The Desert Nights, Rising Stars
Writers Conference

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Conference Schedule 2019

Conference Schedule 2019

Saturday, February 23, 2019, 10:15 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

The Hidden Lives of Books: Publication Ins and Outs with Natashia Deón, Matt Bell, Ramona Ausubel, Jonathan Danielson

Date(s): Saturday, February 23, 2019, 10:15 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.
Location: Carson Ballroom, Old Main (view map)
Type(s): Panel
Genre and Form(s): Business of Writing, Publishing
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Meet our Faculty

About the Session

A book is more than just an end of one journey, it’s the beginning of another. A book is an artistic expression, but also a product, and putting a book together is a production. Before it ever hits the hands of readers, a book has already lived a life all its own. In this panel, novelists Ramona Ausubel, Matt Bell, and Natashia Deón share their publication journeys, advice on what to anticipate in the publication process, author platforms, and author commitments once the book hits the shelves. How do you find a publisher? What should you expect as a writer before and after you are expecting? What are your responsibilities after you’re selected? How do you market? How do you engage with social media? How do you get reviews? What types of platforms are there that can help you spread the word?

Meet the Presenter(s)

Desert Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference Faculty 2019 Natashia Deón


Natashia Deón

Natashia Deón is an NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed novel, GRACE (Counterpoint Press), which was named a best book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Root, Kirkus Review, Book Riot, and Entropy Magazine, and has been featured in People Magazine, TIME Magazine and Red Book. GRACE won the 2017 American Library Association, Black Caucus Award for Best Debut Fiction. Deón is the 2018-2019 L.A. Times Book Award Prize judge for fiction and debut fiction and is creative writing professor for UCLA and has been a law professor for Trinity Law School. A practicing attorney, mother, and wife to an extraordinary man, Deón served as a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia in partnership with the University of Iowa. She is the founder and co-host of Drunk Girls Bible Study podcast.


Learn more about Natashia Deón

Picture of Matt Bell


Matt Bell

Matt Bell is the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur's Gate II, and several other titles. A native of Michigan, he teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University.


Learn more about Matt Bell

Desert Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference Faculty 2019 Ramona Ausubel


Ramona Ausubel

Ramona Ausubel is the author of two novels—Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and No One is Here Except All of Us—as well as two collections of short stories—Awayland and A Guide to Being Born. She is the winner of the PEN/USA Fiction Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her work has appeared in the The New Yorker, the New York Times, Tin House, One Story and elsewhere. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with husband and two children.


Learn more about Ramona Ausubel

Photograph of Jonathan Danielson


Jonathan Danielson

Jonathan Danielson is an Instructor with Writing Programs and Affiliate Faculty member with Creative Writing. In 2017 he was named Writer-at-Large (“Desert Correspondent”) for Feathertale Review, and his work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Juked, Superstition Review, Gravel, Able Muse, The Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere. His story "Borders" was the recipient of the 2016 Editor’s Prize from Switchback. Along with his full-time teaching duties at ASU, Jonathan is pursing a doctorate in English literature with a creative emphasis. He received his MFA from the University of San Francisco. 


Learn more about Jonathan Danielson