Pikes Peak Writers Write Brain
Tuesday, February 16th , 2010.  6:30pm – 8:30pm

FREE for PPW Members! Write Brain sessions are free to members. Non-members may attend ONE Write Brain for free; additional Write Brain sessions are $10.00 each.

Location:  Cottonwood Artist's School.  Note New  Address:  Their new address is 427 E. Colorado Ave., Colorado Springs.  (East of Wahsach St. Park on the east side in the large parking lot.  The workshops will be downstairs in Studio A.)  Get map.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Event policies)

With Bonnie Ramthun and Mark Stevens.

You have a brilliant idea for a new character. But the voice that won't be stilled is a member of the opposite sex. How do you pull it off? Don't despair. We've called in the experts: Bonnie Ramthun, whose POV character is 12-year-old Torin Sinclair, in her YA Novel The White Gates. And Mark Stevens, whose POV character is Allison Coil, in his mystery novel, Antler Dust. Join us for our February Write Brain as these two award-winning authors give us the inside track on writing the opposite sex.

Bonnie Ramthun lives in Erie, Colorado with her husband Bill, and their four children.  In Bonnie's first three novels, Colorado Springs homicide detective Eileen Reed and her handsome partner Joe Tanner, a war gamer, solve murders and save the world in Ground Zero, Earthquake Games and The Thirteenth Skull. Earthquake Games was a finalist for Colorado Book of the Year in 2000.  Her new novel, The White Gates, is a middle grade mystery introducing Torin Sinclair, a young snowboarder who must discover the modern secret behind an ancient curse (Random House). The White Gates was named a Junior Library Guild Premiere selection for 2008. Visit Bonnie’s website at www.bonnieramthun.com.

Mark Stevens is the son of two librarians.  He was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and, four years later, from Principia College in Illinois. He worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics and all the colorful people and events of southern California. Following a move to Denver, he worked for The Rocky Mountain News, covering City Hall for three years.

When Stevens learned that The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was expanding its production he was lucky enough to be invited to join the team – they were actually looking for somebody with no television experience, which suited him perfectly. For six years, he produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America. He covered the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, NASA’s first space shuttle disaster, a volcano eruption in Colombia, political upheavals in Nicaragua, and mudslides in Puerto Rico. His “master of disaster” title, he was told, referred to the stories he covered, not the quality of the reports.

After tending bar for a year on a self-financed sabbatical (and to write fiction), he joined The Denver Post to cover education. Those five years of reporting led to a position as Director of Communications for more than a decade with Denver Public Schools and then for a year with School District 6 in Greeley. Stevens is currently Director of Communications for the Colorado Department of Education.

Stevens lives near Congress Park in beautiful downtown Denver with his wife, Jody Chapel, and two daughters, Ally and Justine.

*****************************************************************************
PLEASE RSVP AND INCLUDE YOUR DAYTIME CONTACT INFORMATION. Note that this does not commit you to attending, but does enable us to prepare enough materials for expected attendees, and importantly, it gives us a way to contact you if we have an emergency change to the Write Brain session, such as a postponement due to weather. We will make every attempt to post changes to the PPW yahoo loop and the website, but to be ensured of notification you must RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  Thank you.