4:15 - 5:00
 

2. (Sat.) Website I: Develop Your Own Website.
Tony Wootson has worked as a Computer Programmer for twenty years.  During the previous nine, he has designed and maintained websites. 

3. (Sat.) Flash Fiction: Sudden. Flash. Fiction.  For the Fearless.
Randall Brown directs and teaches at Rosemont College’s MFA in Creative Writing program.  He is the author of the award-winning collection Mad to Live and has been published widely. 

4. (Sun.) Website II: Website trafficking, promotion and marketing.
Chris Goldberg has thirty years of experience writing sports and news for daily newspapers in Philadelphia and the suburbs.  He possesses a doctorate in education and launched Phillylacrosse.com in January, 2008.
Walter Cherepinski created WalterFootball.com in 1999. His site generated 47.2 million page views in 2009 as of Nov. 20 and is one of the largest independently-run football sites on the web.

 5. (Sun.) Research for Writers: Get the most from your library’s resources. 
Alison McDonough, essayist and author of the middle-grade novel Do the Hokey Pokey, has worked the reference desk at the Bucks County Free Library for over ten years.

6. Literary Short Story
The essential skills of writing short fiction.
Randall Brown directs and teaches at Rosemont College’s MFA in Creative Writing program.  He is the author of the award-winning collection Mad to Live and has been published widely. 

7. Contemporary Short Story
Discussion of plot, character, and submitting works for publication.
Marc Schuster, PhD, is the author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl, the Associate Fiction Editor of Philadelphia Stories magazine, and the Acquisitions Editor for PS Books.

8. Magazine Writing
Finding good ideas and matching them to the right magazine.
JoAnn Greco writes on design, travel and cities for National Geographic Traveler, Washington Post, Interiors, Globe and Mail, and Penn Gazette.  She is also founder and editor of thecitytraveler.com. 

9. Poetry I
Echoes and reiterations: obsessing over sounds, patterning your passions.
Nathalie Anderson is the author of two award winning books of poetry, Following Fred Astaire and Crawlers.  She directs the Creative Writing Program at Swarthmore College.

11. Playwriting/Screenwriting
Character.  Dialogue.  Conflict.
Bruce Graham’s credits include Films: Dunston Checks In, Anastasia, and Steal This Movie; Plays: Something Intangible, Coyote on a Fence; Book: The Collaborative Playwright (with Michele Volansky).

12. Memoir
Emphasizes methodology, literary techniques and forms of narrative.
James J. Kirschke, Ph.D., Professor of English, Villanova University; four books including Not Going Home Alone; two books in progress, including Wheel to the Past, another memoir; nine years as editor.

13. Juvenile
Keep teens and young readers turning those pages.
Joyce McDonald is the author of six novels, including Swallowing Stones, an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults.  She teaches in Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA in Writing program. 

14. Novel: Setting and Place 
Bring your fiction alive with believable setting and place.
Debbie Lee Wesselmann is the author of Captivity, Trutor and the Balloonist, and The Earth and the Sky.  She has taught fiction writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Lehigh University.

15. Novel: Character
Creating believable characters; developing character motivation, realistic situations, realistic dialogue.
Karen E. Quinones Miller, bestselling novelist and former reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer, has authored seven books.  She’s also a literary agent and nationally- known literary consultant.

16. Nonfiction Book
Applying the principles of momentum to nonfiction books and proposals.
Katherine Ramsland has published over 900 articles, 16 short stories and 37 books, including Writing to Find Your True Self, The CSI Effect, and The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds.

17. Poetry II
Thoughts on Form: exploiting inner structures, leaps and turns.
A.V. Christie’s first book, Nine Skies, won the National Poetry Series; her second book, The Housing, won the McGovern Prize.  Her work has appeared in Poetry, Agni, Crazyhorse, Ploughshares and elsewhere.

   These words are from the PWC bylaws at it’s founding in 1949—retained today—when from 150 to 200 conferees gather annually to experience the intensity of a full-three days of learning about and talking about writing. PWC has been called “the conference with the most learning-hours per dollar,” and credited with  “having true workshops—not just lectures or book talks.”

   To get the most out of attending a writers’ conference, the effective conferee carefully reads the directions for signing up for workshops, for submitting manuscripts, for attending food functions, for talking with an agent or editor, and for following the general guidelines of conferee participation.

   Arrive prepared. Don’t forget paper and pencils for taking notes. (Sorry, laptops are not permitted as the clicking annoys others; nor are tape-recorders permitted as this infringes on the workshop leaders’ rights to their presentations.) At Friday 8:30 a.m. sign-in, conferees  receive a Conferee Packet with helpful information about pertinent writing-related information. The packet folder has space for additional handouts from leaders. However, don’t bring additional manuscripts for leaders to look at—they’ve been promised that won’t happen.

    Because two subjects are so popular, conferees must choose between  two novel or two short story  workshops in duplicate time slots. Without that division, leaders would have an unreasonable load of manuscripts to critique. Nevertheless, throughout the scheduling there are ample workshops to schedule a fiction or nonfiction “track.”

   A conferee lounge is available for meeting other conferees, where one is free to join any group. There are sample magazines and publishers’ guidelines to take home. Conferees may put a limited number of small flyers about their work on the tables, but arrangements with the Book Fair and city tax codes prohibit sales. 

   PWC has a large number of returning-conferees, who say the craft, business, and other applications learned are invaluable, but especially value the interaction with other writers and the inspirational high the workshops and general conference atmosphere create. Conferees, workshop leaders, board members—at PWC, the attitude is  “Speak to anyone as you would have them speak to you, and do it first.”

   The PWC is operated by a volunteer Board of Directors, comprising up to thirty-five elected members, representing a broad range of writing categories. Just as some former conferees have come back to serve as workshop leaders, many of the board members, too, are former conferees. The focus and spirit remain the same—help from professional leaders,  and inspiration that spurs writers to attain their goals.