Mystic Ink, Publisher of Spiritual, Shamanic, Transcendent Works, and Phantastic Fiction

Be Your Own Best Publicist Melinda Palacio & Lida Sideris This session offers wisdom from the trenches from award-winning authors on promoting your project. You’ll get practical marketing advice on aspects of building an author platform and putting yourself and your book out there. Melinda Palacio is an award-winning poet, author, and speaker. She’s the current Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara....

Antoine Wilson’s most recent novel Mouth to Mouth was featured on Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List and was a finalist for The Scotiabank Giller Prize, the CALIBA Golden Poppy Award, and the Prix Fitzgerald. Antoine is also the author of the novels Panorama City and The Interloper, and he is a contributing editor of the literary magazine A Public Space. He’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Worksh...

Zohreh Ghahremani writes for both adults and children. Her debut picture book, Memory Garden, illustrated by her daughter, Susie, was published by Godwin Books/Macmillan in 2024, with another picture book about Norooz/Persian New Year to follow in 2026. She published her first novel, Sky of Red Poppies, in 2010. Her sophomore novel, The Moon Daughter, won Writer’s Digest Book Awards for Best Liter...

Moderator, Perie Longo, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, 2007-2009, has published 4 books of poetry, the latest Baggage Claim (2014) and poems in numerous literary journals. This June will be her 40th year teaching poetry at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. She’s thrilled and awed to be still poeting and standing. Melinda Palacio, current Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, is an award-winning writer. F...

To everyone who has attended the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and are now part of our tribe of scribes, here is the first post of the audio from the 2024 conference. For those of you who have recently discovered the conference and are considering attending, we will be posting the audio periodically so you can get a sense of this amazing week long experience which has been going for over fifty...

Author  Matthew Pallamary  discussed shamanic practices and ceremonies in the jungle, including the use of psychedelic plant medicines like ayahuasca. He detailed a 10-day program he does in the jungle that involves a cleansing diet and various visionary plants. "Your perception gets more refined. It gets very clear. You start having telepathic experiences. And you really feel like you b...

Moderator: SBWC faculty member, Marla Miller works with writers on the road to publication, and beyond. Her popular SBWC workshop, Hooking Readers, covers both crafting and marketing tips. Brook Ashley, is the author of Dare Wright and The Lonely Doll, which features more than four hundred of Dare’s own photographs and an array of other illustrations. Brook Ashley tells Dare’s story as no one else...

Podcasts & Audiobooks with Lois Phillips, Yvette Keller, Claudia Dunn, and Matthew J. Pallamary Audiobooks and podcasts are a fast-growing area of publishing. Join this team for an insightful seminar on how to accomplish the goals of getting your book

Podcasts & Audiobooks with Lois Phillips, Yvette Keller, Claudia Dunn, and Matthew J. Pallamary Audiobooks and podcasts are a fast-growing area of publishing. Join this team for an insightful seminar on how to accomplish the goals of getting your book

Be Your Own Best Publicist Melinda Palacio & Lida Sideris This session offers wisdom from the trenches from award-winning authors on promoting your project. You’ll get practical marketing advice on aspects of building an author platform and putting yourself and your book out there.

Shannon Pufahl is the author of On Swift Horses, her critically acclaimed debut novel which takes place in the mid-century American West. The New York Times Review of Books said this about her novel: “The spaces she creates for her characters — San Diego’s languid Chester Hotel, hiding in plain sight, and Tijuana rendered as an underworld — have the aura of realms.” Pufahl grew up in rural Kansas...

Moderator: SBWC faculty member, Trey Dowell, is a novelist and a short story aficionado. His expertise in writing effective query letters has helped numerous writers get their projects reviewed by agents and publishers. Mary Hill-Wagner, is the author of Girlz ‘n the Hood, a memoir of what it was like to grow up on some of the meanest streets in America with 10 siblings and a mother who taught her...

This session focuses on sparking curiosity and building anticipation. Proven query strategies and methods will be discussed. Bring your own in-progress queries—we’ll read them aloud and offer feedback. SBWC faculty member, Trey Dowell, is a novelist and a short story aficionado. His expertise in writing effective query letters has helped numerous writers get their projects reviewed by agents and p...

Publishing Options Holly Kammier, Patricia Marshall, Chryss Yost, Angela Borda This seminar features 4 publishers, each with a different take on publication. Each provides an overview of their methods. The following discussion will be a deep dive into the subject. Bring your questions.

Hosted by George Noory Guest: Matthew Pallamary Tuesday - November 14, 2023 About the show Author, editor, and shamanic explorer  Matthew Pallamary  has been searching the globe for the truth about reality. In the latter half, he spoke about the nature of expanding consciousness, as well as why he believes the veil between the worlds is thinning and giving rise to more chaotic forces. Co...

Thirty years in the making, Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s award-winning novel, Loving the Dead and Gone, is part of a trilogy drawing upon memories of her red-dirt childhood. She was born into a family of storytellers in rural North Carolina. Publishers Weekly called it a bittersweet, fantastical must-read debut. A poet, journalist, art historian and inveterate traveler, she’s interviewed such luminari...

Panel moderator SBWC faculty member Norm Thoeming (aka August Norman) is author of two literary thrillers and mysteries, Come and Get Me and Sins of the Mother. Barnaby Conrad III, is author of Jacques Villeglé and the Streets of Paris. His other books are Absinthe: History in a Bottle, Ghost Hunting in Montana, and The Martini. He’s also written monographs on American artists Richard Diebenkorn,...

Demystifying Publishing Options Holly Kammier & Associates. This seminar covers pros and cons of publishing options today: traditional publishing, small publishers, self-publishing, vanity press, and hybrid publishing. Understanding of the range of options facilitates reaching your publication goals. Holly Kammier is the international best-selling author of  Kingston Court, Choosing...

This seminar covers aspects of the traditional publishing process, how it works, how long it takes, dealing with rejections, contracts, publicity, platform building, blurbs, signings, podcasts, nominations, and more.

Mary Hogan is the author of Two Sisters, and Left, a love story about a woman who slowly retreats into a fantasy world as she loses her once whip-smart husband to dementia. Her historical novel based on the Johnstown Flood of 1889, The Woman in the Photo, tells a resonant story of class and catastrophe. Previous young adult novels include The Serious Kiss, Perfect Girl, and Pretty Face. Married to...

Moderator: Eric Myers has a depth of knowledge of the publishing industry and is an expert who is generous with sharing his advice for both fiction and nonfiction authors. A graduate of UCLA and the Sorbonne, Eric entered publishing as a journalist and author before becoming an agent. He’s a member of both the Authors’ Guild and the Association of Authors’ Representatives.

Known for her wry social commentary, Elinor Lipman is the author of 14 novels, including her latest, Ms. Demeanor, which has received praise from authors Tom Perrotta, Wally Lamb, and Cathleen Schine. In 2008, her debut novel, Then She Found Me,(1990), was adapted into a film starring Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, Helen Hunt, and Bette Midler. She served on the 2006 literature panel for the Nati...

Sojourner Kincade Rolle is a poet/playwright and Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Emerita (2015-2017). Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem was released May 2022 to great acclaim, in time for the first national celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the USA. It made the New York Public Library’s list for Best Kids’ Books 2022, the School Library Journal’s best kids’ books for Black History Month (2...

Moderator: Lorelei Armstrong leads a Pirate Workshop at SBWC. She is a novelist and has an MFA in screenwriting. Deborah Holt Larkin, is author of A Lovely Girl, a true story of intrigue, murder, and eccentricity, set against the backdrop of iconic 1950s small town California life. Filled with dark humor and bumbling killers, this sometimes heartbreaking, but gripping, story of a scandalous 1958 m...

Author Websites & Social Media Lisa Angle & Matt Pallamary. This Monday afternoon panel from June 19, 2023 discussed how to deploy an effective book marketing plan and how to design an author website that is integrated social media strategies.  Lisa worked as stage crew for Ensemble Theatre, produced a weekly newsletter for the Santa Barbara County Film Commission (2004-08), and writt...