2011 Conference Spotlight: Leigh Michaels

Best-selling author Leigh Michaels will speak at a fiction writers' conference in Missouri July 23, 2011 Best-selling author Leigh Michaels is scheduled to be one of our speakers as Ozarks Romance Authors presents its annual conference July 23, 2011, at The Clarion Hotel in Springfield, Missouri.

Leigh's topics for this event include:

* "Things that Stump the Best of Us (Pacing, Backstory, and Transitions)"

* "Playing Fair: When Characters Keep Secrets" Leigh will also participate in panel discussions during the day with the other presenters.

Who is Leigh Michaels?

Leigh Michaels is the author of nearly 100 books, including 80 contemporary novels, three historical romance novels, and more than a dozen non-fiction books. 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.

Her work has been translated and published in 120 countries in more than 25 languages, including Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Czech, Bulgarian, Russian, Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Africaans, Arabic, Indonesian, and Chinese.

She is the 2003 recipient of the Johnson Brigham Award presented by the Iowa Library Association to an Iowa author for outstanding contributions to literature.

She is the author of "On Writing Romance," published by Writers Digest Books.

She is the author of non-fiction books such as WRITING THE ROMANCE NOVEL, a step-by-step workbook, and CREATING ROMANTIC CHARACTERS. She is also the author of DEAR LEIGH MICHAELS: A Novelist Answers the Most-Asked Questions about Getting Published, and a cookbook, A TASTE OF LOVE. She has produced audio programs and written magazine articles on subjects of interest to writers in general.

She teaches romance writing on the Internet at Gotham Writers Workshop, www.writingclasses.com. Men and women from around the world have participated in her workshops, and a number of them have gone on to publish their own romance novels with commercial publishers. She is currently an adjunct professor in the School of Communications at the University of Iowa.

She wrote her first romance novel when she was a teenager and burned it, then wrote and burned five more complete manuscripts before submitting to a publisher. Her first submission was accepted and published by Harlequin Books, the first publisher to look at it.

To learn more about Leigh Michaels, visit her online at http://www.LeighMichaels.com

Ozarks Romance Authors, a multi-genre writers' group, has been a registered non-profit corporation in the state of Missouri since 1987. Meetings are held the first Saturday of each month, and the group's annual conference is scheduled for July 23, 2011, in Springfield, Missouri.

For a list of guest speakers and their topics, click here: http://ozarks-romance-authors.com/2011-annual-conference/