The weekend before St. Patrick’s Day saw a new and improved venue for the Write Stuff writers conference, organized by the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG).  For 2025, our home was the beautiful Homewood Suites in Center Valley, PA.

I wasn’t able to attend on Thursday, so my conference began at 9AM on Friday with keynote speaker Tiffany Yates Martin teaching her excellent full day class on Mastering Backstory. I was interested in this topic given the fact that my first novel, Testing the Prisoner, is a poster child for backstory, memories, and flashbacks. I must have done something right since the book has won eight awards and continues to earn excellent reviews!

Friday evening’s events began at 7PM with an excellent presentation on How to Go Deep with Point of View by writer pal, Dianna Sinovic and concluded with our traditional 8PM soiree starring Mark Twain (portrayed by Charles B. Kiernan) who regaled us with a brief anecdote of his writer’s  journey.

Saturday was the final day of the Write Stuff conference. In the morning, I attended two brilliant  presentations by Katherine Ramsland on Creating Mental Maps and Observation for Writers. In between, Tiffany Yates Martin discussed ways to avoid that Middle of the Book Sag after which, she delivered an inspiring keynote speech over lunch.

I skipped the afternoon classes to set up my table for the book fair.  At about 4PM, the classes ended and the shopping began as well as the judging and awards for the flash literature contest.

In addition to the new hotel, another element that made this year’s conference special was the release of our 2025 anthology, Writing a Wrong, which included my 30th published short story, “Give Them Peace,” the first short story featuring psychic-medium Miranda Lorensen from my paranormal mystery novels. Special thanks to Dianna Sinovic for managing the anthology from start to finish. I hope to take over for the 2027 anthology.

 

It was a blast spending two days with so many friends and colleagues in the writing community including GLVWG president Angel Ackerman, Dianna Sinovic, Charles Kiernan, Ginny Shepherd, Bob Gelik, Susan Kling Monroe, Carla Jones, Tammy Burke, GLVWG’s official photographer, Joan Zachary, Write Stuff co-chairs Charles Kiernan and Donna Brennan, Joanne McLaiughlin, and Ann Stolinsky from Celestial Echo Press, and so many more!

Onward to the next one…