Season 2 | Episdoe 16 • William Bernhardt
Host & Guest
Guest
William Bernhardt
Host
Kathleen Kaiser
Producer
Adanna Moriarty
About This Episode
Today marks the last episode of our 805 Writers Conference highlight series. Our guest is a New York Times multi-bestselling author, creator of the Red Sneaker Writing Center, and organizer of WriterCon, William Bernhardt. Kathleen and William discuss his career as an author. From hundreds of rejections to becoming a bestseller, William has spanned three decades as an author, adjusting to the times along the way.
William’s mystery series have been a massive success for him. But recognizing his industry struggles over the years led him to create the Red Sneaker Writing Center, because he couldn’t find books that help teach process and development he liked. Each book is subject-specific, short but chalked full of info every writer needs.
William will be at the 805 Writers Conference on November 5 & 6, 2022, as a keynote speaker, member of the mystery panel, and teaching an intensive workshop on characters. Once you hear his voice on the podcast, you’ll want to listen to more of him.
“Keep writing, and remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit.”-William Bernhardt
After Hours
Following Kathleen’s segment with NY Times bestselling author William Bernhardt, Adanna Moriarty, our producer, takes up the host mantel jumping into the conversation. Adanna and William get into process, how to create a dedicated practice, and what William thinks helps aspiring authors be successful. Writing is hard, and getting to pick a successful author’s brain, let alone one who has been writing as a career for thirty years, is a happy place for Adanna.
The pair also discuss pitching a series vs. a stand-alone book to the bigger publishing houses and what they look for when a new author comes to them.
William is very supportive of aspiring authors, and you can feel that through this after-hours conversation. Join us for both segments and get to know William before he joins us as a speaker and workshop leader at the 805 Writers Conference.
About our guest
William Bernhardt
William Bernhardt is the bestselling author of more than forty books, including the blockbuster Ben Kincaid series of novels; the historical novel Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness, currently being adapted into an NBC miniseries; a book of poetry, The White Bird; and a series of books on fiction writing. In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writing Center, hosting writing workshops and small-group seminars and becoming one of the most in-demand writing instructors in the nation. His monthly eBlast, The Red Sneaker Writers Newsletter, reaches over twenty thousand people.
Bernhardt is the only writer to have received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania), and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given “in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large.” In addition to his novels, he has written plays, a musical (book and music), humor, nonfiction, children’s books, biography, poetry, and puzzles.
A former trial attorney, Bernhardt has received several awards for his pro bono work and public service. In 1994, Barrister Magazine named him one of the top 25 young lawyers in America. In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and in 2013, becoming a “Jeopardy” champion. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.” He lives in Oklahoma with his wife Lara and their children.
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