HippoCamp Minis: Publishing & Promotion – 5 CNF Topics in a Flash

Session description: This flash session will  share some hard-earned wisdom and insights to consider when promoting your book and planning your own tour without a publicist. Participants will gain tips on approaching bookstores and libraries, partnering with other authors, using local media and targeted organizations, marketing, anticipating challenges, event preparation, and more.

About the speaker: Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023), shortlisted for the 2024 Memoir Prize from Memoir Magazine, named a 2023 Foreword INDIES Finalist, and Winner of a Bronze Medal in the Wishing Shelf BookAwards, and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a certificate in narrative medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today,  Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. Though she is still a proud Canadian, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university in Toronto), and chocolate Lab.

Session description: Everyone wants an agent but no one knows where, or how, to find one. Join Amy for this flash workshop where she will offer seven quick tips that you can implement immediately to bring yourself closer to representation. Participants will learn how to set themselves up for success, how to remain persistent when they are discouraged, and how to research agents that might be a good fit. Everyone will walk away with actionable steps for their agent search plan.

About the speaker: Amy Fish is a committed HippoCamper and a born story-teller with a tendency to over-research. Her latest Chapbook, Honeymoon Sneakers: A Cautionary Tale (Cactus Press 2024) came out a few months ago, and she is the author of the forthcoming One in Six Million: The Baby by the Roadside and the Man who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor’s Lost Identity (Goose Lane Editions 2025). Amy writes a weekly Substack called Persistence for Writers.

Session description: When a radio talk show host, podcaster, or TV producer requests your bio before a scheduled interview, do you have the right one to send? What about bios for other opportunities related to the business of being an author? In this fast-paced, content-rich session, learn what belongs in your bio, what raises red flags, and how to write bios that level up your literary career.

About the speaker: Joey Garcia is an editor and book coach who helps writers get known while she’s editing their books. Her clients have been featured in major media, including The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian magazine, Ms. magazine, CNN, and The Tamron Hall Show. A recognized relationship expert, Joey has been interviewed by USA Today, Deutsche Welle, KVIE public television, KTLA radio, and the Dear Prudence podcast. Joey’s personal essays can be found in Hippocampus CNF magazine, Hypertext, the Brevity blog and (HER)oics: Women’s Lived Experiences During the Coronavirus Pandemic, among others. In 2017, Joey established the first-ever literary fellowship in Belize, her birthplace.

Rae Pagliarulo

Session description: What would you do with $5,000 or $10,000 just to work on your writing? In this session you’ll learn about where to look for grant opportunities, what you’ll need to apply, and how this seemingly-unreachable source of revenue can help move your project from floundering to finished!

About the speaker: Rae Pagliarulo works as a nonprofit fundraising consultant in her lifelong home of Philadelphia. Her essays, poems, and articles have appeared in Full Grown People, bedfellows, Hippocampus, The Manifest-Station, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, the Brevity Blog, and numerous others. Her work is anthologized in The Best of Philadelphia Stories: 10th Anniversary Edition. She is the 2014 recipient of the Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize, a 2019 Best of the Net nominee, and a graduate of Rosemont College’s MFA program.

Session description: Often, we promote our work among writerly circles, but what about the everyday reader? Those folks who love to immerse themselves in true stories, but who you also won’t find in the online and real-life literary communities we spend so much time in. In this brief talk, Donna will dive into discoverability and explore ways readers can find YOU and what you write about. She’ll cover researching and using keywords, writing for search engines (including AI assistants), crafting marketing copy for products and events, and finding opportunities to collaborate with local partners.

About the speaker: Donna Talarico, founder/publisher of Hippocampus Magazine, has more than 25 years of experience in marketing and communications; about half of that time has been in higher education. She serves as an editor for Link Journal (from the HighEdWeb Association), writes an adult learner recruiting column for Wiley, and has contributed to Guardian Higher Education Network, The Writer, mental_floss, Games World of Puzzles, and others. Her creative nonfiction appears in The Superstition Review, The Los Angeles Review, The New York Times (Tiny Love Stories), Wanderlust Journal, and The Writing Disorder (which nominated her essay “A Prequel to My Sister’s” for a Pushcart Prize). Donna serves on the residency faculty (with a focus on the business of publishing) at the Maslow Family Graduate Creative Writing Program at Wilkes University.