Event Summary

WALA again teams up with the DC Public Library for DC Authorfest 2019 with the expert panel discussion “Tales of International Publishing.”

Is it a good strategy to pursue a book deal abroad before publishing your book in the US? This panel discussion will explore opportunities and challenges in publishing in foreign markets. Learn the legal issues and hear from an award-winning author who is published in many countries!

Panel:

Moderator: John D. Mason of Copyright Counselors, LLC and Mason Literary is an art and entertainment and intellectual property attorney, and a literary agent. He is based in the Washington DC/Maryland area but has a national and international client base and has handled copyright and trademark matters in numerous federal district courts by admission pro hac vice.

John’s practice focuses on copyright and trademark registrations and transactional matters, litigation, copyright infringement, publishing and media issues, defamation, licensing and contracts, and commercial matters relating to creative industries. He works with writers, artists, filmmakers, photographers and creative people and companies of all kinds to protect, promote and productively exploit their work.

In addition to his law practice, John is dedicated to teaching and education. John is adjunct faculty teaching Entertainment Law at UDC Law School, past adjunct faculty teaching Art and the Law at George Mason University, lectures regularly at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Art as Applied to Medicine Master’s program, and gives numerous lectures and talks every year on legal issues related to artists of all kinds.

John is also committed to non-profit service and currently serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (www.waladc.org), and as a member of the Advisory Board of Veterans in Film and Television. He previously served on the Advisory Board of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington and the Board of Directors of the Washington Improv Theater.

John attended Loyola University of New Orleans for both undergraduate and law school, and maintains close ties to the City of New Orleans.

Mason Literary

As a significant part of his law practice, John is a literary agent and literary attorney who represents writers in their dealings and negotiations with editors and publishers. His primary focus is literary fiction and literary and creative nonfiction, although since the birth of his two daughters, and the millions of wonderful children’s books he has read to and with them, he is working more in that exciting area of the publishing world. In addition to representing writers as their literary agent, John has also cleared manuscripts for various legal issues such as libel, negotiated and drafted publishing and licensing and distribution agreements related to books and their various ancillary rights, and negotiated and handled book to film option agreements and deals.

Janet Fries, Of Counsel at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP has represented numerous authors, artists, collectors, estates, art organizations, musicians, filmmakers, producers and
Internet companies in connection with issues involving contract negotiation and preparation, web site review, copyright and trademark protection, brand management, and related matters. She counsels on copyright and trademark law, entertainment law and Internet law and also maintains an active pro bono practice.

Janet is a trained mediator and has negotiated numerous settlements in all areas of copyright and trademark law. She has also litigated intellectual property disputes before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Bárbara Mujica (http://www.barbaramujica.com/) is a novelist, essayist, short story writer and critic. Her latest novel, I Am Venus, revolves around the mystery surrounding The Rokeby Venus, the only extant female nude by Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. I Am Venus won the 2012 Maryland Writers’ Association Fiction Competition in the category
Historical Fiction. Kirkus Reviews writes: “Mujica’s prose is vigorous and intense, and the story is paradoxically both dark and illuminating.” Mujica’s short stories appear in numerous magazines including 0-Dark-Thirty, The Minnesota Review Pangolin Papers, and The Literary Review, as well as in anthologies such as Where Angels Glide at Dawn, featuring an introduction by Isabel Allende. Her essays appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Dallas Morning Star, Commonwealth, The Huffington Post, and hundreds of other publications. Mujica’s essay “Bilingualisms Goal” was named one of the best 50 op-eds of the decade by The New York Times.

Mujica is a professor at Georgetown University and a specialist in early modern Spanish literature. On campus, Mujica initiated the student veteran’s program. U.S. News and World Report recently named the “Number 1 university for veterans in the United States.”

Mujica won numerous prizes for her writing, most recently from the Maryland Writers Association for I Am Venus, and for “Imagining Iraq,” in the category Short Story. She won The Trailblazer’s Award for Frida and other writings, the Pangolin Prize for Best Short Story of the Year, and the E. L. Doctorow International Fiction Competition. In addition, she won grants and awards from Poets and Writers of New York, the Spanish Government, Georgetown University, and other institutions. She is a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction.

More details can be found at https://www.dclibrary.org/calendar

Event Details

• Date

  April 27, 2019

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• Time

  10:30am - 12:30pm

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• Partner

  DC Public Library

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• Venue

  Library of Congress
  Washington, DC