Dust off your morals and pray for calamity. Ellis Amburn, former editor to the stars and author of seven biographies, is just one of the 30 writers coming to a workshop at the UF.
“You must be spiritually connected with a power greater than you to have a theme and a set of moral values against which to judge experience,” he said. “Calamity makes you eligible for a spiritual experience.”
Weimer Hall will be echoing with the voices of five Pulitzer Prize winners and 10 UF alumni Friday to Sunday at The Storytellers’ Summit. A welcome reception at 6 p.m. in Ustler Hall kicks off the summit Friday at 6 p.m. in Ustler Hall.
“Because of the economic problems around the United States, the newspapers and others who sponsor writers’ workshops have been dropping out,” journalism professor Mike Foley said. He decided to team up with William McKeen, UF department of journalism professor and chairman, to start the summit.
“It turned out to be a pretty impressive array,” he said.
Michael Connelly, best-selling crime author and UF alumnus, Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “Somebody Told Me,” and Roy Peter Clark, director of The Poynter Institute, will be speaking at the summit, among others.
“Even those without Pulitzer Prizes are terrific writers,” Foley said. “They are also willing to share their success in terms of how they learned to write, and all of them, as I know, are really good at it.”
After 20 years in the editing business, Amburn was attracting the bestsellers from Hollywood.
Amburn credits the success of his books to his moral values and spiritual connection with a higher power. Both of which he said came to him late in life.
The two-day summit features book signings, storytelling sessions and group sessions. Topics at each session range from visual storytelling to writing gonzo biographies. A cocktail and networking reception is scheduled for Saturday.
Amburn will be speaking Saturday about his transition from editor to author, his experiences editing Jack Kerouac’s last two books and writing about Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and others.
He attributed his transition from editor to author to his work ghostwriting for Shelley Winters and Priscilla Presley. After completing “Elvis and Me” with Presley and “Shelley: Also Known as Shirley” with Winters, Amburn left editing to work on “Shelley II: The Middle of my Century.”
“I evolved by chance and destiny,” he said.
He has been the ghost writer for a multitude of celebrities and written seven biographies, one of which he wrote under a pseudonym. Amburn, who lives in High Springs, is currently working on a biography of Tim Tebow titled “Finish Strong.” The book is scheduled for release in a year and a half, Amburn said.
Although Amburn said writing a book isn’t as hard as people think, he does offer some advice to students. “Your true style is in the letter you write your mother,” he said.
General registration is $160 for both days, $80 per day. Registration for students and educators is $60. Department of journalism students and faculty can attend for free. For more information regarding registration or to download the schedule, visit www.jou.ufl.edu/storytellers.
Mike Foley, former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, said he hopes attendees, estimated at around 150 people, will leave with a value for the art of storytelling. “I think it is the salvation of journalism,” he said.
