Maui Writers Conference | writers workshops | writers retreats | speakers | authors

Steve Berry's first two books, The Amber Room and The Romanov Prophecy were both national bestsellers. His next novel, The Third Secret, became an instant bestseller debuting at #13 on the New York Times hardcover list and climbing to #5 on the Times paperback list. His next three books, The Templar Legacy, The Alexandria Link, and The Venetian Betrayal were all blockbuster New York Times bestsellers.

William Bernhardt is the author of fourteen books, including the New York Times bestseller, Capitol Conspiracy, Primary Justice, Perfect Justice, Double Jeopardy, Naked Justice (which led the Library Journal to dub the author "master of the courtroom drama") Silent Justice and Murder One. He has twice won the Oklahoma Book Award for best Fiction and in 2000 he was presented the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award.

Gary Braver is the bestselling and award-winning author of six critically acclaimed thrillers including Elixir, Gray Matter, and Flashback, which is the only thriller to have won a prestigious Massachusetts Book Award and which in a starred review Publishers Weekly called “an exceptional medical thriller.” His novels have been translated into five languages, and three have been optioned for movies. He is the only writer to have three books listed on the top-10 highest customer-rated thrillers on Amazon.com. His seventh novel, Skin Deep, a medical thriller centered on cosmetic surgery, will be published on July 22, 2008. It has already sold to foreign publishers.

Under his own name, Gary Goshgarian, he is an award-winning professor of English at Northeastern University where he teaches courses in Modern Bestsellers, Science Fiction, Horror Fiction, and Fiction Writing. He has taught fiction-writing workshops through out the United States and Europe for over twenty years. This is his fourth return to the Maui Retreat. He is the author of five popular college writing textbooks and has written book reviews and articles on travel and scuba-diving in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere.

Thomas H. Cook is the international bestselling author of twenty-one novels and two works of nonfiction. He has been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award seven times in four different categories, and his novel The Chatham School Affair won the Edgar for Best Novel. Mr. Cook’s works have also been nominated for the Hammett Prize, the Macavity Award, and the Anthony Award. Red Leaves won the Barry Award in 2005, and was nominated for the Lawlie Dagger Award for Best Novel by the British Association of Crime Writers. His works have been the subject of motion picture and television productions including Evidence of Blood starring Academy Award nominees David Strathairn and Mary McDonnell, and have been translated into sixteen languages.

John Lescroart is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels including The Suspect, The Hunt Club, and The Second Chair. He has also written thirteen books in the San Francisco based Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series, and a couple of Sherlock Holmes pastiche: Son of Holmes and Rasputin’s Revenge. His books have been translated into fifteen languages in more than seventy-five countries. Dead Irish and The 13th Juror were, respectively, nominated for the Shamas and Anthony Best Mystery Novel. Many of his books have been Main Selections of the Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Book of the Month Club.

Writers Conference Retreat Faculty William Martin

William Martin is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, an award-winning PBS documentary, and a horror movie that’s considered a cult classic. His latest novel, The Lost Constitution, continues the chronicle of American history – and the story of modern day treasure hunter Peter Fallon – that he began with Back Bay. His subsequent novels, Harvard Yard, Cape Cod, and Citizen Washington have established him as a "story-teller whose smoothness matches his ambition." There are now close to three million copies of his books in print. And he was the recipient of the 2005 New England Book Award, given by the New England Booksellers Association to an author whose “body of work stands as a significant contribution to the culture of the region.”

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean, The Most Wanted, A Theory of Relativity, Twelve Times Blessed, the novella Christmas, Present, The Breakdown Lane, Cage of Stars and her newest novel Still Summer (August 2007). She is also the author of The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship, a collection of her essays which are syndicated nationwide by Tribune Media Services. She has published three children’s books, including award winning Rosalie, My Rosalie: The Tale of A Duckling. Her first Young Adult novel will be published in January 2007. She was a member of the 2002 fiction jury for The National Book Awards and speechwriter for former Department of Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala. She lives in Madison, Wisconson, with her husband and seven children.

David Morrell is the author of First Blood, the award-winning novel in which Rambo was created. He holds a Ph. D. in American literature from the Pennsylvania State University and taught in the English department at the University of Iowa until he gave up his tenure to devote himself to a full-time writing career. “The mild-mannered professor with the bloody-minded visions,” as one reviewer described him, Morrell is the co-founder of the International Thriller Writers organization. His numerous best-selling novels include The Brotherhood of the Rose (the basis for a top-rated NBC miniseries broadcast after the Super Bowl), The Fraternity of the Stone, The Fifth Profession, and Extreme Denial (set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives). He is also the author of The Successful Novelist: A Lifetime of Lessons about Writing and Publishing. Morrell has been called “the father of the modern action novel.” He is a three-time recipient of the distinguished Bram Stoker Award, the latest for his novel Creepers. Comic-con International honored him with its prestigious Inkpot Award for his lifetime
conntributions to popular culture. Visit him at www.davidmorrell.net.

James Rollins is the New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers includes Subterranean, Excavation, Deep Fathom, Amazonia. His latest thriller, Map of Bones, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the most likely to win over Dan Brown's faithful audience, and the New York Times ranked the book as one of last summer's crowd pleasers. His next thriller and his most controversial yet, Black Order, (June 2006). But that is only half the story . . . Under the pseudonym James Clemens, he has also written a five-book fantasy series for Del Rey (Wit'ch Fire, et al). His first book in a new fantasy series, titled Shadow Fall, was released in July 2005, and the next book (Hinterland, November 2006).

Ann Hood is the author of seven novels, including Somewhere off the Coast of Maine and, most recently, The Knitting Circle; a short story collection, An Ornithologist’s Guide to life; and a memoir, Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Tin House, Bon Appetit, The Paris Review, More, O, Good Housekeeping, and Traveler. She has won two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in Providence, RI. See Ann Hood's books »