Friday, May 2, 6:00 to 9:00 pm
Saturday, May 3, 2008, 7:30 am to 6:30 pm

Conference Center at the Maritime Institute of Technology
692 Maritime Boulevard, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090

Join us for our 20^th annual Maryland Writers' Association's annual conference, which gives writers the opportunity to hone their craft in sessions led by established authors, instructors, and experts. Sessions are for everyone; beginners and published writers alike in a wide range of subjects. Come explore the many worlds of writing with us.

Anniversary Dinner is FREE with Maritime Institute hotel registration! (one per registration, please)

Registration Details

Schedule (PDF) Note: Subject to Change!

Agents and editors will be available for individual critique sessions on Saturday! Sessions are $30 each. Signup information is on the conference registration form.

Please note: agent interview slots are filling up and may not be available. Meetings will be scheduled in order of registration. Scheduling fees will be refunded if your meeting cannot be scheduled.

Read about our Keynote Speaker | Featured Speakers | Panel Sessions

Keynote Speaker

Thomas F. Monteleone has been a professional writer since 1972, and a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He has published more than 100 short stories in numerous magazines and anthologies. His stories have been nominated for many awards, and have appeared in lots of best-of-the-year compilations. His notorious column of opinion and entertainment, The Mothers And Fathers Italian Association, currently appears in Cemetery Dance magazine. He is the editor of seven anthologies, including the highly acclaimed Borderlands series edited with his wife, Elizabeth, of which Borderlands 5 won a Bram Stoker Award in 2003.

He has written for the stage and television, having scripts produced for American Playhouse (which won him the Bronze Award at the International TV and Film Festival of New York and the Gabriel Award), George Romero's Tales from the Darkside, and a series on Fox TV entitled Night Visions. He has written many feature-length screenplays, none of which have been produced, but have made him plenty of money anyway.

Of his thirty-six books, his novel The Blood of the Lamb received the 1993 Bram Stoker Award, and The New York Times Notable Book of the Year Award. His three collections of selected short fiction are Dark Stars and Other Illuminations (1981), Rough Beasts and Other Mutations (2003), The Little Brown Book of Bizarre Stories (2004), and Fearful Symmetries (2004), which won the 2004 Bram Stoker Award. His novels, The Resurrectionist and Night of Broken Souls, global thrillers from Warner Books, received rave reviews and have been optioned for films. The Reckoning (2000), a sequel to The Blood of the Lamb, and The Eyes of the Virgin (2002) have been published by Forge. His omnibus volume of essays about the book and film industries entitled The Mothers And Fathers Italian Association was recently published by Borderlands Press (www.borderlandspress.com) and won the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Non-Fiction. He is also the author of the bestseller, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel (2004), and is currently at work on his latest novel, a thriller entitled Submerged. His books and stories have been translated into twelve foreign languages. He's a writer -- please don't call him an "author."

He likes baseball, the Baltimore Ravens, computers, sour mash whiskey, fine wines, comic books, tons of books to read, all kinds of music (except the stuff sung by people wearing big hats or pants down to their knees), and teaching his kids how to be independent thinkers. Despite being dragged kicking and screaming into his fifties (and losing his hair), he still thinks he is dashingly handsome -- humor him. With his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Olivia, he recently moved from the frozen tundra (is there any other kind?) of New Hampshire to the rolling hills of Maryland.

Hear an interview with Tom Monteleone conducted by Austin Camacho! (21'32, 19.7 mb)

Read an interview with Tom Monteleone conducted by Nancy O. Greene! (PDF, 200 kb)

Featured Speakers

	Peter E. Abresch: Memoir Writing Easy strategies for writing life stories for family and publication. Peter Abresch is the author of the Elderhostel Mysteries Series and the non-fiction Easy Reading Writing. He publishes a free online newsletter on fiction writing called BookMarc.
	Ann Bracken, M.Ed., CAPF: Journaling: The "Write" Way to Begin Stuck? Journal a solution! Jump-start all of your writing projects using finely honed journaling tools. Ann offers practical demonstrations and discussion of six journaling techniques. Ann owns The Possibility Project, a journal coaching practice using writing in creative ways for positive change resulting in a fuller, richer life.
	Austin Camacho: How the Plot Thickens Mystery writer Austin S. Camacho discusses the essential elements of plot -- how to put your characters through their paces so that the reader will have no choice but to follow their actions from beginning to end. Austin S. Camacho is the author of four detective novels in the Hannibal Jones series and two novels in the Stark and O'Brien adventure series. Active in several local writers organizations, Camacho is the current president of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Writer's Club. By day, Camacho is a public affairs specialist for the Department of Defense. For more than a decade the American Forces Network carried his radio and television news reports.
	Patricia Fry: How to Write a Successful Book Proposal in 8 Easy Steps Learn how to write the right book for the right audience and build promotion into your book while creating a book proposal that sells. Patricia Fry is a career writer and the author of 27 books, including The Right Way to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Book.
	Dana Kollman: Forensic Science -- Its Not What You See on TV! Hollywood has a knack for making everything look exciting and enticing and the field of crime scene investigation is no exception. Listen as Dana tells you the realities of the field and how truth is truly stranger than fiction. Dana is a former CSI with the Baltimore County Police Department. She currently teaches anthropology and criminal justice courses at Towson University. Hear an interview with Dana Kollman conducted by Austin Camacho! (20'07, 18.4 mb)
	Diane Marquette: Creative Book Marketing Use classic promotional methods as well as resourceful and clever techniques to get your published book into the hands of your readers. Diane Marquette has written three published novels, as well as 150 regionally and nationally published articles, and coordinates the annual Bay to Ocean Writers Conference. Hear an interview with Diane Marquette conducted by Austin Camacho! (8'39, 7.9 mb)
	C.M. Mayo: Blogging for Writers: Best (and Worst) Practices A blog, supposedly, is a web (on-line) log, or diary or journal. It can also be a newsletter, an on-line magazine column. Updated once a year. Updated eight times a day. Longish personal essays, whole books, pictures with or without commentary, or, say, nothing but lists of links to other writers's articles. In sum, a blog can be anything you want it to be. Many writers have used their blogs as a creative outlet, a PR engine, an open notebook, or a freelance career jump-start. In this session, writer C. M. Mayo, whose blog is "Madam Mayo," offers tips for bringing your intentions into focus, as well an an overview of best (and worst) practices for an effective writer's blog--- in whatever form yours may be. C.M. Mayo is the author of Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California (Milkweed Editions); Sky Over El Nido (U. of Georgia Press), which won the Flannery O'Connor Award; and editor of Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press), a collection of Mexican literary fiction prose. Her stories, essays and poems have been widely published in literary journals, among them Creative Nonfiction, Kenyon Review and Paris Review, and also widely anthologized, most recently in Hurricanes and Carnivals (University of Arizona Press). She teaches at the Writers Center in Bethesda MD and via Dancing Chiva in Mexico City. Her website is www.cmmayo.com and her blog is Madam Mayo, madammayo.blogspot.com.
	Cynthia Polansky: Making the Most of Agent/Editor Consultations Cynthia provides ten tips for maximizing agent/editor "speed dates." Cynthia Polansky is the author of 2 novels, "Far Above Rubies" and "Remote Control". She is also an acclaimed dog writer under the name Cynthia P. Gallagher.
	Lucia St. Clair Robson: Predicting the Past Historical novelist Lucia St. Clair Robson will discuss how to make history real, relevant, entertaining, and a bit bawdy. Lucia was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in South Florida. The Western Writers of America awarded her first book, Ride the Wind, the Golden Spur Award for best historical western of 1982; it also made the New York Times Best Seller List and was included in the 100 best westerns of the 20th century. Her other books include Walk in My Soul, Light a Distant Fire, Tokaido Road, Mary's Land, Fearless, and Ghost Warrior (finalist for the 2003 Golden Spur). Her newest is Shadow Patriots: A Novel of the Revolution. She is currently working on Last Train from Cuernavaca, a story set during Mexico's Revolution of 1910.
	Lisa L. Spahr, M. Sc.: Coaching for Writers: What Keeps You Up at Night? This writer's workshop is driven by YOU. The coach will cover topics such as: finding the time to write and writing to publish rather than writing to keep writing. Lisa Spahr is a psychologist, author, entrepreneur, and life coach.
	Dan Smith: 10 Essential Elements of Book Promotion Includes both the fundamentals of publicity as well as "insider" tips and tricks of the publicity trade. Learn how to stand out in the increasingly competitive book industry. Since founding TCI-Smith Publicity in 1997, Dan and his agency have promoted over 350 authors and books in 17 countries and boasts placements in virtually every major TV and radio outlet as well as hundreds of top newspapers and magazines.
	Marcia Talley: Demystifying the Mystery: Tips on Writing Crime Fiction From "where do you get your ideas?" to the final "The End," a concise discussion of the roles of plot, character, and dialog in the modern mystery novel, with tips on point-of-view and planting clues for the aspiring mystery writer. A question and answer period follows. Includes bibliography and tip sheet handouts. Marcia Talley is the multi-award-winning author of six Hannah Ives mysteries, including This Enemy Town and Through the Darkness. She is editor/contributor to Naked Came the Phoenix and I'd Kill for That. Her prize-winning short stories appear in more than a dozen collections. Hear an interview with Marcia Talley conducted by Austin Camacho! (13'52, 12.7 mb)
	Patricia Valdata: Poetry Chapbooks Patricia Valdata writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her publications include a poetry chapbook, Looking for Bivalve, and a novel, Crosswind. She received an MFA in writing from Goddard College in 1991. She received Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards for poetry in 2001 and 2003. Her work has appeared most recently in North American Review, Voices in Wartime, Icarus, and Tattoo Highway. She works as a freelance writer, editor, and writing instructor. She lives in Elkton, Maryland. For more information, please visit http://www.cloudstreetcomm.com.
	Richard White: Writer Beware Rich had two short stories come out recently, "Redshift" in The Sky's the Limit, the 2007 Star Trek anthology by Pocket Books and "The Price of Conviction" in The Quality of Leadership, the latest Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology by Big Finish, LTD. Working primarily as a Media Tie-In writer, Rich's other works include a novella, Echoes of Coventry for the Star Trek Corps of Engineers series; a novel, Gauntlet Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil for Midway Games; and a short story, "Assault on Avengers Mansion" for the Ultimate Hulk anthology. In addition to his writing, Rich is active in the science fiction community as the newest member of the Writer Beware committee for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
	Gregg Wilhelm: The Publishing Matrix: What's the Best Publishing Option for You? Explore the editorial, marketing, and economic aspects of the four primary ways a writer can usher her manuscript into publication. It takes research and legwork, and an ability to transition from introverted artist to extroverted self-promoter. "The End" is only the beginning. Gregg Wilhelm is President and CEO of CityLit Project. He has been in the book publishing business for 15 years. Gregg serves as director and editor-in-chief at the student-staffed Apprentice House, based at Loyola College, where he also teaches courses on publishing.
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Panel Sessions

Agents and editors will be available for individual critique sessions on Saturday! Sessions are $30 each. Signup information is on the conference registration form.

Please note: agent interview slots are filling up and may not be available. Meetings will be scheduled in order of registration. Scheduling fees will be refunded if your meeting cannot be scheduled.

Registration Details

Schedule (PDF) Note: Subject to Change!