Franz Wisner has no
idea what to label his profession. Writer? Travel addict? Professional
dumpee? In addition to How the World Makes Love, he is the author of
Honeymoon with My Brother (St. Martin's Press), a New York Times
best-selling memoir about the two-year, 53-country honeymoon he took
with his brother Kurt, after being left at the altar by his fiancee. The
brothers have told their offbeat tale on Oprah, The Today Show, CNN, and
Fox News, among others.
Franz has also penned essays for NPR, Redbook, the San
Francisco Chronicle, the Toronto Globe and Mail, Coast Magazine, and
any other publications that will have him.
C. Hope Clark
(Hope) founded and serves as editor of
www.FundsforWriters.com
, a well-known writer's reference that reaches 20,000 readers weekly
with grants, markets and motivational editorials that generate
stacks of thank-you notes from readers. Writer's Digest voted FundsforWriters one of its 101 Best Web Sites for Writers for the
past nine years.
Hope's dozen
ebooks are rapid sellers ranging from Grants for the Serious
Writer to Short & Sweet; Markets for Fillers. Hope has published in
magazines like Writer's Digest, The Writer Magazine, ByLine
Magazine, Next Step Magazine, College Bound Teen, TURF Magazine, and
Landscape Management. The Shy Writer is a nonfiction paperback she
penned to aid writers like her who have difficulty appearing in
public. Published in 2004, it continues to readily sell and was
rereleased as a second edition in Fall 2007.
After 25 years as a
manager with the federal sector, she requested an early retirement
in her forties to write full time and manage FundsforWriters,
marrying her knowledge of grants and her love of writing.
She lives in
Chapin, South Carolina on the banks of Lake Murray and has completed
a novel, the first of an agricultural mystery series, which is
currently being read by several agents. She is married to a
recently retired federal agent who inspires her love of mystery
writing.
What most people don't know about Hank Phillippi Ryan:
As a result of a summer job at the Dairy Queen, she can make an ice
cream cone with a curl on the top. She was vice-president of the Midwest
chapter of the National Beatles Fan Club, and figured she would one day
marry George. Or Paul. Or John. When she was ten, her career ambition
was to be Nancy Drew.
But that's not how it turned out. Yet.
Right now, she's on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate where she's been
working to break big stories for the past 22+ years. So far, so good.
Along with 26 EMMYs, she has won dozens of other regional, national, and
international honors for what the news releases call her "hard-hitting
investigations."
She's also proud of her 10 or so Edward R. Murrow Awards for reporting
and writing, her top award from the National Association of Science
Writers, and her prestigious Investigative Reporters and Editors Award.
She's also proud that her consumer investigative reporting has changed
laws and changed lives.
In 1969, she and her best friend got summer jobs as proofreaders, and
wound up reading the entire Indiana Code of Laws out loud. Including
punctuation.
Since then, she's been a radio reporter, a legislative aide in the US
Senate, and in a two-year stint in Rolling Stone Magazine's Washington
Bureau, worked on the political column "Capitol Chatter" and organized
presidential campaign coverage for Hunter S. Thompson.
She began her TV career in 1975, anchoring and reporting the news for TV
stations in Indianapolis and then Atlanta. She's battled her way through
hurricanes, floods and blizzards, wired herself with hidden cameras,
chased criminals, and confronted corrupt politicians-as well as covering
national political conventions, the NBA playoffs, and the Super Bowl;
and interviewing newsmakers from Prince Charles to President Jimmy
Carter to Warren Beatty to Muhammad Ali.
Outside her TV career, she is on the Board of Directors of New England
Sisters in Crime, and also of the New England Chapter of Mystery Writers
of America. She's also vice-president of the board of a professional
Boston theater company where she founded the Lyric's "First Curtain"
program - to provide the full theater experience for underprivileged
students. First Curtain has already provided hundreds of free tickets
and theater education scholarships.
She lives in the Boston area with her husband, a nationally renowned
civil rights and criminal defense attorney. As you can imagine, it's
pretty handy to have a legal expert on call at all hours.
THE
WRITER'S CHATROOM
