Best-selling author and sports commentator John Feinstein is the luncheon keynoter. Other speakers include Kirstin Downey (biographer of Frances Perkins and Queen Isabella), Ruben Castaneda (S Street Rising), Peter Osnos (founder of Public Affairs Books), investigative reporter and author Mike Isikoff, NPR's Michel Martin, Afar Nafisi, (Reading Lolita in Tehran), Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear and best-selling celebrity author Kitty Kelley.  You won’t want to miss this. Early bird rates now in effect to March 15.  Register now for the third annual Books Alive conference 4/25 at the Pook's Hill Bethesda Marriott, sponsored by the online nonprofit Washington Independent Review of Books (wirobooks.org).

I'm thrilled to be involved in helping to organizing this, recruiting speakers and getting the word out to authors, aspiring authors and book lovers everywhere, but especially in the DC area. 

This will be an opportunity to hear from some of the best minds and pens (okay, keyboards) in the business today, as well as to introduce yourself and your book ideas to top literary agents. There will 20 agents hearing pitches, and registrants may pitch up to three.

There will be morning panels on how to pitch to agents, poetry, what do publishers want and how to promote your published work, and afternoon panels on memoir, biography, research, the young adult market, writing a novel and how to transition from magazines to books.