by Julie Zine Coleman @JulieZColeman At a writer’s conference, a line of agents and publishers sat before the eager crowd for a question-and-answer session. What did writers want to know? As I listened, one woman’s question soon had me sitting straight up in my seat: What do agents and publishers…

by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author  Welcome to the 2025 Writing Conference season! If you have never attended a writing conference, they can be overwhelming and complicated, and if you don’t know how to make the most of them, you might feel unsuccessful at the end. If you set unrealistic goals for…

by Warren Johnson @haversackhisto1 I wrote my first novel on a whim. Sort of like Jeremiah Johnson, who ignorantly walked into a bear hunt. “That'll be far enough, pilgrim!” If I’d had someone say that to me, I could’ve avoided the dangers of moving into a wilderness full of awe…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky The last class I taught at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer's Conference was how to write explosive short fiction. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart. As an editor of The Citron Review, an online literary journal specializing in flash and micro fiction,…

by Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted A few years back, I had a writer friend fuss at me. "Pick your lane and stay in it. You write everything, but are you proficient?" I thought this was a writer friend. Actually, he is. However, his newness to the industry helped me excuse his…

By W. Terry Whalin @terrywhalin David Smith loved language and ignited an excitement in his English teaching at Peru High School in Peru, Indiana during the late 1960s. Of modest height with receding sandy hair and a bug-eyed appearance, Mr. Smith loved his students and reached out to challenge them. As…