Green Lake Christian Writers Conference - Fiction Writing Class

It has been slightly over two weeks since I attended this excellent writers conference. I was amazed by the Green Lake Conference Center as soon as I drove through those impressive gates! My heart thudded a different tempo as I enjoyed the ride deep into the property to find a stunning conference center. The service and friendliness of the workers astounded me. One lady remembered my name as I approached the desk. She acted like it was an easy feat to  accomplish, but I was aware of the number of customers roving around. I was awed!

I even asked for a change in the location of my room. I had originally picked an out-of-the-way smaller on-site room situation. I had done that  because I knew I would miss walking Porschea and thought I might need the exercise. My authors mind imagined the very worse as I drove the roads to arrive at my room later that night. It was an older building and I wanted a more modern experience this time around. I asked for a room situated in the same building as our classes and worship services. I was treated with the utmost respect and they never made me feel small for changing  my mind. There were many volunteers helping to keep the grounds beautiful. A couple of them attended our fiction writers class!

Cynthia Ruchti was our warm-hearted teacher at the conference. She is the author of They Almost Always Come Home Abingdon Press and A Door County Christmas, which is a four in one story collection by Barbour.  She also writes for The Heartbeat of the Home’s Backyard Friends magazine which is awesome too. I am reading They Almost Always Come Home right now and her writer’s voice is amazing!  I recommend this read to anyone!

Okay I drifted!  Let’s move on about the conference shall we? Well, Cynthia is an amazing teacher. Our group was diverse in topics and levels of experience. ( I for one am not published yet. There was at least one other person published.) Our class was small as you can see in the photo, yet our subjects and ages we were writing for were all extremely different. Cynthia showed us her amazing ability as she listened to our reads. She never messed with anyone’s writers voice. Her suggestions improved each one of our works-in-progress or what we call wips! Cynthia’s quick appreciation for our distinct styles gave us room to grow, as well as her ability to gently point out areas where we needed improvement. Not only did she provide us with a lot of useful information, but she accomplished this with her unique humor! We all applauded Cynthia’s efforts. Each one of us came away in awe of how useful this class was to our unique needs and interests. I will be ever grateful for following that nudge from the Lord to attend this conference. It is held each year in August and is quite affordable when compared to other conferences available. I haven’t done the math yet, but I image if I save a little money each week that I will have next years food, room and conference fees saved up and drawing interest before too long. This conference offers that one on one attention that I really needed at this stage of my writing adventure. I will tell you more about the other teachers from this conference later….stay tuned to find out about the benefits of attending their classes! I must add that there were writers who wished to be published and others who just desired to work on their skills for private enjoyment. Poets, short story writers, memoir writers, and fiction writers all benefited from the attention and expertise this conference offers each year. Want to join us next year??? I dare you….No I double dare you!!