Currently a freelance consultant and teacher, Shelly Lowenkopf’s clients include novelists, retired and active academics, and the humorist creator of one of the most popular television series of all time. Lowenkopf taught courses in short story, novel, dramatic writing, editing, genre fiction, and revision at the graduate level in one of the most prestigious writing programs in America at University of Southern California, where he was given a Lifetime Teaching Award. He has been a visiting professor at the College of Creative Studies, UCSB, since 2011.He is a past regional president of the Mystery Writers of America; his book reviews have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The National Catholic Reporter, The Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Publishers’ Weekly, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Santa Barbara Independent. He has been the weekly reviewer for the Montecito Journal since 2005.
Lowenkopf has had over 35 books published, along with short fiction, pulp novels, essays and reviews. His 2012 book, The Fiction Writer’s Handbook: The definitive guide to McGuffins, red herrings, shaggy dogs, and other literary revelations from a master, is a guide to terms, concepts, and forms related to storytelling. His most recent book is a collection of short stories about characters in Santa Barbara titled Love will Make You Drink and Gamble and Stay out Late at Night. http://shellylowenkopf.com/
Literary Agent, Toni Lopopolo, has a book publishing resume that began in 1970 in the publicity dept of Bantam Books, where she helped publicize authors such as Philip Roth, Barbara Cartland, Isaac Asimov, and Louis L’Amour. She next served as Library Promotion Director at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and visited almost every major library in the USA. Then Houghton Mlfflin offered her a position in Boston as Marketing Manager, Paperback Books. Her big campaigns included Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins. When Macmillan presented Toni the title of Executive Editor, she moved back to New York City and published Judy Mazel’s Beverly Hills Diet and Elvis 56 by Al Wertheimer among other hits. St. Martin’s Press made an offer she couldn’t refuse, so Toni became Executive Editor there from 1981 to 1990 and published Hot Flashes by Barbara Raskin and Rich and Famous by Kate Coscarelli plus Elsa Lanchester, Herself, by Elsa Lanchester, On The Other Hand by Fay Wray and many more titles.In l991, Toni opened Toni Lopopolo Literary Management. She has since sold books for authors Sol Stein, Lee Silber, Lillian Glass, Steve Duno, Nancy Baer, Flo Fitzgerald, Judith Smith-Levin, Howard Olgin, Jeanette Baker, Larry Seeley, and several others. Toni relocated her company to Santa Barbara, California in 2011.
Toni is also known for her Fiction and Memoir workshops where she uses a unique method that helps first-time writers to master the skills needed to successfully write book-length fiction, and she aids nonfiction writers to produce compelling narrative nonfiction, using fiction techniques. Toni has held workshops at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and at the Writer’s Room of Bucks County, PA. as well for the 805 Writers Conference, Santa Barbara Writers Conference, Ventura County Writers Club, and IWOSC/WPN VC meetings. https://lopopololiterary.com/