WRITER'S ROAD TRIP - ANNUAL MINI WRITERS CONFERENCE
Sponsored by Pennwriters, Inc., October 5, 2024
Zem Zem Banquet & Conference Center
2525 West 38th Street, Erie, PA
2024 SPEAKERS
Janyce Brawn
Janyce Brawn, a retired Art/ESL/Spanish teacher, is the author and illustrator of the middle-grade Tales of the Teleporting Topsider series. She has written and illustrated for books and the poetry magazine, Time of Singing, for over 25 years. Her fourth novel in the series, David and the Foglinian Menace, was published by Dragonfly Publishing, Inc. in the summer of 2023.
Annette Dashofy
Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of sixteen mystery novels including What Comes Around, the latest in the Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic turned coroner in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. She also writes the Detective Honeywell series set in Erie, the second of which, Keep Your Family Close, came out in late 2023. Her standalone, Death By Equine, won the 2021 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, and she is a seven-time finalist for the Agatha Award. Annette is a long-time member of Pennwriters and is president of the Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime. Visit her website at: www.annettedashofy.com.
Susan Gable
Susan Gable is a USA Today Bestselling author, who’s been both trad and Indie pubbed. Reviewers and readers alike often cite her ability to convey strong emotion in her books, to make them both laugh and cry. Her books have been Golden Heart and Rita ® Award finalists, been recognized by Romantic Times nominations for Best Superromance of the Year, and she’s won numerous awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award. Close to a million copies of her books have been sold worldwide.
A former elementary teacher, Susan is a popular workshop presenter who has spoken at many writing conferences. She loves new gadgets, new technology, and learning new things. She believes there’s no such thing as a dumb question – only one you wish you’d asked.
Visit www.SusanGable.com to learn more about her books.
Karen Geiger
Karen Geiger is a certified and licensed speech-language pathologist and a certified journal writing facilitator through the Therapeutic Writing Institute. Karen’s essays can be seen in Grown and Flown, Better After 50, Her View From Home, and she was a Pennwriters' nonfiction award-winner.
Karen currently teaches journal writing to cancer patients and provides workshops online. Testimonials state that "journaling with Karen has changed my life" and "I am so grateful for this class and my journaling habit."
Her recently published journal, Storied Life Journal, an every-day, guided opportunity for writers to enhance their creative and cognitive skills, debuted at #1 in midlife new releases on Amazon. Dink: A Pickleball Playbook For Success On And Off The Court and Drives: A Pickleball Planner For Maximum Motivation debuted in the top 10 new releases for racket sports.
Susan Helene Gottfried
Susan Helene Gottfried (Susan at West of Mars) holds a BA and MFA in creative writing—fiction from some of the top schools in the field. Since getting her start at the editorial desk at The Pitt News in the early ‘90s, she now owns West of Mars editing, where many of her clients have quit their day jobs and like to send her screenshots of their books on Top Ten lists.
She also owns the Tales from the Sheep Farm multi-author fiction project. Visit Susan at: http://westofmars.com and http://TalesFromTheSheepFarm.com.
Hana Haatainen-Caye
Hana Haatainen-Caye is a writer originally from Manheim, PA, living in Pittsburgh with her husband, Bill and their three cats, Annabella, Theo, and Christmas. A blended family, they have 5 grown daughters and 6 grandchildren. Hana has won awards for her short stories, poetry, magazine articles, and her blog, www.GreenGrandma.org. She is multi-published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, with her most recent release this month in CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: MIRACLES, ANGELS AND MESSAGES FROM HEAVEN.
Hana worked with iStoryBooks.co from 2007 until 2017, narrating over 300 of their children’s books as the voice of Maya Ray. During that time, she also sold 100 of her own children’s books to the digital platform.
She teaches writing for the Osher Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as at writers’ conferences and has led Writers at Work, a monthly writers’ group in Pittsburgh for the past 20 years.
Sidelined by a devastating stroke in 2021, she is thrilled to be back behind the wheel again.
Naima Haviland
Naima Haviland is an award-winning author writing in multiple genres such as dark fantasy, dark romance, and alternative history. Since 2012, she has published under her own independent label, PH Press, via Amazon and all major online vendors worldwide. Her self-published novels, anthology collections, and short stories are available as e-books, paperbacks, and audiobooks. Her latest novel, The Name I Chose, won Silver and Highly Recommended awards from The Historical Fiction Company. Find more on Naima at naimahaviland.com.
Chuck Kienzle
I’m Chuck Kienzle, a retired computer programmer, currently living in Western Pennsylvania with my wife, Judy, and her cat daughter Molly. I am not her father! Fifty years ago, I created the backstory for an epic fantasy, with maps, cultural breakdowns, a history, and gods. Then life got in the way.
A decade ago, I started to write again. Now, with four unpublished novels under my belt, and one, after three critique group run throughs, ready to be sent to agents and publishers, I’m ready to be a published author. HA HA.
I write urban fantasy and participated, with Janet Pierce and her twin sister, Janyce Brawn, in a talk on world building at the 2023 Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books.
Do I wish I had kept on with my writing earlier? To paraphrase a once First Lady and Secretary of State; "It takes a village to become a writer." Before I joined Pennwriters and two associated critique groups, my novels were full of imagination and technically inept. This may have come rather late in my life; I have learned so much about the art of writing.
Catherine McLean
Catherine has been helping writers become published authors for more than two decades. She is a novelist and short story author and long-time Pennwriter who gives in-person and online courses and workshops on the craft of writing fiction. She is a book and story writing coach and freelance editor. Her book for writers, Revision is a Process helps writers take the frustration out of self-editing. Visit Catherine at www.CatherineEmclean.com or www.WritersCheatSheets.com.
Janet L. Pierce, PhD.
Janet L. Pierce, PhD, is a retired ESL teacher. She has written historical nonfiction articles for newspapers, informational articles for Pennwriters, St. Davids’ Christian Writers, and TESOL International; newsletters for professional organizations; and murder mystery scripts. Recent publications include poems, flash fiction, and a creative nonfiction story. Currently, her agent is shopping her debut historical fiction novel to publishers.
Debra Rae Sanchez
Debra R. Sanchez has moved over thirty times...so far. She earned her B.A. in communications and writing from Westminster College. She and her husband have three adult children and seven grandchildren. She teaches writing workshops, provides writing coaching, and hosts writing retreats. Her writing has won awards in various genres, including children’s stories, poetry, fantasy, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Several of her plays and monologues have been produced and published. Her other works have been published in literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Besides being an editor and translator at Tree Shadow Press, she is also a freelance editor and a translator of a wide variety of topics, including numerous books.
For more information, visit her webpage: www.debrarsanchez.com.
Books by Debra R. Sanchez:
Pages: A Library Play (2016) received special recognition at The Author Zone (TAZ) awards 2022.
Páginas: Un Cuento de Bibliotecas (2016)
AAnd My Mother Cried/Y Mi Mama Lloró was awarded “Best Children’s Book of 2017” at The Author Zone (TAZ) awards.
Prompted, Prodded, Published: How Writing Prompts Can Help All Writers (2017 TAZ award in the non-fiction category)
Raw & Unfinished, received a TAZ award in 2018 for poetry.
Celebrate: A Collection of Life’s Celebrations (2019)
Snow Pants for Isabella/Pantelones de Nieve para Isabella won the TAZ award in 2020 for Best Children’s Book
What’s that Noise? / ¿Qué Ruido Es? (2020) (TAZ finalist)
Chocolate Spaghetti for Breakfast / Espaguetis de Chocolate para el Desayuno (2021)
So Much Fun! / ¡Muy Divertido! (2021)
Looks Matter: Beyond Judging the Cover (2021) (TAZ finalist)
Flutter Me By/Pelusas de Hadas (2022)
Mary Sutton
Writing as Liz Milliron, Mary Sutton is the author of the Laurel Highlands mystery series, starring a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County public defender in the scenic Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania. She is also the author of the Homefront Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY in the early years of WWII. The series features Betty Ahern, a Rosie the Riveter turned Sam Spade. Liz is a past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the current Vice President. She is also a member of International Thriller Writers, Pennwriters, and the Historical Novel Society. Liz splits her time between homes in Pittsburgh and the Laurel Highlands, where she lives with her husband and a very spoiled retired-racer greyhound. Visit Mary on her website writing as Liz Milliron at: www.lizmilliron.com
Patricia Thrushart
writes poetry and historical nonfiction. Her fifth and latest book of poems, Goddesses I Have Known, was put out by Quimbey Pickford and Cheshire Publishing and benefits Clarion SAFE, a domestic violence shelter. Her poems have been published in numerous journals. She is co-editor of the blog and anthology series for North/South Appalachia and co-founder of the group Poets Against Racism USA. In 2021 her work was chosen for an anthology of Ohio Appalachian voices, and for the Women of Appalachia Speaks series. Her narrative nonfiction book, Cursed: The Life and Tragic Death of Marion Alsobrook Stahlman, was published in December 2021 by Adelaide Books and is currently undergoing a second edition. Another biography, about an influential African American politician operating in Philadelphia’s Gilded Age, is forthcoming. Visit Patricia on the web at: www.patriciathrushart.com
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