Southwest Washington Writers Conference Bringing the Region's Writers Together

Bestselling authors, local writers and those looking to get started in the craft will congregate at Centralia College for the fourth annual all-day Southwest Washington Writers Conference on Sept. 9.

“I learn every time I go to one of these,” said Julie McDonald Zander, an event organizer and local writer and historian. “I love the energy and excitement.”  

This year’s keynote speakers are Robert Dugoni and Mike Lawson. Both are well-known Northwest authors. Dugoni is best known for his mystery novels such as The Tracy Crosswhite Series. Lawson writes thriller novels like the DeMarco Series. 

Dugoni will kick off the conference with a talk titled “This Day We Write,” beginning at 9:30 a.m. in the Walton Science Center on Centralia College’s campus. He will also lead a workshop about creating plots to make page turners. 

Lawson will give the afternoon keynote speech titled “I Used to Have a Job; Now I Write,” at 12:30 p.m. He will host a workshop about navigating not only the narrative of a book but  also the business of publishing.  

Both Lawson and Dugoni will repeat their workshops so people can attend both. 

Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall will teach a workshop about shaping poetry. He will also give a free poetry reading at 7 p.m. on Sept. 9 in the  Minnie Lingreen Auditorium. The reading is sponsored by Book ‘n’ Brush in Chehalis. 

Local self-published author Kyle Pratt will be teaching a workshop about the ins and outs of self-publishing books and how to become successful with it.  

Jennifer Vandenburg and Debby Lee are two more local writers who will be sharing their knowledge about how to create characters to go with a plot and how to write for story collections and anthologies. 

McDonald Zander said the conference will help every writer regardless of their experience or skill level. It will also help writers to expand how they write and approach storytelling. 

For example, McDonald Zander has written nonfiction for the past 30 years. The former reporter for The Chronicle and The Daily News continues to write a column each week for The Chronicle. She is also a personal historian, helping people tell the stories of relatives. She has written many books about local historic figures. 

Now she is trying to learn how to expand her storytelling skills to provide her nonfiction books narrative qualities that allow people to better relate to the history they read. 

The conference begins at 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9, in the Walton Science Center at Centralia College. 

The cost is $100 at the door or $85 if registered before or on Sept. 8. 

For more information about the conference and to register, visit southwestwashingtonwriters.com. 

The event is sponsored by Gorham Printing, Edna Fund, Penny Mauel of Newaukum Valley Farms, Don Harkcom of Harkcom Massage, Chapters of Life, Rectangle Gallery and Olympia area attorney San M. Gilmore.

Meet some of the speakers for the 2017 Southwest Washington Writers Conference:

Here are some of the authors and writers set to speak at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference. These bios appear at southwestwashingtonwriters.com, along with much more information about the conference.

Robert Dugoni 

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Amazon best-selling author of The Tracy Crosswhite series, “My Sister’s Grave,” “Her Final Breath,” “In the Clearing” and “The Trapped Girl,” as well as the best-selling author of the David Sloane Series, “The Jury Master,” “Wrongful Death,” “Bodily Harm,” “Murder One” and “The Conviction,” and the stand-alone novels “The 7th Canon” and “The Cyanide Canary” and several short stories. He is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction, a finalist for the International Thriller Writers and the International Mystery Writers awards and has twice been nominated for the Harper Lee Award for legal fiction. Learn more at www.robertdugoni.com.

Mike Lawson

Keynoter Mike Lawson was raised in Pueblo, Colorado, attended college at Seattle University and earned a degree in engineering. After college, he spent about 30 years working for the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer. He worked in Washington D.C., but most of his career at the naval shipyard in Bremerton where he managed organizations related to overhauling nuclear-powered submarines, cruisers and aircraft carriers. So how did he go from nuclear engineering to writing? The short answer is he likes to write. “I tell people that if you want to be a writer you need some talent, a lot of persistence, and a whole lot of luck,” Mike said. In 2004, he signed with a fantastic agent who liked “The Inside Ring” and found a two-book deal with a publisher. He has since published 10 novels in the DeMarco Series, and a new book called “Rosarito Beach.”

Melanie Dobson

Melanie Dobson is the award-winning author of sixteen timeslip, historical romance and suspense novels, including “Catching the Wind” and “Beneath a Golden Veil.” Three of her novels have won Carol Awards, and “Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana” won Best Novel of Indiana in 2010. Melanie loves to explore old cemeteries and ghost towns, hike in the mountains, read fiction and play board games with her family. She lives near Portland with her husband Jon and two daughters.

Kait Heacock

Kait Heacock grew up in the same city as her literary idol, Raymond Carver, and hopes this means something. Her debut short story collection, “Siblings and Other Disappointments,” is available now. Her fiction has appeared in Esquire, Joyland, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Portland Review, Tin House, tNY.Press and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Her nonfiction has appeared in Bustle, Crab Creek Review, DAME, Largehearthed Boy, Literary Hub, The Millions and The Washington Post.

Jane Hodges

Jane Hodges has worked on staff at Advertising Age, Small Business Computing, Fortune and The Seattle Times and freelanced full time since 2004 for outlets ranging from community papers to newswire Mergermarket and The Wall Street Journal and for corporations including Earnest, Expedia, Motif Investing and Zillow. She’s the author of the book “Rent Vs. Own” (Chronicle Books).

Debby Lee

Debby Lee, raised in the cozy town of Toledo, has published three anthologies with a traditional Christian publisher, Barbour Publishing, with more in the works. The “Courageous Brides” and “Mountain Christmas Brides” anthologies made the Christian Book Expo’s Best-sellers List. She also contributed to three independently published collections that have done well. She has learned what makes an anthology work, and what can freeze it in its tracks. She has been involved in American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America. She is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steven Laube Literary Agency. Debby loves connecting with her readers through her website at www.booksbydebbylee.com.

Tod Marshall

Tod Marshall, the 2016-18 Washington State Poet Laureate, is the Robert K. and Ann J. Powers Endowed Professor in the Humanities at Gonzaga University, where he directs the writing concentration and coordinates the visiting writers’ series. Tod was born in Buffalo, New York, grew up in Wichita, Kansas, and now lives in Spokane. After studying English and philosophy at Siena Heights University, Tod earned a masters of fine arts from Eastern Washington University and a doctorate from the University of Kansas. His work has been published in many journals, including Narrative, The Southern Review, The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Shenandoah, Boulevard, The Colorado Review, The Denver Quarterly, The Columbia Poetry Review, Poetry East, Poetry Northwest, Volt, Interim, The Canary, Willow Springs, Cutbank, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review and elsewhere. He is the author of “Bugle,” released in 2014 by Canarium Books, “The Tangled Line” (released by Canarium in 2009) and “Dare Say” (from University of Georgia Press).

Kyle Pratt

Writers can spend a lifetime creating quality stories but never break into the traditional publishing world. For years, Kyle Pratt, the bestselling author of action-adventure and speculative fiction novels, worked that treadmill. But he left it behind in 2013 to begin “indie publishing.” Within a year he made enough money to quit his 9 to 5 job and write full time. He released “Titan Encounter,” his debut novel, in 2012. “Through Many Fires,” the first book in his post-apocalyptic series “Strengthen What Remains,” came out in paperback, Kindle and on Audible in August 2013. Within two weeks the novel appeared on the Kindle Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic list, reaching No. 10, and topping the list on Dec. 2, 2014. The second book in the series, “A Time to Endure,” reached the No. 1 position on the Amazon Kindle war fiction genre bestseller list just over a month after release and then again in January 2016. At the same time “Braving the Storms” reached the No. 8 spot on the bestseller list. Using the growing arsenal of technologies including Kindle, Kobo, print-on-demand, ACX and the other tools of the digital era, Kyle believes it is possible for many more writers to be what author Guy Kawasaki terms successful APEs — Author, Publisher and Entrepreneurs. You can learn more about Kyle on his website, http://kylepratt.me/.

Veronika Noize

Veronika (Ronnie) Noize, The Marketing Coach, is the founder and managing director of the DIY Marketing Center, which provides classes, coaching and community to small businesses. Ronnie is the author of “How to Create a Killer Elevator Speech” and “Networking for Newbies,” and co-author of “Marketing Strategies that Really Work” from Insight Publications. Ronnie has spoken about and taught small business marketing at more than 200 locations in North America. She is currently ranked in the top 4% of all social media influencers in the world. For more information, visit Ronnie’s websites: www.VeronikaNoize.com and www.DIYMarketingCenter.com.

Jennifer Vandenberg

Jennifer likes to think of herself as a wanderer, since she moves often, changes jobs even more often, and often thinks of six impossible things before breakfast. She lives in Chehalis where she splits her time between a restaurant job and her writing job. She is working on a 12-part short-fiction fantasy detective series. Books 1–6 are available on Amazon.com. This series follows the troubles of a down-on-his-luck private eye on a distant moon. You can find a complete list of her books at www.jennifervandenberg.com.