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Kristina McMorris, a former actress and New York Times best-selling author of the popular “Sold on a Monday” and six other historical novels, will keynote the 12th annual Southwest Washington Writers Conference on Saturday, Sept. 12.
The conference also features a second keynote speaker, children’s author Rosanne Parry, New York Times best-selling author of “A Wolf Called Wander,” “A Whale of the Wild” and nearly a dozen other novels for young readers.
The two speakers from Portland, along with Friday master class instructor Shawn Inmon, an independent author who grew up in Riffe and lives in Tumwater, will be featured at the Friday Evening with Authors. That event is sponsored by the local chapter of the American Association of University Women.
Both the conference and the AAUW event benefit nonprofits. Conference proceeds go toward scholarships provided through the Centralia College Foundation and those from the AAUW’s Evening with Authors benefit Hope Alliance, which serves survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The conference also is fortunate to host Derek Sheffield, the eighth Washington State Poet Laureate, who will teach a poetry workshop. Altogether, the conference will offer 24 hour-long workshops, six in four different time slots, so writers will have plenty of choices. Workshops focus on writing for children, mysteries, memoirs, screenwriting, blogs, newsletters, substacks, the difference between showing and telling, nonfiction book proposals, query letters, historical research, fantasy, humor, letters and book marketing.
Early registration opens tomorrow, April 1. For information, visit www.southwestwashingtonwriters.com.
Once I discovered that award-winning author Kristina McMorris lived in Portland, I sent a request to her every year for three or four years, asking if she would keynote our conference. This year, she responded affirmatively!
I loved “Sold on a Monday,” which she wrote after seeing the infamous newspaper photograph of a mother standing on a porch with her face turned away while four youngsters sit on the steps. A posted sign reads “4 Children for Sale” with the note “Inquire Within.” It’s a heartbreaking photo, and her novel delves into the life of a Depression-era reporter who snaps a similar photo with devastating consequences. The 2018 novel spent five months on the New York Times bestsellers list, sold more than a million copies and garnered many five-star reviews on Goodreads.
I’ve also enjoyed her other novels — “The Ways We Hide,” “Bridge of Scarlet Leaves,” “The Pieces We Keep,” “The Edge of Lost,” “When We Had Wings” (a collaborative novel with two other authors) and her latest, “The Girls of Good Fortune,” which explores the Shanghai Tunnels in 1888 Portland. She also has two published novellas.
McMorris, who at age 9 hosted an award-winning kids’ television program, acted in films while living in Los Angeles. She later owned a wedding and event planning company and hosted The WB Television Network’s weekly Weddings Portland Style program for six years. She wrote for Portland Bride & Groom magazine and directed public relations for an international conglomerate for a decade. In 2001, she published a cookbook of her grandmother’s recipes, “Grandma Jean’s Rainy Day Recipes,” with proceeds benefitting a food bank. Her grandfather’s letters to his sweetheart inspired her to write her first World War II novel, “Letters from Home.” She also collaborated with her sister, artist Amanda Yoshida, on the picture book “Ellie Mae Dreams Big!”
At the Saturday conference, McMorris will offer a keynote called “The Accidental Author,” followed by a workshop, “Writing Hacks from a Bestseller,” where she’ll share her favorite writing tips, packed with applicable examples for creative ways to develop compelling characters, interweave backstory, maximize the impact of chapter endings, and much more — all to keep the pages turning.
Rosanne Parry, who writes from her tree-house studio in her cozy backyard in Portland, also works at a bookstore called Annie Bloom’s Books. She visits schools to talk to her readers about her books, the joy of writing and the beauty of the natural world. Two of her books, “Written in Stone” and “A Whale of the Wild,” are set on the Olympic Peninsula, and she’s revisiting the rainforest for her next two books.
Her novels for middle grade students, highly recommended by Library Journal, often focus on the realistic portrayal of animals and their struggles for survival. “A Wolf Called Wander,” based on a real wolf named OR-7, details his struggle to survive wildfires, hunters and hunger during his thousand-mile journey across the Pacific Northwest after being separated from his family.
Parry, who grew up in Oregon, never planned to be a quiet and studious author because she loves the outdoors and enjoys moving rather than sitting. She preferred to pursue a career as a circus flyer as she climbed trees, balanced on top of tall things, and made up stories of adventure and mystery, animals and magic for her older brother.
Her first novel, “Heart of a Shepherd,” was published by Random House Children’s Books in 2009. Her other books include “A Horse Named Sky,” “Big Truck Day,” “The Wolf Effect,” “Last of the Name,” “The Turn of the Tide” and “Second Fiddle.”
At the Saturday conference, she’ll present a keynote on “Paths to Success in Traditional Publishing” and teach a workshop on “Finding the Gold in Your Story Setting.”
Every other year, we invite the Washington State Poet Laureate, sponsored by Humanities Washington and The Washington State Arts Commission/ArtsWA, to teach at our conference. This year, Derek Sheffield, who grew up in the Willamette Valley and on the shores of the Salish Sea, will teach a poetry workshop.
Sheffield is the author of four books — “Not for Luck,” which won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize; “Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry,” which won the 2024 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award; “Through the Second Skin”; and “Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance and Democracy.” His poems also have appeared in High Country News, Poetry and Orion. He is on the English faculty at Wenatchee Valley College and Western Colorado University. He also teaches a Northwest Nature Writing class.
In his workshop, Sheffield will guide participants through critical readings of specific poems before they pen their own.
At the Friday master class, Seattle developmental editor Christine Pinto will present a three-hour intensive class on “Diamonds in the Rough: Effectively Using Research to Craft Compelling Stories.” Pinto, who holds certificates in writing for children and in editing, will help writers learn to seamlessly blend research and backstory into their plots and dialogue using in-class exercises. She’ll also show how writers can evaluate feedback and analyze how to use it to improve their work. They’ll gain a deeper understanding of their projects and plans for polishing their stories into captivating gems.
Pinto, who works for Allegory Editing, is the author of “Klahowya: A Fort Nisqually Book” in Chinook Wawa and English.
In the afternoon, Shawn Inmon will teach a three-hour session called “Write, Publish, Prosper: How to Build a Successful Writing Career.” After graduating from Mossyrock High School in 1978, Inmon studied prelaw at the University of Washington before dropping out to enroll in Ron Bailie School of Broadcast, where he graduated in 1980. After working decades as a disc jockey, he became a real estate broker for 23 years and then launched his writing career in 2012, when he penned a novel called “Feels Like the First Time” about his first love, his high school sweetheart. They both married other people after high school but reunited after raising their separate families and married.
Since then, Inmon has published 53 books, including 24 in his popular Middle Falls time-travel series, and earns a six-figure income from writing.
In his workshop, Inmon will inspire writers to ditch self-limiting ideas and achieve their dreams as published writers with successful careers. He’ll discuss his path to publishing, challenges faced and how to overcome them. He’ll address studying the market vs. pursuing passions, outlining vs. writing organically, the best way to start writing, the most important focus, rewriting and editing, and how to find editors, proofreaders, book formatters, cover designers and audio book narrators. He’ll also discuss how to price and market books using ads, social media, newsletters, and other options.
Inmon said, “My two favorite writing quotes come from the same person, Richard Bach: ‘A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit,’ and ‘Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.’”
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo and president of the Southwest Washington Writers Conference, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.
