreamers: Bios of 41 Men and Women Who Impacted Venice author and loyal book festival panelist, Clarissa Thomasson and her daughter, Lane DeGregory, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, will offer insights on raising readers, kids who write, write well and win awards. Moderated by Maria Carrillo.
Clarissa Thomasson was born in Miami, Florida. She received her BA from Duke University and her MA from the University of Florida. Thomasson taught secondary English in Nevada and Maryland before returning to Florida. She’s written eight novels, one local history, and two plays, and writes a monthly column for Eastside Venice Neighbors.
I am a listener, a writer, a podcaster. I love embedding in strangers’ lives and sharing their stories. When I was 6 years old, growing up in D.C. during the Watergate scandal, I told my parents I was going to be a journalist. I was editor of the newspaper at the University of Virginia, then worked in newsrooms across the East Coast. Over the last 30 years, I have written more than 3,000 stories. I came to the Tampa Bay Times in 2000 and have followed a feral child who was adopted, a girl whose dad dropped her off a bridge and a dying boy waiting for his miracle. I’ve won dozens of national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. I’m also a mother, a dog lover and die-hard Deadhead.
Maria Carrillo has been deputy editor/enterprise at the Tampa Bay Times and was previously enterprise editor at the Houston Chronicle. Before that, she was managing editor at The Virginian-Pilot. She has edited dozens of award-winnings projects, frequently lectures on narrative journalism, co-hosts a weekly podcast (WriteLane) about storytelling and has been a Pulitzer Prize juror four times. She was born in Washington, D.C., two years after her parents left Cuba in exile. She now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., with her husband, and they have two grown children.
WRITERS PANEL 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Write What You Know
This panel is aimed at helping authorities in their fields become authors. Venice High School teacher and Champions Way author Beth Donofrio, 61 Motivational Stories for Every Coach of Every Sport authors and VHS coaches Craig Faulkner and Ray Sinibaldi, Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life author and psychiatrist Chris Cortland, and How to Adapt Anything Into a Screenplay author Richard Krevolin will speak.
A teaching veteran with 20+ years experience, Beth's first book celebrates the town of Venice and its hometown heroes. Set at Venice High, Champions Way tells the true stories of coaches, athletes, teachers, and fans who make Venice both a Titletown and one of Coastal Living's Top 10 Happiest Seaside Towns. Beth was Venice High's Teacher of the Year and Florida's Literacy Teacher of the Year in 2018. She has been a presenter at educational conferences throughout the state and has written for local and national publications including The Venice Gondolier, Gulf Coast Family Living, Reunions Magazine, PTO Today and Cape Cod Magazine. Her work as a teacher in a secure detention and treatment facility for juvenile boys in Boston has been chronicled in the book Teacher to Teacher: Learning from Each Other by Eleanor Duckworth. Beth and her husband have four children.
Craig Faulkner is the Head Coach of Venice High Baseball. A former catcher/first baseman, Faulkner spent nine years in professional baseball while making five all-star teams with the Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, and St. Louis Cardinals organizations. He also coached at the professional level (AA Ball) in the Orioles' system.
Faulkner played collegiately at LSU and participated in two College World Series for the Tigers, serving as the team captain in 1987.
Coach Faulkner has coached for 26 seasons at his alma mater, Venice High School. The Indians have won numerous district and regional titles and have reached the FHSAA Final Four on nine different occasions during his tenure. Venice won the Florida State Championship in 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2019 under Coach Faulkner's watch. He was awarded with the Florida High School Coach of the Year twice and SE Regional Coach of the Year in 2013. He was also the runner-up for national coach-of-the-year in 2013.
Craig Faulkner was inducted into the Florida High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018.
Off the field, Faulkner is an author, having written 61 Motivational Stories for Every Coach of Every Sport with his assistant coaches Ray Sinibaldi and Joe Komoroski. He is also a motivational speaker who speaks at state and national coaching clinics.
Among Raymond Sinibaldi's passions are baseball and history. His first book, The Babe in Red Stockings was published in 1997 and co-authored with David Hickey and Kerry Keene. A chronology of Babe Ruth’s time with the Red Sox, it gives an in-depth account of the first five years of his remarkable career. It would be fifteen years for his second book Images of Fenway Park (2012) again co-authored with Hickey and Keene.
Since then, he has produced one a year: Spring Training in Bradenton and Sarasota (2013), 1967 Red Sox, The Impossible Dream Season (2014), 1975 Red Sox American League Champions (2015). In 2016 came 61 Motivational Stories for Every Coach of Every Sport, co-authored with longtime baseball coaches Craig Faulkner and Joe Komoroski.
In addition to the legendary Red Sox, Coach Sinibaldi has turned his literary talents to another Massachusetts dynasty: the Kennedy family. He has written three books about America's 35th president, and fourth introduces his readers to a young Jacqueline Bouvier in Jackie's Newport: America's First Lady and the City by the Sea.
A regular guest on WBZ radio’s Jordan Rich Show for many years, Sinibaldi was also a part of the special Baseball From the Beginning, A History of Spring Training in Florida. He has twice spoken at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Dr. Christopher Cortman has created a safe haven for emotional healing in Sarasota County, facilitating more than 75,000 hours of psychotherapy in his private practice. He specializes in treating emotional trauma, relationship issues, personality disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders.
Dr. Cortman received the first place Reader’s Choice Award by the Venice Gondolier Sun for ‘Best Psychologist’ in the years 2013-2021. He also won the award for ‘Outstanding Contributions to Psychology in the Public’ in 2015 for the state of Florida. Furthermore, he has appeared nationwide on talk radio and television, including Disney Radio, MTV, and ABC.
Dr. Cortman continues to maintain a successful private practice while pursuing projects that enable him to meet a larger need for psychological expertise in the community. These projects include frequent public speaking with the use of ‘edu-tainment’, as he prides himself on providing an ‘educational’ experience riddled with humor that keeps the audience involved and entertained. Dr. Cortman has spoken alongside Tipper Gore in 2009, Jane Pauley in 2011 and Patrick Kennedy in 2015 to talk about stigma and mental illness.
Another project of his is the development of The Social Black Belt, a social/emotional learning program for schools and individuals of all ages.
Dr. Cortman is a published author of four books: ‘Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life: 10 Simple Truths That Will Set You Free,’ ‘Take Control of Your Anxiety,’ ‘Keep Pain in the Past: Getting Over Trauma, Grief and the Worst Thing That’s Ever Happened to You’ and ‘The Social Black Belt’.
Currently, Dr. Cortman hosts a weekly radio show on TNCRadio.live called “Building Stronger Minds.”
Richard Krevolin is a graduate of Yale College. Richard went on to earn a master’s degree in screenwriting at UCLA’s School of Cinema-Television, and a master's degree in playwriting from USC.
Richard has been an adjunct Professor of Dramatic Writing at USC School of Cinema/TV, UCLA, Pepperdine, Emerson, Ithaca College, University of Redlands and The University of Georgia. Under his guidance, his students have sold film scripts and TV shows to Universal, Sony-Tri-Star, WB, Paramount, Dreamworks and numerous other studios and production companies. He has also guided hundreds of students on structuring and developing their plays and novels.
He is the author of the books, Screenwriting From The Soul (St. Martin’s Press), Pilot Your Life (Prentice-Hall), How To Adapt Anything Into A Screenplay (Wiley & Sons) and Screenwriting in the Land of Oz (Adams Media/Writer’s Digest Books). He is also the writer of several young adult novels and over twenty stage plays many of which have been produced all over the country. Richard has several scripts in development in Hollywood including “SAFER” with Tom DeSanto Productions(X-Men, Transformers). He was one of the writers of the documentary, “Fiddler on the Roof: 30 Years of Tradition.” He wrote and directed the PBS documentary about theater during the Holocaust, “Making Light in Terezin.” And recently, he wrote and directed the feature film, “Attachments” starring Academy Award nominated Actress, Katharine Ross.
He was a finalist for the $500,000 Kingman Screenwriting Award, the Chesterfield Contest, the Klasky-Csupo Writing for Children Contest and the Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting Award. He won the USC One-Act Play Festival for his comedy, Love is Like Velcro. His play, Trotsky’s Garden, was a finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights' Conference. His one-man show, Yahrzeit, a finalist in the HBO New Writer’s Project, was a huge hit at the Santa Monica Playhouse, running for five sold-out months; under a new name, Boychik , it opened Off-Broadway at Theater Four in New York City in 1997 and then toured the country. He also received a Valley Theatre League nomination for best director and best play for his one-man musical RebbeSoul-O.
His play, King Levine opened at the Odyssey Theater under the direction of Joseph Bologna and after receiving rave reviews, transferred to The Tiffany. It was also nominated for an Ovation Award as Best Adaptation. In 2001, Richard had two one person plays open in L.A., The Lemony Fresh Scent of Diva Monsoon Man (starring Ruth DeSosa) at the Rose Alley and Seltzer Man (starring David Proval of The Sopranos). www.ProfK.com