Ligonier Valley Writers Conference

Ligonier Valley Writers Conference to Take Place July 26

Mark your calendar for the 21st Ligonier Valley Writers Conference on Saturday, July 26.

Four great faculty members will present workshops and seminars and will work with you to improve your writing.

o Fiction: Damian Dressick is a Pushcart nominee and winner of the 2007 Harriette Arnow Award for short fiction. His work has appeared or is slated toappear in more than 25 literary journals, including failbetter.com, New Delta Review, Alimentum, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Caketrain and Vestal Review. Founding curator of Pittsburgh's UPWords Reading Series, Damian has written extensively about Pennsylvania' appear in more than 25 literary journals, including failbetter.com, New Delta Review, Alimentum, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Caketrain and Vestal Review. Founding curator of Pittsburgh's UPWords Reading Series, Damian has written extensively about Pennsylvania's coal country, including a historical novel and "Home Brew."

o Nonfiction: Lori Jakiela, author of Miss New York Has Everything (Warner, 2006). The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review says, "This is a marvel of a memoir, both laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly moving, about a western Pennsylvania girl who escapes her small-town roots. She comes home, ditching her big-city dreams, when her father gets sick." Lori is also the author of a poetry chapbook, The Regulars (Liquid Paper Press, 2001). Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Creative Nonfiction, Pittsburgh Quarterly, River Styx, and elsewhere. Her essay "I'm Not a Zombie but I Played One on TV" was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She serves as a speaker for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and teaches in the writing program at Pitt Greensburg. She lives and writes in the house where she grew up in Trafford (birthplace of the chocolate-covered pickle). Visit Lori at www.lorijakiela.

o Poetry: Nancy Krygowski, whose first book of poems, Velocity, won the 2006 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. Gerald Stern says, "This is a wide-eyed, modest, assertive, wild, well-read, street-smart, edgy, loving, suffering, heaven-crazed poet. It's a joy to find her." A recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, a Pittsburgh Foundation Grant, and awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Nancy is cofounder and assistant artistic director of the Gist Street Reading Series. She works as an adult literacy instructor.

o Mystery: Casey Daniels, author of the Pepper Martin series, in which a cemetery tour guide in Cleveland finds herself solving crimes for ghosts. The first book in the series is Don of the Dead, about a Mafia don who wants Pepper to solve his murder. Publishers Weekly said of the second book in the series, The Chick and the Dead, "Daniels keeps things moving and amusing with her breezy chick-lit style andsharp dialogue." Visit Casey at www.caseydaniels. sharp dialogue." Visit Casey at www.casey sharp diRepresentatives from several Pittsburgh-area literary magazines will also be available to meet with writers one on one.This year the conference has been streamlined to save writers both time and money. We've squeezed the workshops and seminars on all four genres into one day (not to mention the picnic dinner and faculty readings).

The cost of the conference is only $70 for LVW members and $80 for nonmembers, plus $15 for the dinner Saturday night. Conference brochures will be available soon. To request a brochure and registration form, visit www.ligoniervalleyw

This year the conference has been streamlined to save write jgallagher@lhtot.jga.

Ligonier Valley Writers is a nonprofit group serving writers and readers throughout western Pennsylvania. Full membership is open to everyone interested in writing in any genre.

LVW offers workshops, lectures, writing contests, and other events throughout the year. For more information about any LVW event or publication, visit www.ligoniervalleyw Ligonier Va