Welcome to the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference

January 22-23, 2010

The third annual Roanoke Regional Writers Conference features NPR essayist Janis Jaquith of Charlottesville as its keynote speaker. Among those teaching classes will be John Anderson, whose new book on working through cancer with his wife, Stand by Her: A Breast Cancer Guide for Men, has become something of a national sensation.

Among the other presenters will be Blue Ridge Country editor Cara Modisett, Leisure Publishing Editor-in-Chief Kurt Rheinheimer, two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Rex Bowman, local historian and columnist Darrell Laurent of Lynchburg, writer-educators Roland Lazenby and Jeanne Larsen, former Omni Magazine editor Keith Ferrell (who has written 18 books), poet Melanie Almeder, author and educator Doug Cumming (The Southern Press: Literary Legacies and the Challenge of Modernity), and filmmaker Sara Elizabeth Timmins of Smith Mountain Lake, among others.

The conference, which opens Friday evening with a wine reception in the Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center at Hollins University, features 24 classes and two round-table discussions on Saturday. The conference is aimed at vocational and avocational writers who want to become better at their craft and to network with other writers from the region. The cost, which includes the reception on Friday and lunch on Saturday, is $50.00. (Note: Lunch is not guaranteed for registrations received after January 17, 2010.)

For more details, contact Dan Smith, conference organizer, at editrdan@msn.com or 540-556-8510.