Does your opening hook your readers? Bring 5 copies of your first page and find out. Published authors and industry professionals will sit down with you to critique your work and help you learn what makes a first page shine.
Month: February 2026
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11:30AM – 12:30PM Friday Belmont Foyer: Lunch
It’s time for lunch! Pre-purchased box lunches are availble in the foyer. Pick up your lunch and join a new colleague or old friend for lunch.
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10:30 – 11:30AM Friday Zoom: Traditional Publishing vs. Independent Publishing
The desire to be published is more prevalent than ever. A record-breaking number of CEOs, entrepreneurs, business professionals, and aspiring writers from all walks of life dream about becoming published authors but are stumped about which road to publication they would like to travel on. Filled with real-life stories, humor, and practical advice Leticia’s workshop will give aspiring and seasoned authors alike the good, bad, and ugly of these two methods of publication. By the end of the presentation, attendees will have gained the clarity needed to decide whether they have the stomach to take the traditional publishing route with the help of a literary agent or strike out on their own to publish their literary masterpiece.
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10:30 – 11:30AM Friday Windsor C: Invite-Only: Timberline Review Writers Workshop
Invite-Only: Our Timberline Authors are invited to join us for a worksop to prep their pieces for tonight’s reading. This performance workshop will be facilitated by author and poet Emmett Wheatfall.
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10:30AM – 4:30PM Friday Windsor B: Master Class: Fluency in Multi-Layered Story Analysis for Revision
Award-winning writer Eric Witchey leads this 5-hour Master Class on analysis and revision. Writing a saleable story is predominantly a revision process. The most important skills are all related to deciding what to revise and, often more importantly, what not to revise. This Master Class explores specific, immediately executable techniques for deconstructing a manuscript, isolating undefined issues, defining them, and selecting a course of action to resolve them. The patterns and skills presented are useful to all levels of writers and are applicable across genres for flash fiction, short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels.
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Emmett Wheatfall
Emmett Wheatfall is an American poet, Oregon Poet Laureate nominee, and recipient of the prestigious Oregon Poetry Association Patricia Ruth Banta Award. His poetry has been published in several books, collections, anthologies, and one of them, As Clean as a Bone, was a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist and a da Vinci Eye award finalist. Emmett has keynoted two Oregon Poetry Association’s Conferences. In 2020, Corban University produced a 9-part series documentary that highlights Emmett’s early life and poetry. Emmett Wheatfall is one of Oregon’s premier poets.
Find out more at https://emmettwheatfall-poet.blogspot.com/ -
Dana Haynes
Novelist Dana Haynes has spent more than 20 years in Oregon newspaper newsrooms, split between weeklies and dailies. He has won awards as a reporter, columnist and editor. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he also served as spokesman for the mayor of Portland, Oregon.
Haynes’ first thriller, CRASHERS was released in 2010 by Minotaur Books, a division of St. Martin’s Press. It won the Spotted Owl Award from Friends of Mystery as 2010’s best mystery or thriller written by a Northwest writer.
His first screenplay, an adaptation of CRASHERS made it to the semifinals of the Nichols Fellowship in 2005.
BREAKING POINT, the sequel to CRASHERS, made its debut in 2011, followed by ICE COLD KILL, the breakout thriller for Daria Gibron, in 2012; and GUN METAL HEART in 2014.
His new novel, ST. NICHOLAS SALVAGE & WRECKING, marks Haynes’s debut with Blackstone Publishing in March 2019.
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10:30 – 11AM Friday Belmont A/B: Writing and Publishing Life
Sit down with published authors as we share honest insights about building a sustainable, fulfilling writing life. We’ll talk about career paths, publishing realities, and ways to protect your creativity and joy. Whether you seek publication or a richer personal practice, you’ll leave with practical ideas and encouragement for the next steps in your writing or publishing life.
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10 – 10:30AM Friday All: Break
There’s so much we’re excited for you to see and do this weekend, but don’t forget to pace yourself. Take a break with a few new friends before you dive deeper into the publishing and writing life.
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9 -10AM Friday Zoom: Quiet Writing
Anytime you need to step back from the virtual conference and get some words written – we’ve got you covered! Our quiet writing zoom room is open for you during workshop hours.