Panel
Top Ten Editors Talk Trends
Meet editors from Angeleno, Boulevard, Nurses World, and more!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Today, the most successful specialized magazines are taking a cue from their online competitors and are building “communities” of devoted readers.

Angeleno magazine Editor in Chief Degen Pener moderates a panel of editors from Boulevard, Gorgeous, and Nurses World. They’ll discuss the Los Angeles magazine scene and opportunities in their publications for writers. Pener joined Angeleno in April. Previously, he did staff editing and writing stints at Entertainment Weekly, Details, Santa Barbara magazine, and New York magazine.

The editors will tell you how to get their attention and which departments are looking for fresh ideas. Each editor will describe what the magazine is broadly about, and what kinds of things it does cover and does not cover. They’ll tell how to contact them, and will provide a calendar of upcoming topics.

Our panelists

Moderator DEGEN PENER began his career at New York magazine, where he was an associate editor of the “Intelligencer” gossip column. At age 25, Pener was tapped by The New York Times to write a column, “Egos & Ids,” for the newly created “Styles of the Times” section. During his career, Pener has been editor at large for Elle and a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly. Among the personalities he’s profiled are Oprah Winfrey, Drew Barrymore, Paris Hilton, are Jessica Simpson. He’s also the author of “The Swing Book,” a guide to the swing music revival.

SEAN O’MEARA is the editor in chief for Nurses World, a bi-monthly, hybrid glossy trade magazine distributed in California. Its editorial focus includes both professional/practice/clinical and consumer articles, with an eye to balancing home and work lives. Readers, mostly women, are interested in exercise and healthy lifestyles, travel, reading, and home design, along with health industry stories.

RASPIN STUWART is the owner and editor of both Boulevard and Gorgeous magazines. Boulevard is “the very finest source for where to go, what to do, and what you like” in Los Angeles. Its primary readership is women. Gorgeous tastefully celebrates gay, lesbian, trans-gender and alternative lifestyles. It focuses on West Hollywood, Silverlake, the San Fernando Valley, and Palm Springs. Both publications are large format, with colorful, distinctive covers, celebrity profiles, and a calendar of local events.

Panel
The Wonderful World of Audiobooks: The Hows, The Trends, The Possibilities

Monday, October 29, 2007

Between appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the time it aired, Grammar Girl blogger Mignon Fogarty had already created an audiobook, which quickly climbed to the top of iTunes’ best-selling books list.

Like Fogarty, audio is hot, and it’s constantly evolving.

At IWOSC’s October General Meeting, learn about downloadable audiobooks, how audiobooks are handled at the major publishers, and how authors and others are creating their own audio products.

Our speakers include former Audio Publishers Association President Jessica Kaye, Media Staff Studio President Jerry Maybrook, Hachette Audio Producer Dennis Kao, audio expert Ian Rich, and Marie Elena Rigo, creator of the Everyday Feng Shui instructional CD. Robin Quinn, an independent L.A. writer/editor, is the producer and moderator of this panel.

NOTE: This program includes IWOSC’s annual State of the Organization meeting, and the Board will also briefly present the proposed budget for members’ approval at the start of the event.

The panel

JESSICA KAYE, a partner in the Beverly Hills law firm Kaye & Mills, represents publishers and writers. She is the founder of Big Happy Family, LLC, a digital distribution company for audio programming, as well as the founder of The Publishing Mills, an audio and literary publishing company that published nearly 20 titles each year. Kaye has produced two Grammy Award nominated works, including the Grammy Award-winning Best Comedy Recording, Crank Calls by Jonathan Winters. In 2005, Kaye co-edited the Bruce Springsteen-inspired anthology Meet Me Across the River, which she also licensed for audio. She’s a past president of the Audio Publishers Association and has served as a member of the Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Academy for Recording Arts & Sciences, West.

MARIE ELENA RIGO, M.A., is a Feng Shui expert, interior designer, and life coach based in Santa Monica, Calif. She is the creator of Everyday Feng Shui™, a groundbreaking instructional CD of life-changing tips, which has been featured in Redbook, Yogi Times and Conscious Life Magazine. Rigo teaches workshops for the Learning Annex, and major corporations including Amtrak and The Disney Store. She has filmed a TV pilot on feng shui for A&E and has appeared on World Talk Radio, KCSN-FM, Southern California Life and The Fine Living Network.

JERRY MAYBROOK is president and co-founder of The Media Staff studio of Los Angeles, specialists in audiobook recording. This studio is in demand by the major book publishers for their West Coast projects, and it was designed by leading acoustical engineer Jeff Cooper. Grammy Award-winning audiobooks recorded at the studio include George Carlin’s Brain Droppings and Sidney Poitier’s autobiography The Measure of a Man. Other voices recorded at The Media Staff include Gore Vidal, Jane Fonda, Michael Crichton, Ellen DeGeneres, Ray Bradbury, Jackie Collins, David Foster Wallace, Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Reiser, Anne Heche, Dr. Phil, and Nora Ephron. Maybrook has been in sound recording for over 30 years.

DENNIS KAO has worked in the audiobook industry for eight years, first with Time Warner Audiobooks, and now with Hachette Audio. Titles he has produced or supervised include Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, James Patterson’s Double Cross, and Gossip Girl read by Christina Ricci. Kao is president and co-founder of I Read Whale, Inc., a children’s videobook company launching at the end of October. I Read Whale’s initial releases include The Ugly Duckling, read by Brooke Shields; Voyage to Lilliput, read by Cary Elwes; and Peter Rabbit, read by Patrick Stewart.

IAN RICH is an audio expert and speaker who has 20 plus years of experience in recording audio in many formats. In the music business, he’s worked with all the major labels, remixing artists such as Tom Jones, Chaka Chan, Aretha Franklin and Seal. In addition to producing many records and remixes, he has worked as an audio consultant and created many audio products for individuals and companies. Clients include human change expert Christopher Howard, e-zine queen Alexandria Brown, relationship advocate Mary Anne Comaroto and Silver Spoon Kids authors Jon and Eileen Gallo.

The Art of Book Reviews,
hosted by Digby Diehl

Monday, September 24, 2007

A top-notch panel of book reviewers moderated by Digby Diehl demystifies the steps involved in critiquing a work of literature: what they look for, what matters, and what qualities make literature resonate with the public. In addition, who is it that decides which books are reviewed?

Panelists include Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Erika Schickel, Amazon reviewer Dr. John L. Murphy, literary fiction reviewer Edward St. John, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Dresser, and award-winning author and critic Amy Wilentz.

Moderator

DIGBY DIEHL is one of the most trusted and successful literary collaborators in America. He is the founding editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review and was the first online book reviewer for Prodigy. Over his distinguished career, he’s been a literary and entertainment critic for numerous broadcast outlets. His book credits include entertainment autobiographies, including the New York Times bestseller Million Dollar Mermaid, actress Esther Williams’s life story, and Natalie Cole’s Angel on My Shoulder, a Los Angeles Times No. 1 bestseller. He penned the novel Soapsuds with actress Finola Hughes. Diehl has moderated IWOSC “Conversations” with Mariette Hartley and Sandra Tsing Loh.

The panel

AMY WILENTZ divides her time between being a critic and an author. Her criticism and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Harper’s, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, The San Francisco Chronicle, More, The Village Voice, The London Review of Books, and many other publications. She is the author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (1989), Martyrs’ Crossing (2000), and I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger (2006). She is the winner of the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Martha Albrand Non-Fiction Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award, and is also a 1990 nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She is the former Jerusalem correspondent of The New Yorker and a long-time contributing editor at The Nation. She teaches in the Literary Journalism program at the University of California at Irvine.

ERIKA SCHICKEL is a regular book critic and occasional opinion page contributor for the Los Angeles Times. Her reviews can also be seen in the Chicago Tribune and Bust magazine. She writes features for LA Weekly, LA City Beat, and LAObserved.com. In addition, her work has appeared online at HipMama.com, RhinoRecords.com, TheDailyReel.com, and she is a featured “Native Intelligence” contributor on LAObserved.com.

She is the author of You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom, which is currently being developed as a television series. Raised in New York City, Schickel now makes her home in Los Angeles, where she divides her time between being a writer, a mom, and sometimes actress. Her website is ErikaSchickel.com.

DR. JOHN L. MURPHY, a fulltime professor of Humanities at DeVry University in Long Beach, Calif. is one of the most prolific book and music critics to appear on Amazon.com. He was ranked a “Top 1000” Amazon reviewer as of September 2006 and has logged upwards of 730 reviews. With a specialty in Irish literature, folk, and rock music, Murphy’s reviews can also be found in scholarly works such as The Irish Book Review, Irish Literary Supplement, and New Hibernia Review. On the Internet, more than three dozen of his articles and reviews can be found on The Blanket, a Belfast-based journal, and at rootsworld.com, a digital magazine of world music.

While EDWARD ST. JOHN has made a career out of cataloging music and other information at various academic institutions such as Smith College, Loyola Marymount University, and Loyola Law School, he’s led a parallel life as a literary critic. He began reviewing literary fiction for the Library Journal in the mid-1980s. Additionally, he’s added Dow Jones, Salem Press, and Magill’s Literary Annual to his repertoire during the ‘90s.

MICHAEL DRESSER is a nationally syndicated talk radio host whose author-centric programs are heard from California to New York, and also abroad. On an average day, his radio show features eight authors. He has utilized his 25 years of experience and knowledge to create a media training and communications program on his show that gives writers the ability to bring their message home with confidence, clarity, and the relevance needed to intrigue the buying public, regardless of subject matter. According to Dresser, “if you sell the sizzle your book sales will skyrocket.” Visit Dresser’s website at MichaelDresserShow.com.

The Art of Book Reviews,
hosted by Digby Diehl

Monday, September 24, 2007

A top-notch panel of book reviewers moderated by Digby Diehl demystifies the steps involved in critiquing a work of literature: what they look for, what matters, and what qualities make literature resonate with the public. In addition, who is it that decides which books are reviewed?

Panelists include Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Erika Schickel, Amazon reviewer Dr. John L. Murphy, literary fiction reviewer Edward St. John, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Dresser, and award-winning author and critic Amy Wilentz.

Moderator

DIGBY DIEHL is one of the most trusted and successful literary collaborators in America. He is the founding editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review and was the first online book reviewer for Prodigy. Over his distinguished career, he’s been a literary and entertainment critic for numerous broadcast outlets. His book credits include entertainment autobiographies, including the New York Times bestseller Million Dollar Mermaid, actress Esther Williams’s life story, and Natalie Cole’s Angel on My Shoulder, a Los Angeles Times No. 1 bestseller. He penned the novel Soapsuds with actress Finola Hughes. Diehl has moderated IWOSC “Conversations” with Mariette Hartley and Sandra Tsing Loh.

The panel

AMY WILENTZ divides her time between being a critic and an author. Her criticism and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Harper’s, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, The San Francisco Chronicle, More, The Village Voice, The London Review of Books, and many other publications. She is the author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (1989), Martyrs’ Crossing (2000), and I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger (2006). She is the winner of the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Martha Albrand Non-Fiction Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award, and is also a 1990 nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She is the former Jerusalem correspondent of The New Yorker and a long-time contributing editor at The Nation. She teaches in the Literary Journalism program at the University of California at Irvine.

ERIKA SCHICKEL is a regular book critic and occasional opinion page contributor for the Los Angeles Times. Her reviews can also be seen in the Chicago Tribune and Bust magazine. She writes features for LA Weekly, LA City Beat, and LAObserved.com. In addition, her work has appeared online at HipMama.com, RhinoRecords.com, TheDailyReel.com, and she is a featured “Native Intelligence” contributor on LAObserved.com.

She is the author of You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom, which is currently being developed as a television series. Raised in New York City, Schickel now makes her home in Los Angeles, where she divides her time between being a writer, a mom, and sometimes actress. Her website is ErikaSchickel.com.

DR. JOHN L. MURPHY, a fulltime professor of Humanities at DeVry University in Long Beach, Calif. is one of the most prolific book and music critics to appear on Amazon.com. He was ranked a “Top 1000” Amazon reviewer as of September 2006 and has logged upwards of 730 reviews. With a specialty in Irish literature, folk, and rock music, Murphy’s reviews can also be found in scholarly works such as The Irish Book Review, Irish Literary Supplement, and New Hibernia Review. On the Internet, more than three dozen of his articles and reviews can be found on The Blanket, a Belfast-based journal, and at rootsworld.com, a digital magazine of world music.

While EDWARD ST. JOHN has made a career out of cataloging music and other information at various academic institutions such as Smith College, Loyola Marymount University, and Loyola Law School, he’s led a parallel life as a literary critic. He began reviewing literary fiction for the Library Journal in the mid-1980s. Additionally, he’s added Dow Jones, Salem Press, and Magill’s Literary Annual to his repertoire during the ‘90s.

MICHAEL DRESSER is a nationally syndicated talk radio host whose author-centric programs are heard from California to New York, and also abroad. On an average day, his radio show features eight authors. He has utilized his 25 years of experience and knowledge to create a media training and communications program on his show that gives writers the ability to bring their message home with confidence, clarity, and the relevance needed to intrigue the buying public, regardless of subject matter. According to Dresser, “if you sell the sizzle your book sales will skyrocket.” Visit Dresser’s website at MichaelDresserShow.com.