Leslie Daniels’ first novel, Cleaning Nabokov’s House, has been published in translation in four languages. The novel, now under option for film, fights the good fight of being both literary and funny. Daniels’ stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications. Her background in publishing includes over a decade as a literary agent in New York, as well as serving as the fiction editor for Green Mountains Review. Leslie Daniels lives in Ithaca, New York. www.lesliedaniels.com
2021 Festival Day – Craft Talks
Janet Fitch is the bestselling author of White Oleander, an Oprah Book Club selection translated into 28 languages and made into a feature film; Paint it Black, also widely translated and adapted for the screen. Her most recent books are two epics of the Russian Revolution, The Revolution of Marina M. and Chimes of a Lost Cathedral. Her short stories appear in Los Angeles Noir and Palm Springs Noir, and a film of her noir story “The Method” has just wrapped. Long time faculty at the Community of Writers, Fitch hosts her popular Writing Wednesdays writing series on Facebook and Youtube. [F] www.janetfitchwrites.com
Photo credit: Cat Gwynn
Michelle Latiolais is the author of the novel, Even Now, which received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her second novel, A Proper Knowledge, was published by Bellevue Literary Press, as was Widow, a collection of stories, involutions and essays. Her novel She was released in 2016 by W.W. Norton & Company. Recent work is forthcoming in Mississippi Review in 2025.
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
In her long career as a screenwriter and producer, Meyer has sold and written numerous feature screenplays, from dark comedies to true crime dramas, for Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and all the major studios. In addition, she has written network miniseries and movies-of-the-week, as well as an original drama pilot for CBS. Her scripts have placed in the top percentiles with such competitions as the Sundance Lab, the Austin Film Festival, and Screencraft.
Her producing debut, the ABC 4-hour miniseries, The Women of Brewster Place, starring Oprah Winfrey, earned an Emmy® nomination and Image Award. She also executive produced Nora Ephron’s directorial debut, This is My Life, for 20th Century Fox. Meyer is a longtime member of the Writers Guild of America and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
An educator for 24 years, Meyer has thrived teaching screenwriting to emerging visual storytellers. After a decade at AFI, she is now an assistant professor of screenwriting at LMU. In 2019, she was named one of the top film educators in the country by Variety: https://variety.com/2019/film/features/entertainment-education-report-best-films-schools-for-2019-1203213637/
Patricia K. Meyer earned a BA in History & Literature from Harvard University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Boston University.
Megan Fay Raveneau is a staff writer in the writers room for a yet-to-be-announced Netflix adult animation series, where she leads break-out room discussions on character and episode development. Prior to securing that much-coveted position, she wrote on staff for a Disney Junior television series. Megan also has worked as a freelance screenwriter for several years, developing and writing screenplays for various production companies. She also assisted in television development at the Blumhouse production company. After receiving her B.A. in Film Production from Brooklyn College, she earned her MFA in the Writing for the Screen Program at Loyola Marymount University.