60th Annual Meeting
September 19 - 22, 2008

2008 Keynote Speaker
JACK HART

Jack Hart is an author, writing coach and former managing editor at The Oregonian, the Pacific Northwest’s largest daily newspaper. At The Oregonian he also worked as a reporter, arts and leisure editor, Sunday magazine editor, training editor, and editor at large. He has additional reporting experience at two other newspapers, holds a University of Wisconsin doctorate in Mass Communications and has taught at five universities.

He worked as an editor on four Pulitzer Prize winners, and was the solo editor on two of them. He has also edited national winners of the ASNE writing awards, the Ernie Pyle award, the Scripps-Howard business-writing award, the Overseas Press Club awards, the Headliners awards and the Society of Professional Journalists feature-writing award. He is the author of The Information Empire, a history of the Los Angeles Times and A Writer’s Coach: The Complete Guide to Writing Strategies That Work, released as a Pantheon hardback in 2006 and as an Anchor Books paperback in 2007.

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Ian Adams is an environmental photographer, writer and teacher specializing in natural, rural, historical and garden areas.  He has produced 17 books, including The Art of Garden Photography (Timber Press) which received two Gold Garden Media Awards at the 2006 GWA Symposium in Valley Forge, PA.

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Eamonn Hughes is a native of Ireland, Eamonn has been designing and building water gardens in Europe and the U.S. for over thirty years. He frequently speaks throughout the United States at conventions and workshops on his favorite subject. He has coauthored two books and is currently working on a third. His designs and articles have been published in many national magazines.

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Dan Benarcik is a horticulturist at Chanticleer where he oversees the Courtyard Gardens, concentrating on tropical, sub-tropical and tender perennials for seasonal display. Dan is a graduate of The University of Delaware where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Plant Science in 1986. He has articles that have appeared in Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Martha Stewart Living and Rodale's gardening books. He lectures frequently in the Delaware Valley and nationally. Member of Garden Writers Association.

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Dr. Allan Armitage is well known as a writer, speaker and researcher throughout the world.  He has evaluated garden plants in Montreal, Canada and East Lansing, Michigan. Now in Athens, GA, he has gained an appreciation of plant development in the North and South.  He holds his B.Sc. from MacDonald College, Quebec, M.Sc. from University of Guelph, Ontario and his Ph.D. from Michigan State.

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Bob Polomski, Clemson Extension Horticulturist and garden writer, educates the public through print and electronic articles, radio broadcasts, and television appearances.  After 13 years as "Questions & Answers" columnist for Horticulture magazine, Bob directed his lifelong study of horticulture towards earning a Ph.D. in Plant & Environmental Sciences at Clemson University in South Carolina.

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Natalia Hamill. A horticulturist and garden writer with a long standing interest in native plants, Natalia helped establish Grow Native! in Missouri and has been involved in American Beauties, a regionalized native plant marketing program. She has lived and gardened in the Midwest, the Southeast and now Colorado. Natalia is the Global Brand & Portfolio Manager for Syngenta Flowers.  As such, she helps guide the development and introduction of new plants in North America and Europe.

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Sue Goetz is a garden coach, designer, writer and speaker from Gig Harbor, Washington. Through her design business Creative Gardener, she works with clients to personalize garden spaces from small seasonal tasks to full design of large projects. Creative garden learning and outreach includes freelance writing, a self-published newsletter, speaking engagements and workshops. www.thecreativegardener.com

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Janine Adams joined GWA in 1989, two careers ago. After a successful freelance pet-writing career, she started Peace of Mind Organizing in 2005. As a professional organizer, she helps her clients create and maintain lasting order in their lives. She's intimately familiar with the organizing challenges faced by writers.

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Mary Palmer Dargan picked up quill and camera to record the natural world and design works of landscape architecture in the early 70s, and never looked back. Myriad national publications and television feature the professional face of Dargan Landscape Architects.  The voice of environmental sensitivity honed by her extensive lecture career resulted in the recent YOU TUBE and video pod casting venture, Gardeningwithpoppy.com, that reaches out to hungry, earth friendly audiences. Timeless Landscape Design is her 2007 landscape design tome.

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Marilynn Deane Mendell is president of WinSpin CIC, Inc., a firm specializing in change management, creative strategy, branding, and public relations. In 2008, Zweig White national awarded her two 1^st prizes and one honorable mention for her branding campaign for client Hickok Cole Architects in Washington, DC.  Along with many other national awards, Mendell’s branding campaign won the 2006 SMPS National & Local, Best Corporate Identity Award. A well recognized regional and national speaker and author; Mendell has been featured numerous times on Channel 7 (Buffalo, NY) and Good Morning America.

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Emily Eubanks is the communications coordinator for the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology.  She coordinates UF horticulture content for mass and electronic media.  Emily obtained a B.S. and M.S. in agricultural communications from the University of Florida. 

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Kim Taylor is a writer with the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology. She answers consumer gardening questions and writes print and online materials for the Florida Master Gardener program and for GardeningInAMinute.com. She holds a B.A. in biology from Smith College and an M.A. in science/health communication from the University of Florida.

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Susan Harris, gardening coach and co-creator of GardenRant, also writes SustainableGardeningBlog and the website Sustainable-Gardening. In print, she writes a column in two Maryland newspapers and the occasional magazine article. A resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, she founded the DC Urban Gardeners and Regional Garden Gurus.

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Susan Eubank is the only person in the world to have worked at three botanic garden libraries - San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum, Denver Botanic Gardens and, currently, the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden.  She has used and taught others to use botanical and horticultural literature for almost 20 years.  It’s her passion.  Her education includes a Master’s Degree in library and information studies from University of California, Berkeley, a Master’s Degree in art history, and much lifelong learning concentrating on native plants wherever she is, agaves, penstemons and poppies.  She and her family currently garden in Pasadena, California, and explore the native plant world of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains near Springville, California.

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Author, speaker and designer Penelope O’Sullivan’s 12th book, The Homeowner’s Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook, covers all you need to know to buy and grow outstanding trees and shrubs in your garden. She has written 11 other books and numerous articles for magazines, including Organic Gardening and Better Homes & Gardens, and scouts gardens for BH&G Special Interest Media. Penny, a former GWA regional director, also belongs to the Perennial Plant Association and the American Conifer Society. She lives with her family in Stratham, NH.

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Mary-Kate Mackey coauthored Sunset’s Secret Gardens—153 Design Tips from the Pros, and wrote the fern section in the revised 2007 Sunset Western Garden Book.  Her 100 plus articles have been published in Meredith’s Simply Perfect Perennials and Lawns and Landscapes, as well as Fine Gardening, Sunset, and other regional magazines. She is a recipient of a GWA Silver Award for magazine writing and teaches at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication. She gardens in Eugene, OR.

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Debra Prinzing is the author of five books, including Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways (Clarkson-Potter). She contributes to Fine Gardening, Cottage Living, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, and Alaska Airlines Magazine, and her stories appear in the Los Angeles Times Home section. Debra publishes www.shedstyle.com, a design blog.

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Dee Nash is a freelance writer who gardens outside of Guthrie, Oklahoma.  She is a frequent contributor to Oklahoma Gardener, and has written for the Edmond Sun, the Daily Oklahoman, and the Daylily Journal.  Last year, she began a new adventure as writer, editor and publisher of her blog, Red Dirt Ramblings.