Be sure to save the date for the Southern Book Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. Come see me and all the other amazing authors on October 26-27th!
Here are my panels. I will be signing THE FALLEN FRUIT right after each panel. Hope to see you there!
Kick off your Southern Festival of Books weekend with The Porch on Friday, where you’ll have a unique opportunity to learn from celebrated authors as they pass through Nashville before the festival officially begins! Stick around for the rest of the day to take more writing classes with Ann Powers, Darnell Arnoult, and Justin Taylor.
Elevate the emotional impact of your writing by mastering how to unpack scenes at the sentence level. In this class, New York Times bestselling author Shawntelle Madison will guide you through the delicate balance of building tension, heightening conflict, and evoking deep emotional responses. Learn when to “zoom in the camera” for richly detailed moments and when to pull back, letting the story breathe with minimal description. Through pre- and post-edit breakdowns of a published romance chapter, you’ll discover powerful strategies for making each scene resonate, whether in romance, thriller, horror, or women’s fiction. You’ll leave with practical tools, including a handout, to refine your own work and keep readers emotionally invested from beginning to end. Perfect for romance writers, but applicable to any genre where emotion is key to a compelling story.
Friday, October 25th from 9AM – 10:30AM
Tennessee State Museum, Smart Classroom, 1st Floor
$51/Members
$60/Non-Members
Saturday, October 26th from 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Tennessee State Library and Archives, Caney Fork Room, 1001 Rep. John Lewis Way N, Nashville, TN 37219
Jim McCarthy
Agent, Dystel, Goderich, and
Bourret Literary Management
Learn more about Shawntelle’s upcoming releases,
cover reveals, and more!
