Conference Program
Find below the program for the 2026 WriteAngles Conference.
Please note: This is subject to change.
Time: 8:00am-8:30am
Venue: Dining Area
Coffee and Check-in
Time: 8:45am-9:30am
Venue: Dining Area
Welcome & Keynote address
Time: 9:45am-11:00am
Agent Meetings
Title: Pathways to Publishing
Moderator: Julie Schlack.
Panelists: Becky Hilliker, Samantha Kolber, Randy Zucco
Title: Publishing Your Poetry
Whether you want to submit individual poems to journals or publish a complete manuscript, this workshop will give practical advice for presenting your best work. We’ll explore how to find journals and presses that best fit your writing style, the importance of formatting, titles, and cover letters, poetry contests and the option of self-publishing. Publication involves risk-taking, so we’ll also talk about dealing with rejection.
Presenter: Gail Thomas
Title: Thrutopian Fictions
Imagination is essential to creating a better future. If all we see when we look into the future is dystopia, that’s what we will inevitably create. This session will demonstrate the process of writing “thrutopia”—a vision of the world we desire, and a road map for how to get there.
Presenter: Jennifer Browdy
Title: The Stories We Carry
“The Stories We Carry” is a workshop that explores identity and how it shapes voice, memory, and storytelling. Participants will first embrace some of the stories they have been told, and then with guided prompts, reflection and creative writing, they will reclaim their narrative, and share the stories they want to tell. This workshop is ideal for poets, memoirists, and emerging writers seeking authentic voice, cultural connection, and creative empowerment.
Presenter: Darlene Elias/Gri
Title: Three-Act Structure for Novels
Write a novel that grips readers from the first page and never lets go. In this workshop, you’ll master the classic three-act structure—a time-tested framework that underpins some of the most compelling stories across genres. We’ll explore the essential components of each act, from inciting incidents to climactic resolutions, and we’ll analyze a few bestselling novels that have used this structure effectively.
Megan Tady is the author of Bluebird Day, a Washington Post Noteworthy Book, and Super Bloom, which was awarded an IPPY Gold medal for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast. She runs the freelance writing and editing company Word-Lift and offers book coaching and ghostwriting. Her writing has appeared in Oprah Daily, People, L.A. Parent, Woman’s Day, Writer’s Digest, The Huffington Post, and Ms. Magazine, among others. Megan lives in Western Massachusetts with her family.
Presenter: Megan Tady
Title: The Art of Memoir
We each have a story. How do we get our story on the page? This workshop will offer techniques to awaken personal stories through writing exercises, readings, and discussion. Open to writers who are beginning their story as well as those who are already ‘on the page.’
Presenter: Celia Jeffries
Time: 11:15am-12:30pm
Agent Meetings
OPEN
Title: Self-Publishing 101
You’ve written a book you want others to read, but your querying attempts have failed to attract a publisher. Yes, self-publishing is a legitimate option. As a hybrid author who has self-published 15 books, I will share what I’ve learned, including the possibilities, realities, and processes of publishing this way.
Presenter: Joan Livingston
Title: Setting- More than Meets the Eye
Characters who strum ukuleles and bake fudge cakes need a setting in which those activities take place. But what else does a good story need? This workshop considers how setting grounds readers, establishes mood, heightens tension, reveals the psychology of a character, and creates a powerful narrative.
Presenter: Jennifer Jacobson
Title: The News Only You Can Bring: Some Nuts and Bolts of Poetry
Participants will bring one of their own poems that might benefit from a new approach. As we explore poetic forms, titles, line and stanza breaks, mood vs. tone, images, personal narrator, epigraphs, and the music of poetry, some new possibilities for their poem may emerge. Writing exercises will be offered.
Presenter: Pamela Wax
Title: The Fact of the Matter: Weaving Research into Personal Narrative for Social Change
Transform your personal narratives into powerful tools for advocacy. This interactive workshop teaches writers how to braid lived experience with evidence-based research and data. By grounding the “I” in historical and social contexts, you’ll learn to elevate your work, broaden your reach, and write effectively toward lasting social change.
Presenter: Amy Mackin
Title: Generate Wildly! Then Find Your ‘Container’ Later!
When we joyfully accept that the boundaries between genres are porous, then we are able to generate wildly. In this dynamic workshop, writers will be invited to respond to María Luisa’s timed writing prompts. Reading the drafts aloud will enable us to identify one or more possible “containers”.
Presenter: María Luisa
Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm
Everyone attends!
Lunch and Networking!
Time: 2:00pm-3:15pm
Title: What Haunts You?: Writing Ghost Stories in the 21st Century
Ghosts and hauntings are the most common tropes in the horror genre. From Casper the Friendly Ghost to The Bent Kneck Lady from the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, inspired by Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same title, ghosts help us imagine and understand Life after Death. Ghosts are metaphors for grief, loss, guilt, and the past as well. In Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, Beloved, the ghost named Beloved represents the psychological aftermath of slavery. Sethe is haunted by the trauma of her past and the murder of her daughter; her grief, loss, and guilt materializes into Beloved. Ghosts aren’t only visual apparitions they can also manifest as memories and scars. As for hauntings, they’re a bit different. A haunting is when a ghost or spirit attaches itself to a physical object or place for example it could be a mansion like in Haunted Mansion (2003), a hotel like in The Shining (1980), or a doll like Annabell. Metaphorically, hauntings refers to something that lingers emotionally and psychologically. In this generative and interactive workshop we’ll read and briefly discuss excerpts from popular ghost stories and hauntings, then write in response to prompts designed to explore grief, guilt, and other things that linger at the back of our minds.
Presenter: Marissa Williams
OPEN
Agents in Conversation
Moderator – Jacqueline Sheehan,
Agents – Lauren Scovel and Jeff Herman
This is not a formal panel, but rather, a conversation. Come with your questions for the agents and engage in informal conversation.
Title: You Wrote the Book: Now What?
This practical, myth-busting workshop shows writers how to get their books out of their laptops and into the hands of the readers who are waiting for them. We’ll cut through publishing confusion, compare real-world options, and map the next smart steps toward publication.
Presenter: Susanne Dunlap
Title: Let’s Not Speculate: Avoiding Over Explaining and Infodumps in Speculative Fiction
Even in speculative fiction, some things are best left to the imagination. One of the easiest ways to kill a reader’s enjoyment of the plot is by excessively telling the reader what will happen next. This session will focus on how to avoid infodumping in fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, how to integrate worldbuilding and important details with the plot, and how to identify when and where to give your readers more/less information
Presenter: Jacqui Gamanche
Title: How to Find The Story Beneath the Story: A Revision Workshop
Have you been writing your book for a long time, but still suspect there is a vital story buried underneath, one that you can’t quite grasp? Using metaphor as a compass, generative revision as excavation, and form as possibility, we’ll uncover the hidden architecture of your material – the deeper story that’s been trying to emerge all along.
Presenter: Arya Samuelson
Title: Entering the Image: Ekphrastic
This generative workshop invites writers to explore the art of ekphrasis—writing that responds to or transforms a visual artwork. Participants will learn to use images as catalysts for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Using the Amherst Writers & Artists approach to writing, participants will have the opportunity to share their work with the group and receive feedback.
Presenter: Elizabeth Levine, M.A., M.P.H., M.F.A., Straw Dog Writer’s Guild Member
Time: 3:30pm-4:45pm
Title: Writing Your Controversial Views
We will explore tiptoeing towards the topics you are scared to write about, for fear of being ostracized. Using fiction, abstraction, poetry and/or direct narrative to express your most taboo viewpoints, we will liberate your worst shadows (or the ones you choose to bring).
Presenter: Chaya Grossberg
Book Promotion Bootcamp
With over 4 million new books published yearly and the shrinking of the traditional book marketplace, book marketing is increasingly done by authors. So how can you maximize your new book finding its way to your readers? Four well-published authors share their experiences and best practices. We’ll discuss hiring publicists, DIY resources, timelines, where and how to pitch for reviews, podcasts, festivals, and events, grassroots promotion, and keeping sane during the process.
Moderator: Ellen Meeropol
Panelists: Suzanne Strempek Shea, Jendi Reiter, and Randy Susan Meyers
Title: Why Me? Memoir and Transforming Memory into Meaning
Each of us has a story – many stories – that help define who we are and how we see the world. In this workshop, we’ll explore various techniques to craft our own experiences and memories into compelling narratives. Through a number of writing exercises and discussion, we’ll unleash our own truth on the page.
Presenter: Helen Fremont
Title: Singing from the Deep End: A Generative Poetry Workshop
In this workshop, poet and teacher Rebecca Hart Olander will provide generative writing exercises based on poems from her new collection, Singing from the Deep End. Participants will gain ideas for creating their own prompts, and start to sing their own songs through hearing model poems and using example prompts.
Presenter: Rebecca Olander
Title: Say it on the Page: How to Craft Lively, Authentic Dialog
A craft-based workshop on writing authentic and reader-engaging dialog in your fiction and non-fiction narratives.
Áine Greaney is an Irish native, Massachusetts transplant and multi-genre writer who has published five books. Her short works have appeared in diverse publications, including Creative Nonfiction, The New York Times, Books Ireland, Poem Alone, The Mid Atlantic Review, and many others. A Pushcart nominee, her work was cited in Best American Essays. She teaches creative and wellness writing in various community, literary and clinical settings.
Presenter: Aine Greaney
Title: Where Ideas Come From
Writers are tasked with constant invention, whether starting fresh or developing an existing project. If you’ve ever felt stuck, you may have wondered, how DO we come up with great ideas? We’re going to learn to trigger our internal geniuses––the powerful mechanism of invention that resides within each of us.
Presenter: Sarah Jane Cody
Title: How Comics Work
This presentation explains how the storytelling devices unique to the comics medium function, serve the narrative, and aid the reader’s experience. The areas of focus are the symbolic language of comics, how time and movement through space are communicated, how text functions within the visual narrative, and how the page is designed to guide the reader’s eye through the placement of text and image. Example pages of comics will be analyzed and explained. At the end there will be a short comics creating assignment.
Presenter: John Rozum
Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm
Venue: Dining Area
Conference Wraps-up. There will be Open Mic at the end of the Event.