NONFiction / CRAFT

Nonfiction

9:00AM – 9:50AM
How to Create and Publish a Nonfiction Anthology
Amy Roost

Drawing from her experience conceiving of and co-editing two anthologies, Amy Roost will discuss the essential elements for producing a captivating nonfiction anthology. Learn how to define the theme of your anthology, identify your target audience, set goals for your project, recruit and select contributors, announce a call for submissions, review and select entries, ensure a diverse group of contributors, invite contributors with high profiles, design a cover, organize content, ensure consistency, get author agreements, choose a publishing route, and promote your anthology to readers.

AMY ROOST is the editor of two feminist anthologies: Fury: Women's Lived Experiences During the Trump Era (Pact Press, 2020), and (Her)oics: Women's Lived Experiences During the Pandemic (Pact Press, 2021). Her flash nonfiction essay "The Wait(ress)" was published in A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays. Roost earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University and  has bylines in multiple publications including, Ms. Magazine, Narratively (2019 Editor's Choice), Writers Magazine, Dame, Next Avenue, Publisher's Weekly, and Guideposts.

10:00AM – 10:50AM
Speculative Nonfiction 101: Memory & Meaning
Hannah Grieco

Speculation: the contemplation or consideration of a subject. To think about something in a new way, not necessarily based on observable facts.

Nonfiction: narrative prose based on facts and reality.

Memory, as we all know, is subjective. And it's worn into us, events repeating in our minds until we're absolutely sure of our truth. But what happens if we stretch beyond that understanding? If we explore the "what if," symbolic storytelling, or even ghost stories? What might we write if we're brave enough to reexamine our personal history?

HANNAH GRIECO's debut short story collection First Kicking, Then Not is out now from Stanchion Books. She teaches writing at Marymount University, works as a private book coach and editor, and writes a literary column for Washington City Paper. Read more of her work in The Washington Post,The Independent, Al Jazeera, Brevity, Wigleaf, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, Fairy Tale Review, and more. Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on most social media @writesloud.

11:00AM – 11:50AM
Tiny Truths: Writing Micro Memoir
Laura J. Oliver

In this lively workshop, you'll discover the powerful skill of telling your story in 300-800 words. Whether you're new to writing or a seasoned storyteller, you'll learn how to distill memory and emotion into vivid, unforgettable snapshots. Through guided prompts, inspiring examples, and supportive discussion, we'll explore how small moments can reveal big truths. Come away with the tools to keep writing short, sharp memoirs that resonate. Perfect for busy writers, curious minds, and anyone with a story to tell.

LAURA J. OLIVER is an author, columnist, developmental story editor, and writing mentor. She is the author of The Story Within, New Insights and Inspiration for Writers (Penguin Random House). Her fiction and nonfiction appear in national magazines, newspapers and literary reviews and her weekly newspaper column is featured every Wednesday as "This is How the Story Goes" on NPR's Morning Edition. She taught at the University of Maryland and St. Johns College and has won a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction and an Anne Arundel County Literary Arts Award.

3:00PM – 3:50PM
Collaborate to Create: Coauthoring Nonfiction
Matty Dalrymple

Collaborating with a fellow author can leverage shared expertise, improve quality through joint oversight, lighten the workload, and expand your audience reach—all while creating new opportunities for income and platform growth. But co-authoring isn't without challenges. Navigating creative differences, managing logistics, and maintaining a strong working relationship can be tricky. This workshop equips you with actionable strategies to evaluate coauthoring opportunities, establish rock-solid partnership agreements, and streamline the writing and editing process for a successful collaboration. Attendees will walk away with a clear framework to assess whether co-authoring is right for them, tips for managing partnerships effectively, and tools to make the most of collaborative opportunities while avoiding common pitfalls.

MATTY DALRYMPLE educates and advocates for writers as The Indy Author. She is the host of The Indy Author Podcast and writes nonfiction books for writers, and her articles have appeared in Writer's Digest magazine. She serves as ALLi's Campaigns Manager. Matty is also the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels and Suspense Shorts. She is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime.

4:00PM – 4:50PM
Finding a Voice: Reporting on My Homeland and Seeking an Audience in the United States
Tsisnami "Sissy" Sakvarlishvili

Every time I introduce myself in America, I say, "Hello, I'm Sissy, from Georgia." The response is often: "But you don't have a Southern accent." I smile and explain: Georgia is not the U.S. state, but a small nation at the crossroads of Europe and Asia with its own language, culture, and history. Too often mistaken for Russia, Georgia is instead a story of survival and resilience. I know this story intimately. Born in Tbilisi during the Soviet collapse, abandoned at birth, and raised amid war and poverty, I found strength in storytelling. By candlelight, I dreamed of journalism while bombs shook my city.

Those dreams became reality: I am now a journalist, war survivor, and the author of two books: A Diary of a Red-Haired Girl in Georgia, a national bestseller, and Letters from America, which reflects on identity, exile, and resilience. My mission is to share Georgia's overlooked history and culture with American audiences—whether through essays on Soviet repression, reflections on the Rose Revolution, or narratives of survival and hope.

Through journalism and literature, I strive to bridge cultures, challenge stereotypes, and inspire readers with the resilience of the Georgian spirit. Georgia is not just a place on the map—it is a voice the world deserves to hear.

TSISNAMI "SISSY" SAKVARLISHVILI is a multilingual journalist and writer whose work spans several countries and platforms. She began her career writing in Georgian for major news agencies such as GogaTV and previously Editori.ge. She later expanded her voice internationally, contributing articles in Italian for the well-known Tuscan publication Paese Sera Toscana.

Today, Tsisnami continues to build her global presence. She writes powerful, thought-provoking stories for the Pulitzer Center and contributes to the respected local paper, The East Hampton Star.Her third book—and her first book written in English, titled Georgia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union, debuts in 2026. This work blends history, personal experience, and cultural analysis, offering readers a rare and intimate perspective on Georgia’s post-Soviet journey. Tsisnami’s dream is to become a well-known and widely read author in the United States, using her unique voice to inspire a new generation. Through her resilience, extraordinary life story, and deep love for her homeland, she brings a powerful and unforgettable perspective to modern literature.

Craft

9:00AM – 9:50AM
Sense and Sensibility - without Sentimentality
Randon Billings Noble

We often want to write about the heartfelt beauties of the world— especially in times of uncertainty.  But that desire can lead to work that's too bright, too simple, too trite—and too sentimental. How can we convey our deeply-felt experiences in a way that's sincere but without sentimentality? In this session we'll look at different examples of works that try to be celebratory but not sappy, moving but not maudlin, touching but not treacly. We'll also do some writing exercises to try different ways of writing about the beautiful and the profound with a counterbalance of realism—a little shadow, a little grit—which will make those beauties shine all the more brightly.

RANDON BILLINGS NOBLE's collection Be with Me Always and her anthology of lyric essays, A Harp in the Stars, were published by the University of Nebraska Press. Other work has appeared in the "Modern Love" column of The New York Times, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. Currently she is the founding editor of the online literary magazine After the Art and teaches in West Virginia Wesleyan's Low-Residency MFA Program and Goucher's MFA in Nonfiction Program.

10:00AM – 10:50AM
Not Just a Backdrop: Writing Place as a Lived Experience
Aurora Bonner

Place is more than just background scenery; it's emotional, personal, and alive. In this flash session, writer and teacher Aurora Bonner invites us to re-imagine place not as passive backdrop but as a powerful narrative force. We'll explore how identity, emotion, and lived experience shape our perceptions of landscape, and how place can function as emotional terrain in creative nonfiction. Through insights, tools, and revision tips, Bonner will guide attendees in making place specific, embodied, and essential on the page. Participants will leave with prompts and strategies to revitalize familiar settings with fresh perspective and deeper meaning.

AURORA BONNER is a place-based writer of creative nonfiction and fiction who explores the relationship between identity and environment. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys and DINE, as well as in HerStry, Impost, Under the Gum Tree, and other literary journals. Bonner is a writing professor at McDaniel College in Maryland and leads workshops and retreats focused on nature, creativity, and personal narrative. She holds an MFA from Wilkes University.

11:00AM – 11:50AM
Giving Your Poetry a Voice: Tips for Readings
Jennifer Keith

Together, we explore how to get the most out of participating in poetry readings. We'll discuss ways to choose the poems you'll read, make your reading more dramatic and effective, how to give voice to what's on the page, and tips for general etiquette. Volunteers will have the chance to practice and share feedback. 

JENNIFER KEITH 's poems have appeared in The Free State Review, Fledgling Rag, The Baltimore Review, Best American Poetry 2015, Able Muse, and elsewhere. Keith received the 2014 John Elsberg poetry prize, and was a finalist in the 2021 Erskine J. Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace. Her first full-length book of poems, Terminarch, was chosen by David Yezzi for the 2023 Able Muse Book Award. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

3:00PM – 3:50PM
Never Walk Alone: On Maintaining a Writing Partnership
Anne Colwell & Maribeth Fischer

Workshops, classes, writing groups—these are all known ways to add structure and accountability to our writing life, not to mention the incredible benefit that usually comes from having others looking at our work. But a writing partnership—just two writers—offers all that and so much more. In this discussion, writing partners of 23 years share their advice about how to form a partnership as well as their insights about the surprising ways a partnership (as opposed to a group) has deepened, altered, and improved all aspects of their writing.

ANNE COLWELL is the author of the story collection, Broken Heart Syndrome (2025) as well as the poetry books Believing Their Shadows and Mother's Maiden Name. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Bellevue Literary Review, California Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, and The Madison Review, and she is the recipient of fellowships from the Delaware State Arts Council, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She is a professor of English at the University of Delaware.

MARIBETH FISCHER is the author of three novels, The Language of Goodbye, The Life You Longed For and A Season of Perfect Happiness. Her books have been sold in the UK as well as Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. Maribeth has published essays in Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, and the Yale Review, and has received two Pushcart Prizes for her essays, which have also been mentioned twice as "notable" in Robert Atwan's Best American Essay series. Maribeth founded the Rehoboth Beach Writers' Guild (RBWG) in 2005, where she currently serves as Executive Director. She teaches classes for the guild in both novel writing and creative nonfiction. She lives in Lewes, Delaware, with her husband, Victor Letonoff, a police officer and writer.

4:00PM – 4:50PM
Revision: Uncovering the Power of Your Story
Karen Outen

Revision often invokes dread but it is actually the magical process by which we uncover our true stories. What if, instead of approaching it as dreaded quick-fix, we thought of it as the writing equivalent of the Yellow Brick Road? At the end, there is the awesome destination of a fully realized short story or novel. Because only through revision can we access the fullest expressions of our stories. In this workshop, we'll learn how revision begins, how to approach it in stages, how to keep going through setbacks, and how to enlist the help of our writers. Using interactive activities, attendees will leave with definitive revision techniques to help them approach the essential work of revision.

KAREN OUTEN's novel Dixon, Descending (Dutton, 2024) was a Library Journal Editor's Pick, was shortlisted for both the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and was longlisted for the Crook's Corner Book Prize. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, an Institute for the Humanities Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MFA; and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

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