Saturday, January 11, 2014

Write Stuff registration opens

Retiring from full-time teaching has allowed me to take a journey through new paths, and it’s been an exciting ride. I like to think of it as a learning a new language.
Now that I’m getting fluent in the world of writers, I know, as you undoubtedly do, that there are mystery, thriller, romance, children’s, young adult, Christian, horror and erotic writers’ conferences. But many of us write, or want to write, in several dialects of the language of writing. I write feature articles, but am hot to learn how to create a crisp short story, for example; plus, I scratch out a poem every so often. You have that short story collection nailed and want to take the crime thriller novel back out of the drawer; plus, you need to know about the young adult market.
Let me introduce you to an upcoming, dynamic-and-exciting-yet-low-cost writer’s conference, The Write Stuff, March 20-22, 2014 in Allentown, PA.
The cool thing about The Write Stuff: it’s a multi-genre conference. In any given year, you might find workshops featuring any of the above. And you can count on a balance of craft-related presentations and marketing-publishing sessions. This is all punctuated with agent/editor appointments, pre-conference intensives, our popular “Page Cuts”, book fair, casual-but-elegant reception, lunch with a dynamic keynote speaker, genre chats with authors, and more.
I have a confession. As the newbie in the group not fluent in The Write Stuff protocol, I wanted to raise the price of the pre-conference sessions by $20.  The board would not let me. The reason? Not to reel more people in, but to make sure that we stick to our original vision for this conference, which is to make it affordable to all who might want to attend. This all comes from the central vision of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, which is “to advance the writing interests of its members”.     
Can’t wait to hear you speaking in new genres.
Brenda Havens and Bernadette Sukely, The Write Stuff co-chairs