Meet Your Teachers

OCW Fall 2009 One Day Conference

"Writers as Builders and Busters of Walls"

“The day for building your walls will come, the day for extending your boundaries.“  Micah 7:11 NIV

Imagine a world without walls. How strange would that be? Most walls are necessary. We find them everywhere. Some are fascinating. Some are frightening. Seawalls, fortress walls, prison walls, tall walls, short walls, emotional walls, and walls to protect where we live, work, and worship. Because the power of story is at work, writers are expert wall builders and busters. Well-assembled stories leave thoughts of hope in a reader’s mind. And words skillfully crafted tear down cruel barriers to liberate a troubled soul.

Award-winning author and speaker Eva Marie Everson is our fall keynote speaker. Some of her best experiences have involved walls. You won’t want to miss “A Fall at the Wall: The Day My Life Changed,” or “Nehemiah’s Wall: Your Role in God’s Business.” This remarkable lady grew up in a rural Southern town in Georgia just outside Savannah. She is married, has four children and four grandchildren, and now lives in Central Florida.

Eva Marie taught Old Testament theology for six years at Life Training Center in Longwood, Fla., and has written articles for Crosswalk.com (including the acclaimed Falling Into The Bible series). She also has had articles featured in numerous publications, including Christianity Today, Evangel, Christian Bride, Christian Retailing, The Godly Business Woman, and Marriage Partnership magazines. In 2002 Eva Marie was one of six Christian journalists sent to Israel for a special ten-day press tour. She is working with Israel to take five writers back with her for a tour designed especially for them in early November 2009. Eva Marie’s work includes the award-winning titles Reflections of God’s Holy Land; Shadow of Dreams; Sex, Lies, and the Media; and The Potluck Club. She has written and seen published more than 20 titles including the recently released Things Left Unspoken. In 2009 and 2010 look for more books in the Potluck series as well as the release of the next work of Southern fiction, This Fine Life. In 2011-2013 the Return to Cedar Key series will be released.

Eva Marie is a graduate and student of Andersonville Theological Seminary, a mentor for Christian Writers Guild, past president of the Advanced Writers & Speakers Association’s steering committee and the recipient of its Member of the Year Award for 2002, past president of Word Weavers, a graduate of CLASS, and a past panelist for The Writers View-2. She speaks both nationally and internationally for women’s groups, churches, and at writers’ conferences and workshops.

Eva Marie’s first afternoon workshop, “Turning Articles into Books,” is for everyone who has ever wondered how some books are turned into articles or how some articles turn into books. Eva Marie has successfully seen two sets of articles, written for Crosswalk.com, become books (Reflections of God’s Holy Land became a multiple award-winner). In this easy-to-follow workshop, Eva Marie will guide you to understand what makes an article an article, how to turn one or a series of them into a book, and then reverse the system to use the book for article ideas.

Her second workshop presentation is “And Things That Go Bump in the Night.” What makes a story suspenseful? Intriguing? What elements sprinkled throughout your story will keep readers reading and hearts thumping until the last page? Join Eva Marie in this workshop to find out how you can add suspense and intrigue to your novels.

Randy Ingermanson will teach the workshop “Writing the Super-Article for Your Web Site.” Randy has an article on his site that has garnered nearly a million page views and brings more than 1,000 visitors to his site every single day. What can you do with traffic like that? Lots! But first you have to get it. Randy will teach you every trick he knows for using the Web to increase your mindshare, fame, and income.

In his second workshop, Randy will teach “Building a Massive E-Mail Database.” Randy’s Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine is the largest electronic magazine in the world on how to write fiction, with more than 17,000 readers. He built this list legally and honestly, and he’ll show you what you need to do in order to build your own list. All Internet marketers know that the money is in your e-mail database, so this is your first step to achieving Total World Domination—or at least earning your share of the money that other people are earning on the Web right now.

Randy was both class nerd and class clown. He’s the author of six novels and has won about a dozen awards for his writing. Randy holds a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley and is a fiction teacher known around the world for his famous “Snowflake” method. He publishes the world’s largest electronic magazine on fiction writing, the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

OCW Webmaster Angella Foret Diehl presents “Effective E-Newsletters.” Popular novelist Dean Koontz has perfected a method of making thousands of people hungry for more action—six weeks before the book is released! How does he do this? Effective e-newsletters! Learn how to create and market an e-newsletter and use your e-newsletter to publicize (and publish!) your writing.

Angella is also an avid journalist. Her second workshop is “Ruthless: Self-Editing Journalism-Style.” Newspaper editors are among the most ruthless when it comes to word count, grammar, and presentation. Learn how to be your own ruthless editor using the journalism tools of a much-edited freelancer for The Oregonian.

Angella is a freelance writer and Web designer in Portland. Involved in OCW for more than 12 years, Angella is also a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, MomBloggers, and the Redeemed Writers critique group. Her journalism and writing credits include newspaper columns and articles in computer and technical magazines. Her work also appears in the Hillsboro Argus and Christian News Northwest, and in blogs and Internet publications. In what little spare time she has between raising boys and creating blogs, Angella enjoys reading, knitting, and teaching art and writing to elementary school students.

Professor and poet Colette Tennant instructs “Strong Walls for Strong Christian Poetry.” Robert Frost begins his poem “Mending Wall” with the line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” And later on in the poem, he writes, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offence.” Even though poets sometimes don’t like to follow specific rules, we’ll look at some general guidelines for building good poems. We’ll examine poems that seem to wall something in, poems that wall something out, and poems that might give offence for one reason or another. We’ll examine whether they’re good poems or not. Please bring writing material because we’ll write a few poems in the workshop.

Colette is an English professor. Her poems have appeared in Rosebud, Pudding, Dos Passos Review, Natural Bridge, Global City Review, and Southern Poetry Review, among others. She has poetry forthcoming in Karamu, Cloudbank and Orpheus II. Her manuscript, Commotion of Wings, was a finalist in Main Street Rag’s 2009 book contest and will be published soon.

Sue Miholer will teach “Writing Inspirational Shorts.” Devotionals (aka inspirational shorts) are easy to write because they’re short, and they’re hard to write because they’re short. When you write a devotional, you learn the economy of words. That discipline will serve you well in all your writing. And it’s an easy way to build your clip file. In this workshop, we’ll take everyday events and think about spiritual applications, which is the backbone of writing devotionals. You might even go away with several marketable ideas. Sue will introduce you to one of her favorite places to market devotionals that has published several OCW members.

Sue has written for the last 12 years and through Picky, Picky Ink, her freelance editing and writing business, now does more editing for publishers and individuals than her own writing. Although retired as a classroom assistant for special education students, she still subs quite regularly. She’s a busy grandmother of four and very involved in ministries at her church.

You won’t want to miss OCW’s fall conference. Come ready to look at walls from a fresh perspective. Writing is one part inspiration and the other part knowledge of the craft.