REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST

8 a.m. Conference Registration in the Lincoln Lounge. Sign in, pick up your name badge, and Conference extras.

9 a.m.  Light Breakfast in the Banquet Hall & Conference Kick-off!

(Note: most sessions are repeated from morning to afternoon to allow participants to attend as many as possible and to keep class sizes smaller, allowing more one to one access to faculty)

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MORNING SESSIONS

9:15 to 10:15 a.m.

• Novel Writing Essentials -- Melissa Newman - Coyle Room

  • This fiction workshop is for both beginning and intermediate writers. So you have an idea for a novel but how do you get started or you have some writing completed but you need your story to come alive. In this session, you will learn how to structure your novel, create lively dialogue among your characters, develop a timeline and how to create seamless flashbacks.

• Adaptations: From Book to Screen – Mark Daniels - Skylight Room

  • In this session, Mark will teach us what it takes to bring a novel from pages to the big screen (or small screen) and outline the skills necessary to pull the essential scenes from our writing, scaling a 300-page book into a 120-page script ready for production. 

10:25 to 11:25 a.m.

• Character Development – Susan Furlong - Coyle Room

  • Learn to develop characters your readers won’t soon forget with Susan Furlong, author of Shattered Justice, a New York Times Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year. During this session you will learn techniques for developing complex and intriguing characters along with practical advice for weaving emotion into each scene. Elevate your writing by mastering characterization. 

• Fall In Love with Writing Romance - Summer Hanford - Skylight Room

  • In this session you’ll learn how to launch your Romance Writing career and uncover what goes into a best-selling romance. Learn how to begin your novel, how to keep it going, and when to squeeze your readers’ hearts till it hurts. But don’t worry, it will all end happily ever after.

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

• Non-fiction, Historical Non-fiction - Making the Narrative Interesting - Dr. Pam Parry - Skylight

  • This non-fiction session will explore how to write about historical figures and find the potential markets for those stories. This workshop will provide writing tips and strategies for transforming your historical research into a readable, interesting narrative that is ready for the marketplace. How do you identify your readers? How do you write for their interests? After this workshop, you should know how to write, market, and sell your historical writing. 

• Revisions and Editing – Sherry Robinson - Coyle Room

  • This session will help writers dig into perhaps the most important step in the writing process: revising. Revising is hard work—and sometimes painful. Writers will learn strategies for editing, rewriting, and restructuring your manuscript regardless of your writing process. 

LUNCH

• 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. (Served in Hotel Event Center by Boone Tavern Restaurant. There will be Spoonbread!)

• 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. "Pick Your Genre" and get into "The Business of Writing"

Bring your pen and notepad or your favorite note-taking device, and be ready to collaborate with other writers, with time after our meal to meet and talk with fellow writers. Immediately after your collaborative session, stay in the Hotel Event Center for an "Ask Me Anything Panel." Join in casual conversation with AWC's experts on topics from writing romance, literary, crime, or cozy mystery. Or, tap into our panels' expertise on the Business of Writing with topics like contracts and legal questions to how to brand yourself as an author and how to develop and diversify your career as a writer. You choose the topics!

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AFTERNOON SESSIONS

2:45 to 3:45 p.m.

• Fall In Love with Writing Romance - Summer Hanford - Skylight Room

  • In this session you’ll learn how to launch your Romance Writing career and uncover what goes into a best-selling romance. Learn how to begin your novel, how to keep it going, and when to squeeze your readers’ hearts till it hurts. But don’t worry, it will all end happily ever after.

• Adaptations: From Book to Screen – Mark Daniels - Coyle Room

  • In this session, Mark will teach us what it takes to bring a novel from pages to the big screen (or small screen) and outline the skills necessary to pull the essential scenes from our writing, scaling a 300-page book into a 120-page script ready for production. 

4 to 5 p.m.

• Character Development – Susan Furlong - Coyle Room

  • Learn to develop characters your readers won’t soon forget with Susan Furlong, author of Shattered Justice, a New York Times Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year. During this session you will learn techniques for developing complex and intriguing characters along with practical advice for weaving emotion into each scene. Elevate your writing by mastering characterization. 

• Revisions and Editing – Sherry Robinson - Skylight Room

  • This session will help writers, dig in to, perhaps the most important step in the writing process: revising. Writers will learn about the difference between editing and proofreading and be introduced to a framework for giving and receiving feedback that helpfully systematizes what should be cut and what should be kept from each draft.

5:30 p.m.

• Dinner on Your Own in Beautiful Berea, Kentucky! (see goodie bag for list of local eateries and a map)