Join us for a special World Affairs Council program featuring John Casey, Joyce Yarrow, Keith Madsen, and Hans Trujillo as they discuss their internationally minded novels and the common themes of borders around the world.
*Registrants will get entered into a raffle to win one of each of the books.
Panelists
Keith Madsen
Keith Madsen is using his retirement to pursue his lifelong interest in writing fiction. Keith has had a love of writing all of his life. He has used his writing talents in a variety of ways, including composing material for religious education, and writing plays for use in community theater. He has also done some acting himself, having particularly enjoyed playing the roles of Jack (C.S.) Lewis in Shadowlands, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Porfiry in Crime and Punishment. This background in drama has helped him both with character development and his dramatic touch in writing both short stories and novels. Keith finds that being part of helping characters come alive is one of his greatest life pleasures.
Keith also works part-time teaching chess to grade school children, a knowledge which plays a role in the plot of this novel. He has visited Haiti five times, while helping to build a grade school there. In the process he has become fascinated by Haitian culture and history, a fascination which played a central role in writing The Sons and Daughters of Toussaint.
Keith has published short stories in Mobius: A Journal of Social Change, Talking River, Short Story America and Adelaide..
Keith lives in East Wenatchee, Washington with his wife Cathy, and helps care for his seven-year old grandson.
Joyce Yarrow
Joyce Yarrow’s novels of suspense "appeal to readers who enjoy unusual stories with an international setting." -- Library Journal. She was born in the SE Bronx, escaped to Manhattan as a teenager and now lives in Seattle with her husband and son. Along the way to becoming a full-time author, Joyce has worked as a screenwriter, singer-songwriter, and multimedia performance artist.
Joyce is a Pushcart nominee, whose stories and poems have been widely published. Her first Jo Epstein mystery, Ask the Dead was selected by The Poisoned Pen as a Recommended First Novel and hailed as “Bronx noir”. The second book in the series, The Last Matryoshka, was praised by Library Journal and takes place in Brooklyn and Moscow. Ms. Yarrow co-authored her third book, Rivers Run Back (Vitasta 2015), with Indian writer Arindam Roy and it was launched at The American Center (US Embassy) in New Delhi.
Ms. Yarrow considers the setting of her books to be characters in their own right and teaches workshops on "The Place of Place in Writing Suspense Fiction."
John Casey
JOHN CASEY is a novelist and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet from New Hampshire. He is the author of Devolution, Evolution, and Revelation, which comprise The Devolution Trilogy, a psychological spy thriller series. Casey is the author of Raw Thoughts and Meridian: A Raw Thoughts Book as well, both compelling and mindful fusions of poetic and photographic art. His poetry has been featured internationally in numerous literary journals and magazines. A Veteran combat and test pilot with a Master of Arts from Florida State University, Casey also served in the Defense Intelligence Agency as a Diplomat and International Affairs Strategist at U.S. embassies in Germany and Ethiopia, the Pentagon, and elsewhere. He is passionate about fitness, nature, and the human spirit and inspired by the incredible spectrum of people, places and cultures he has experienced in life.
Hans Trujillo
HANS TRUJILLO Born in Bogota, Colombia, six days before Neil Armstrong would land his feet on the moon. Since he was a child his parents taught him the love for literature, and at an early age he devoured the immortal works of Homer, Cervantes, Wilde, Alan Poe and Garcia Marquez. His artistic vein took him to study advertising and, since 1,994 he put his creative talent at the service of important advertising agencies in Colombia.
In 1999 he moves to USA to continue his career as a creative in some of the best Hispanic advertising agencies of Los Angeles, Houston and Miami, where he lives now. His outstanding career has memorable advertising campaigns and audiovisual pieces for a wide array of products, some of which have been awarded prestigious advertising prizes in the United States and Latin America. Hans has also explored other artistic expressions directing commercials for television, short films and music videos.
“Never Play With Death” is the novel with which this creative makes his debut in the literary genre, bursting with a work full of life experiences, anecdotes collected over the years and a very particular charge of imagination that makes his story a fascinating one.
