Program for 2009 Conference
8:00 - 9:00
Registration and Continental Breakfast
Registration and Continental Breakfast9:00 - 9:15Opening Remarks by Diane Marquette
Opening Remarks by Diane Marquette9:30 - 10:30 Three sessions
10:45 - 11:45 Three sessions
Austin Camacho, a mystery novelist, is the past president of the Maryland
Writer's Association and teaches the craft of
writing at Anne Arundel Community College. He is the author of four detective and two action adventure novels. Mr. Camacho’s Web address is www.ascamacho.com.
Photo by Ann Dorbin, Paragon Lights
George R. Merrill, Episcopal priest, psychotherapist, essayist, and photographer, has exhibited photographs in Annapolis, Baltimore, New York, and Easton. Coauthor of Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart, he has publishedessays in The Delmarva Quarterly, Tidewater Times, and Journeys.
consultation services. He is Director and Editor-in-Chief of Apprentice House, the country's only campus-based, student-staffed publishing company (based at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland).
E Honing Your Craft: What Writers Should Do Before, During and After Publication
Presenter: Cynthia Polansky
A savvy author needs to know all aspects of the writing and publishing industry. This includes the business side, the actual writing, promotional requisites, and personal sacrifices. Honing Your Craft is an eye-opening look into the abyss.
February 21, 2009, Conference Schedule
G Creating Memorable Characters
Presenter: Austin CamachoReaders love to get involved with characters they can relate to and identify with. Austin will share techniques to create rounded, interesting people who interact in predictable and surprising ways. He'll focus on details that make readers cheer your hero, hiss your villain, and sympathize with others.
B Book Publishing Options: Your Best Path for Success
Presenter: Gregg WilhelmAfter years of toil, it’s finished! Or is it? Your completed MS is only the first of many steps toward publishing success. Wilhelm will guide you through the book publishing landscape, explain the necessary market research, and prepare you for the equally necessary self-promotion.
C Magazine Publishers' Panel: Opportunities for Writers
Presenters: Dennis Forney, Tim Sayles, Terry Plowman
Publishers and editors from three Delmarva regional magazines will reveal what they are looking for from freelance writers. They will focus on what types of stories interest their readers and satisfy their advertisers. Writers will have an opportunity to ask questions and will leave with an understanding of the magazines' submission requirements, compensation potential, and the best way to develop a relationship with a magazine editor.
D Was It Something I Said?: Ten Things That Make Editors Cringe --and What to Say Instead
Presenter: Melanie Rigney
You've got ten minutes to impress a publishing house editor with your manuscript. All of a sudden, the light goes out of the editor's eyes. Was it something you said? Melanie Rigney shares ten statements to avoid--and offers ten alternatives to improve your chances of success. Plus handouts on self-editing and creating an effective critique group.
H Making Your Readers Care: Autobiographical Poetry
Making Your Readers Care: Autobiographical Poetry Presenter: Sue Ellen ThompsonThe primary challenge for the writer of autobiographical poems is to make the reader care. Using two contemporary American poems as models, Thompson will discuss what distinguishes a poem that merely tells a story or reveals something about the writer's life and one that opens up to include the reader's life as well.
I Screen and TV Writing: Thinking in Pictures
Presenter: Thomas SawyerVisual storytelling works for any kind of writing. TV & film writing techniques will make you a better storyteller. From creating protagonists we root for, to enigmatic bad guys, to “writing to the money,” and more--non-theory stuff every writer should have in the bank.
J Heeding Your Heart: The Art of the Personal Essay
Presenter: George Merrill
This workshop focuses on accessing an essayist's richest and most renewable resource: his or her own personal awareness.
K Writing for the Web
Presenter: Leslie WalkerAn Internet expert reviews the current state of Internet publishing, explaining who's making money blogging and writing for Web sites. This workshop will explain the ins and outs of writing for the Web and introduce you to many little-known but invaluable online services for writers.
L Free Write! Workshop
Presenter: Maribeth FischerTypically three-to-five-minute prompts have been used in writing as “jumpstarts,” creative ways to warm up, but they are not often considered “real writing.” This workshop will show you how to write “a prompt at a time.” Participants will write to prompts that they might use in their own work and will be invited to share them as well.
2:30 - 3:30Three sessions
Three sessions FTricks to Keep You Going Until You Finish
Tricks to Keep You Going Until You Finish Presenter: Barbara Esstman
Concrete suggestions for dealing with writer’s block, acquiring the writing skills you need, recharging your creative batteries, moving through a stuck place, and staying flexible, not frustrated, in order to get to “The End.”
12:00 - 1:00 Networking Lunch
1:15 - 2:15 Three sessions
A Finding Your Narrative Voice: A Craft Talk with Exercises
Presenter: Kate Blackwell
What do we mean when we talk about Voice in fiction or memoir? A character's voice—a narrator's voice—the author's voice: What distinguishes them? How do we write them? Does a particular Voice help you tell the story—or does it hinder the telling? Bring pen and paper for the exercises.
Tim Sayles, editor of Chesapeake Bay magazine since 1996, has nearly 30 years of editing experience, including six years as editor in chief of Mid-Atlantic
3:45 - 4:45Three Sessions
Three Sessions MEverything You Always Wanted to Know About
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literary Agents Presenter: Laura Strachan
What is a literary agent and why do you need one? How do you go about finding one, and what can you expect once you do? This session will cover everything you need to know about finding the right literary agent for you, and discuss the relationship between writer and agent.
NWhen Science + Language Arts = Children's Books
When Science + Language Arts = Children's Books Presenter: Jennifer Curtis
How do you get a turtle into a kid’s book? Children’s author/journalist Curtis shares her insights about writing stories for children. She will discuss the ways in which she gathers ideas and conducts research of regional animals to write realistic fiction that children enjoy.
O What the Internet Can Do for You: Building a
Marketing Platform
Presenter: Angela Render
Marketing your own work can be overwhelming. Traditional marketing strategies aren’t enough anymore, and the Internet can be confusing and scary--and to top it off, it keeps changing. This talk will discuss what kinds of Internet tools are available and will help you decide where to focus.
literature, art, history, and culture of the Delmarva Peninsula. He has been writing his weekly column, "Barefootin’," for 30 years.
He founded it in 2002 and also serves as an editor, writer, photographer, and page designer for the magazine. From 1993 to 1998, he served as editor of a Rehoboth Beach weekly newspaper.
Country magazine, which was named Magazine of the Year during his tenure.
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services to more than 100 publishers, literary agents, and authors.
Gallagher, she's a successful dog writer with four published dog-breed books to her credit.
Internationally published and nationally awarded author Barbara Esstman is the co-editor of A More Perfect Union: Stories and Poems about the Modern Wedding (St. Martin's Press). She is also the author of The Other Anna and Night Ride Home. Both novels were adapted for TV by Hallmark Productions. She teaches creative writing and creative nonfiction at universities and The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD.
fourteen years at venues in and around Washington, DC, including The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD,
volume, The Golden Hour, appeared in June 2006 and was also nominated for a Pulitzer. She recently edited The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Currently Ms. Thompson is teaching at The Writers' Center in Bethesda.
Novelist/screenwriter/ playwright Thomas B. Sawyer was Head Writer/Showrunner of the hit CBS series, Murder, She Wrote. Tom has written nine network TV pilots and 100 episodes, and has been head writer or story editor on 15 network TV series. The best-selling mystery/thriller, The Sixteenth Man, is his first novel. His Fiction Writing Demystified and Storybase 2.0, are Writer's Digest Book Club selections. He has taught writing at UCLA, at numerous major writers conferences, and online at Writers University. Mr. Sawyer has been nominated for an Edgar and an Emmy.
A newspaper journalist and pioneer in Internet news, Leslie Walker currently is Knight Visiting Professor in Digital Innovation at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. She spent 16 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor for The Washington Post, much of it chronicling how the Internet transformed media economics. Walker also served as vice president for news and executive editor of washingtonpost.com, the Post's Web site. She is the author of a New York Times bestseller, Sudden Fury (St. Martin's Press), which was made into a television movie.
Maribeth Fischer's literary essays have appeared in such journals as The Iowa Review and The Yale Review. Her first novel, The Language of Goodbye, was awarded Virginia Commonwealth University's First Novel Award for 2002. Fischer’s second novel, The Life You Longed For, has already sold in five foreign countries. In addition to founding the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild and serving as executive director of the annual Writers At The Beach: Pure Sea Glass writing conference, Fischer teaches workshops in writing. She is currently at work on her third novel.
Laura Strachan is a literary agent and lawyer with her own agency in Annapolis, MD, specializing in literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Towson State University and a J.D. from the University of Maryland Law School.
Author Jennifer Keats Curtis has written three books for children and wants to help bring kids closer to the animals in their own backyards. The former journalist has developed a knack for teaching young children about important ecological issues and what they can do to help. Jennifer can often be found among students and teachers these days, talking about literacy or conservation. She also regularly presents writing workshops to elementary school students. When she’s not in schools, Jennifer contributes to several magazines and serves as editor-at-large for Maryland Life Magazine.
Angela Render is a professional Web developer who also writes historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and cross-genre romantica. Her historical fiction novel, Forged by Lightning: A Novel of Hannibal and Scipio, was published in April of 2006. Her book Marketing for Writers: A Practical Workbook was released in October of 2008. She teaches classes on Internet marketing for writers at the Bethesda Writers' Center, and her column “Computer Business” appears in Writers' Journal.
Photographs of 2006, 2007, and 2008 Bay to Ocean Writers Conferences copyright Ann E. Dorbin, Paragon LIght, Inc.
Gregg Wilhelm is the founder of the CityLit Project, which produces literary festivals, conducts writers' workshops, promotes author events, and provides
Dennis Forney is publisher of the Cape Gazette, a twice-weekly community newspaper serving Delaware’s Cape Region in Sussex County, and The Delmarva Quarterly, which focuses on the
Terry Plowman is the publisher of Delaware Beach Life, the only magazine based in, and focused on, coastal Delaware.
Melanie Rigney has nearly thirty years' experience as an editor and writer, five as editor of Writers Digest. In the past three years, her business, Editor for You, has provided content and copy editing and manuscript evaluation
Cynthia Polansky is the award-winning author of historical "faction" (a novel based on a true story) Far Above Rubies, and paranormal "lit for the thinking chick" novel Remote Control. As Cynthia P.
Kate Blackwell's collection of short fiction, You Won''t Remember This, was published in June 2007, and her stories have been published in many literary journals.She has taught writing for
Sue Ellen Thompson’s third volume of poetry, The Leaving: New and Selected Poems, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. A fourth
