How to Write a Book
You Care About

Sunday, September 14, 2025
Time: 12:30 – 2pm
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church – free event

How to Write a Book You Care About

Author David Hicks discusses with playwright, photographer, and Professor Matthew Hinton the motivation and strategies behind the writing of his three autobiographical books, and how, in each case, truth-telling and vulnerability won out over “the demands of the market.”
 
The Gospel According to Danny by David Hicks

David Hicks

David Hicks is the author of the novel White Plains (Bower House Books), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and Westword’s #1 book by Colorado authors; The Magic Ticket (Fulcrum Books), an autobiographical children’s book; and a second novel, The Gospel According To Danny (Vine Leaves Press, 2025). An award-winning professor and recipient of two Fulbright scholarships (Czech Republic 2020 and 2022), David is the founding director of the Regis University MFA in Creative Writing and current director of the nationally ranked Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA. He and his wife Cynthia are the founders of Electric City Writers in Scranton, PA, where they live with their demonically charming dog Louie.
 
Playroom by Matthew Hinton

Professor Matthew Hinton

Matthew S. Hinton was born in the back seat of his great grandmother’s Posten Taxi in Wilkes-Barre, PA. He is a founding member of Gaslight Theatre Company; has authored several plays, including Quiet Cowboy and Linda Goes to Mars; and was the creator and producer of an eight-year series of original one-acts from regional and NEPA playwrights.
Hinton is also an accomplished scholar of the life and work of Norman Mailer, with work appearing in The Mailer Review, Provincetown Arts (2018), and a chapter in Norman Mailer In Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Additionally, he has been an armchair journalist and news anchor at WVIA, an actor, an audiobook narrator, and an award-winning photographer.
He is one of the voices behind the audiobook of White Plains by David Hicks and is excited to include that he will narrate the forthcoming audio version of The Gospel According to Danny (2025). Hinton’s photography of the city and people of Wilkes-Barre has appeared at Anti-Heroin Chic, and will be featured in the online literary journal River & South Review.
Hinton’s recent collection of one-acts, entitled Playroom (BLUE MOON, 2022) follows the same family through the unusual settings of their home while tracing dysfunction, pocket dimensions, and callbacks to dad jokes.
He teaches writing and literature at Misericordia University (Dallas, PA).
He dreams in analog.