This year, SCWA is hosting Author's Toolbox, a series that will help members improve their craft and better understand the publishing world. Author Ashleigh Bell Pedersen will discuss her debut novel, The Crocodile Bride, published by Hub City Press. The book follows 11-year-old Sunshine Turner and her troubled father, Billy, as the secrets of their family’s past swirl around them in Fingertip, Louisiana. Pedersen’s fiction has appeared in New Stories from the South and the Kenyon Review. Her story “Small and Heavy World” was a finalist for both Best American Short Stories and a Pushcart Prize.

Free for SCWA members' $25 for nonmembers. Zoom link will be provided at registration.

Upcoming sessions of Author's Toolbox:

March 23 - South Carolina author Scott Gould will talk about his debut short story collection. Strangers to Temptation, a book that mixes “subtle humor with distinct moments of pathos,” says Booklist. Novelist Wilton Barnhardt compares Gould to Pat Conroy. Gould's work has appeared in the Kenyon Review and New Stories from the South. He's won fellowships from the South Carolina Arts Commission and the state Academy of Authors.

April 20 - Charleston thriller writer Stacy Willingham will talk about creating suspense, finding inspiration, and getting published. Willingham is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. Goodreads calls her "a bona fide rising star in the mystery and thriller genre," and Publishers Weekly calls Willingham "an author to watch." She earned her BA in magazine journalism from the University of Georgia and her MFA in writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design.