Adam Berg is a real human boy and not a figment of his dog’s imagination. He started his career in sketch comedy, spent six years writing and acting for Studio C, and now works for JK Studios. Feed him cookies, please.

How To Write Comedy or Die Trying

Time to learn my tips, tricks, and pitfalls of writing comedy. If you survive the class, you'll be funnier!

Amber McBride is an English professor at the University of Virginia. She also low key practices Hoodoo and high key devours books (150 or so a year keep her well fed). In her spare time she enjoys pretending it is Halloween everyday, organizing her crystals, watching K-dramas and accidentally scrolling through TikTok for 3 hours at a time. She believes in ghosts and she believes in you.

TBD

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Ari Tison is a Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican) American and African descended poet and storyteller. Her poems and short works have been published in Yellow Medicine Review, The Under Review, Rock & Sling, and POETRY's first ever edition for children. She was the winner of the 2018 Vaunda Micheaux Nelson award for a BIPOC writer with Lerner Publishing. She currently serves as the mentor coordinator for Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop where she gets to support and bring incarcerated voices into the world. Saints of the Household is her debut novel.

Using Folklore and Personal Stories to Influence Our Writing

We all have places we come from and are shaped by. How do we dive into our personal stories and ancestor’s stories to form and grow our own stories and books? In this class, we’ll be looking at ways of working with folklore, storytelling research, and our personal narratives to create fully fleshed characters for our worlds to inhabit.

Bryan Young (he/they) works across many different media. His work as a writer and producer has been called "filmmaking gold" by The New York Times. He's been a regular contributor for the Huffington Post, StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider magazine, SYFY, /Film, and more. In 2014, he wrote the critically acclaimed history book, A Children’s Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination. He co-authored Robotech: The Macross Saga RPG has written two books in the BattleTech Universe: Honor's Gauntlet and A Question of Survival. He teaches writing for Writer’s Digest, Script Magazine, and at the University of Utah.

Watching Movies to Be A Better Writer

We all watch movies, but decoding, analyzing, and understanding movies can help us become better storytellers, no matter what medium we tell our stories in. In this class, Bryan Young will show you techniques used in the cinema and how you can adapt them to your writing style to make it more effective and keep you learning for your entire life.

Donna Milakovic and Debbie Hibbert are YA writers, journalists, and partners in crime. They have countless hours of interviews (and some informal interrogation) experience. In their spare time, they enjoy exploring graveyards, visiting hell gates and eating gelato. Donna has studied intelligence gathering techniques for her Masters in Business Administration and Debbie's debut YA mystery novel is coming soon.

Everybody Talks: Writer Toolbox FBI Interrogations & Journalist Interview Techniques

Have you ever dreaded the long silence when recording a podcast or video? Wanted to interview your favorite author? Or do you have a character in your novel on either side of the interrogation table? In this advanced class, we will learn skills and techniques such as an hourglass conversation, the stealth approach, and the art of why. Gleaning techniques from intelligence agencies like the FBI and professional journalists, we will learn to seamlessly shape a conversation for optimal information gathering. Use these robust tools for your writer toolbox to question your characters, meet your favorite superstars or even get a date.

Elizabeth Lowham has a BA in English from BYU-Idaho. She has loved books all her life and started writing seriously at age fifteen. Apart from reading and writing, her hobbies include sewing, sketching, eating, and other -ing verbs. Plus yoga. Her debut novel, Beauty Reborn, releases in May.

A Writer is Born . . . and Reborn

When Elizabeth Lowham was fifteen years old, she attended a writing conference for teens, hoping to learn more about how to write a book and maybe—someday—even get it published. It was a long journey from that first conference to getting her first book published, and in this presentation, Elizabeth will share five things she learned during her journey that can help other young writers carve their own path to publication.

Elly Swartz is the acclaimed author of five middle grade novels: Finding Perfect, Smart Cookie, Give and Take, Dear Student and Hidden Truths (coming 2023). All of her books reflect her commitment to raising awareness about mental health. Swartz studied psychology at Boston University and received a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Swartz resides in Massachusetts.

FINDING YOUR INNER SUPERHERO: Dreaming big, persevering, and what it truly means to be brave.

With equal parts gratitude, commitment, passion, and inspiration, Swartz shares in this interactive presentation her long journey to yes and her thoughts on dreaming big, preserving, and what it truly means to be brave. To Swartz, bravery goes beyond the tropes in superhero movies. Bravery is what gives you the courage to stand up for yourself and others. The spark to be curious. The freedom to make mistakes. And the strength to get back up. It gives you the room to dream and the patience you need to get there. Bravery is not just for the popular, the loud, and the confident. Bravery is for everyone. Be brave! Be fearless! Be you! “[P]art pep rally, part motivational speech" is what the Enterprise News called Swartz’s interactive assembly.

Emma Nelson is the founder of Owl Hollow Press, a small traditional publishing house with multiple award-winning titles. She has an M.A. in Literature and Folklore and has taught university writing classes. As an author, her non-fiction is published in Channeling Wonder: Fairy Tales on Television (Wayne State University Press), Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Cultures and Media (Routledge), and Dirty Drafting: Fast Draft Your Way into a Finished Novel and a Consistent Writing Habit.

Creating Characters that Resonate with Readers

One of the main reasons we as readers (and writers!) love fiction is the chance to experience a great character who grows and changes throughout their journey. Whether it’s a villain, hero, anti-hero, or side character, it’s the realistic characters with complex personalities and emotions that we fall in love with and root for. As writers, we want to elicit those same feelings in our own readers. This class will provide tips and tricks for creating powerful, multi-dimensional characters that connect with readers, capturing their attention and loyalty from your very first page.

Frank L. Cole was born into a family of southern storytellers and wrote his first book at age eight. Highly superstitious and gullible to a fault, Frank will believe in any creepy story you tell him, especially ones involving ghosts and Big Foot. Currently, along with his wife and three children, he resides in the shadow of a majestic western mountain range, which is most likely haunted. Potion Masters The Seeking Serum is Frank’s 12th published book.

Using Role Playing Games to Improve your Writing

Storytelling makes up the heart of good role playing games. Coincidentally, storytelling is also important in writing books! Why not use what you learn from RPGs to improve your craft? From character creation to backstory, strategic plot reveal to character alignment, writing a novel is surprisingly a lot like starting a role playing game and we’ll show you how you can use the basics of RPG to write yours.

Heather Clark is the author of LEMON DROP FALLS. She lives in Utah, with her husband and three children who inspire the books she writes. After dealing with her own childhood anxiety and OCD, Heather is passionate about representing neurodiverse children powerfully in fiction. Heather is the cofounder of MG Book Party podcast and program director for Tween Author Boot Camp. When not working, you’ll find her camping, knitting, or board gaming. Learn more at www.HeatherClarkBooks.com.

So You Want To Try Being A Plotter . . . Maybe?

You're intuitive. You're a pantser. But you're tired of writing without guard rails. Tired of tapping out of ideas midway through. Maybe those plotters have something going for them. Come learn to plot while still maximizing your intuitive gifts. Come learn different approaches to gently "herding the kittens" of your story. Try on and combine several different plotting/outlining paradigms—applied at any stage of the writing process—so your natural creativity still flows through your whole story.

Howard Tayler is the writer and illustrator behind Schlock Mercenary, the Hugo-nominated science fiction comic strip, available online at schlockmercenary.com. He also co-hosts the Hugo and Parsec award-winning “Writing Excuses” podcast, a weekly 'cast for genre-fiction writers, with Mary Robinette Kowal, Erin Roberts, Dongwon Song, and Dan Wells. Howard has written tie-in fiction for Privateer Press, horror for the Space Eldrich anthologies, Planet Mercenary RPG and was the illustrator (and co-author) for X-treme Dungeon Mastery.

Microstructures in Storytelling

Join Howard Tayler, cartoonist and humorist, to learn about writing humor, fixing jokes that don't work, and fine-tuning jokes so they work exactly the way they're supposed to.

J Scott Savage is the author of 20 published novels, including Farworld, Case File 13, Mysteries of Cove, The Lost Wonderland Diaries, and Graysen Foxx Treasure Hunter releasing in Spring 2023. His novels have received many awards and recognitions including Amazon Book of the Month, Barnes and Noble Select Book, Jr. Library Guild, and others. He is represented by Michael Bourret of Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret.

Four Part Pacing

The three most common issues I see when I talk to writers who are struggling with a story are: Main message, through-line, and pacing. Interestingly, these three issues are almost always tied to one another. If you know what your character will learn and how they will change in the course of the story (the heart of your story), it’s much easier to figure out what will make them struggle earlier on, and how they will accomplish their objective at the end (the through-line.) Once you know those, you can lay out the milestones to take them from start to finish, and especially how to keep the middle from sagging. In this class, we will focus on each of the four parts of your story and how four-part pacing can help you outline, draft, and edit your story to make it more powerful and keep the story tight.

Jared Quan is a video game addict and writer published in genres from Spy-Thriller to Horror/Supernatural, to Fantasy-Comedy. His work includes Ezekial’s Gun, Changing Wax, Classified, Pathological Passion, (Futuristic/Romance/Steampunk, which he co-wrote with his wife), Unclassified, and Prepped (a story in the Apocalypse Utah anthology).

Finding Your Work/Life Balance

Teens are facing challenges few could have imagined. Learn about tools and tips you can arm teens with to better cope with existing and upcoming challenges to help find a balance for their lives.

Jayrod P. Garrett longs for a world in which all of us are treated as humans. Currently he’s studying at the University of Nevada - Reno seeking an MFA in Fiction. He's published poetry and essays in local venues and teaches Theater, Creative Writing, and Language Arts at Hillcrest Junior High.

Flow 101: How to Play When We Write

Writing should be an improvisational act that we enjoy, but often we get mired in not knowing what to write or how to write it and we freeze ending up writing nothing at all. But that’s not how it has to be. Writing should also be play. In our class, we’ll explore the basics of flow and play, how an understanding of improv supports it, and finally experiment with playful writing.

Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jeff Wheeler took an early retirement from his career at Intel in 2014 to write full-time. He is a husband, father of five, and a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Raising the Stakes: How to Keep Readers Hooked on a Series

Editors like to repeat the mantra to "raise the stakes" after each book in a fantasy series. Tension is what drives readers to turn the pages/tap the screen well past a reasonable time for turning off the lights. In writing fantasy, creating peril is the key ingredient. This class will discuss how to increase the sense of jeopardy and conflict in a story that will make your characters more interesting, the plot more riveting, your villains more menacing, and the setting more intense—while influencing your readers to delay putting the book down in order to read just "one more chapter!"

Jennifer Jenkins is the author of eight published novels including A Necessary Madness (2022), Teen Writer's Guide: Your Road Map to Writing (2020), The Lingering Sea novels (2020), and the Nameless trilogy (2018). She works as the Executive Director and co-founder of TABC and teaches creative writing at Utah Valley University. In her spare time, she pretends to have spare time.

How to Fail at Writing: And other lessons you didn't know you needed

There are so many classes on how to succeed in writing. The truth is, failure and rejection are a big part of creation and publishing. In this class I will coach you on a healthy approach to writing a novel, covering subjects on combating writer's block, rejection, and the monster who can become the greatest villain of all: ourselves.

Jennifer Nielsen writes books, eats chocolate, and takes walks in the mountains (sometimes all at once!). She lives in Northern Utah with her family, and is thinking about getting a goat.

The First Five Pages

Breaking down the first five pages of a novel to catch the agent or reader’s attention.

Jessica Day George is the NYT Bestselling author of over a dozen middle grade and YA fantasy books. She lives with her one husband, three kids, and one dog, and loves books, knitting, books, movies, books, dark chocolate, books, and travel.

What Are Dragons Made Of?

Building your own fantasy world, how much planning, research, and staring at the wall does it take?

Jo Schaffer Layton is a YA author, speaker, Taekwondo black belt, screenplay writer and a founding member of the nonprofit organization that created Teen Author Boot Camp. She wrote the Stanley and Hazel trilogy and Badlands (Fall 2023).

Screenwriting 101

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Julie Wright is a two-time Whitney Award winner. Her books have received several starred reviews and have been listed in the American Library Association’s top ten romances of the year.
She loves writing, reading, traveling, snorkeling, hiking, playing with her family, and watching her husband make dinner.

Dialogue: You know that thing you said that you will regret until you die?

Don’t make your character live with those same regrets. This class will go through the ins and outs of the five things dialogue must do in order to deserve space on your page. We will discuss letting your characters be genuine without being corny and witty without being exhausting. We will discuss tags, stereotypes, and all the ways you can create the art of conversation without drowning your reader in the boredom of blah, blah, blah.

Kaela Rivera is the award-winning author of the Cece Rios series. She grew up reading the folktales of her Mexican-American and British parents in the forests of Tennessee, but now she writes about them from the soaring mountains of Utah. When she’s not crafting stories, she’s working as a managing editor for a marketing company—or secretly doodling her characters in the margins of her notebook. Visit her at kaelarivera.com.

Using Imagery to Your Story's Advantage

Imagery and description are like salt—without them, your meal can feel dull, but too much, and you can’t enjoy the food at all. Balance is key! So in this class, you’ll learn how to use imagery to strengthen your book’s tone, setting, and pacing—without succumbing to the dreaded purple prose readers’ live in fear of.

Kathryn Purdie is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the BONE CRIER’S MOON duology and BURNING GLASS series. Kathryn has taught writing classes at Storymakers, Futurescapes, previous TABCs, and was a keynote speaker for Young Authors Academy. She loves acting and writing songs for her characters.

Maximizing Character Agency: Balancing Conflict and Choices

Some writers have trouble adding enough conflict in their stories while others add too much. Conflict is necessary for good storytelling. Too little and you have no tension. Too much and your characters lose agency—the capability to choose a course of action that can change their outcome. Without character agency, your reader loses hope that the protagonist can achieve the main story goal. He or she becomes a victim to the plot, rather than the driver of it, and consequently loses reader interest and appeal. In this class, you’ll learn tips to enhance and troubleshoot the critical element of agency in your stories.

KayLynn Flanders graduated with a degree in English and editing, and spent many years as a freelance editor before becoming a writer. Her award-winning YA fantasy novel, Shielded, and its sequel, Untethered, were published by Delacorte Press/PRH. KayLynn loves reading, writing, traveling, and volleyball, and thinks there’s nothing better than a spur-of-the-moment road trip.

Revision Hacks for Fresh Eyes

Your ability to revise your own work depends on how clearly you can see it. We'll learn how to use an expanded scene map with many different data points to help you see your story in a whole new way.

Leigh Statham writes books, poetry, short stories, and essays for all ages. She currently teaches English in North Carolina and her latest novel, Girls of War (Owl Hollow Press, 2021), will complete her second series for young adult readers. She loves to cook, play Minecraft, and eat wild berries. Don't worry, only some of them have made her sick.

You can follow and contact her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Wattpad. @LeighStatham

Teen Poet Society Open Mic

We are only as strong as our best phrases. Every word counts in every type of writing, but especially in poetry. Come learn how to strengthen your verse (or novel) and share you own poetry in this open mic experience.

Marina Scott was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain in Vilnius, Lithuania. She graduated from a local university with a Master’s degree in library science, but a short stint in a Soviet library changed her mind about being a librarian in the U.S.S.R. She immigrated to the United States in 2000 and now resides in Salt Lake City. You can find her on Twitter @NinkaSLC and Instagram @Marina_V_Scott

A Story Within You

You don't have to travel to exotic places or go on heart-pounding adventures. It doesn't matter where you've been and what you've done. Everyone has a story to tell. We just need to know where to look. Our emotional world is as rich as the world outside. Let me help you find your story.

Roseanne A. Brown is an immigrant from the West African nation of Ghana and a graduate of the University of Maryland, where she completed the Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her debut novel A Song of Wraiths and Ruin was an instant New York Times Bestseller, an Indie Bestseller, and received six starred reviews. She has worked with Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney among other publishers. You can visit her online at roseanneabrown.com or on Instagram or Twitter at @rosiesrambles.

Remixing the Past: Using ancient history and mythology in the modern-day

From Percy Jackson to the Song of Achilles, retellings of mythology remain a perennial favorite genre among writers and readers. This class will teach young writers how to draw from these sources to tell stories that are both familiar yet original, drawing from my experience utilizing African mythology in both A Song of Wraiths and Ruin and Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting.

Sandra Tayler is the publisher and writer for Schlock Mercenary, X-treme Dungeon Mastery, and Hold on to Your Horses. She has a cartoonist husband Howard Tayler, also a house, garden, three cats, and a scrub jay who comes and yells at her through the window until she supplies peanuts.

Introverts Unite! Collecting Companions for your Quest

Writers with a strong network of friends are more likely to succeed at their writing goals, so how do you develop your network? This class covers core social skills, finding good mentors, and building supportive friendships with peers. Ways to develop writing groups and stay connected even when this conference is over. We’ll also discuss battling imposter syndrome, social anxiety, and writerly self doubt. You’re way more likely to succeed in your life goals if you have companions on your quest. It is dangerous to go alone, acquire friends and take them with you!

Sara B. Larson is the best-selling and critically acclaimed author of the YA fantasy DEFY trilogy (DEFY, IGNITE, and ENDURE), the DARK BREAKS THE DAWN duology, and the SISTERS OF SHADOW AND LIGHT duology (TorTeen/Macmillan). She can’t remember a time when she didn’t write books—although she now uses a computer instead of a Little Mermaid notebook. Sara lives in Utah with her husband, their four children, and their Maltese, Loki. She writes in brief snippets throughout the day and the quiet hours when most people are sleeping. Her husband claims she should have a degree in “the art of multitasking.” When she’s not mothering or writing, you can often find her at the gym repenting for her sugar addiction.

Fantastic Ideas and Where to Find Them

All authors get asked this question over and over again: Where do you get your ideas? In this class we'll talk about where ideas come from, learning how to pay attention to what I call “sparks of inspiration”—and how to create those sparks if you don’t have any. We’ll also talk about how to decide what ideas to pursue or not. To finish, we’ll go through some methods to help you generate ideas when you’re struggling, with a fun interactive activity as a class. Come get inspired and leave with new book ideas!

Tyler Whitesides is the author of JANITORS, THE WISHMAKERS, MAGIC'S MOST WANTED, and the KINGDOM OF GRIT trilogy. When he isn't writing, he loves being on stage, woodworking, and playing D&D with other real grown-ups.

Using Role Playing Games to Improve your Writing

Storytelling makes up the heart of good role playing games. Coincidentally, storytelling is also important in writing books! Why not use what you learn from RPGs to improve your craft? From character creation to backstory, strategic plot reveal to character alignment, writing a novel is surprisingly a lot like starting a role playing game and we’ll show you how you can use the basics of RPG to write yours.

Wendy Morkel is a researcher, author, editor, therapist, lifelong learner, and mom. Most notably, Wendy is on an adventure as a therapist for inmates at the Utah State Prison. She once co-authored a self-help book that sometimes reads like a novel, and she secretly dreams of writing fiction.

Behind Bars: A Glimpse Into the Fascinating World of Prison Life

Does your main character take a trip to the slammer on the path to redemption? Have you ever wanted to write a series set in jail, but you don’t know what you don't know? Listen to how life goes down in prison from someone who’s been on the inside (well, as a therapist). In this class, you’ll learn what friendship looks like among prisoners, just how bad those prison meals are, and the choreography, timing, and circumstances of prison fights (and what the consequences are). I'll show you how hard it really is to escape from prison, whether the guards or dangerous prisoners are the true villains, and how prison hierarchies are structured. Tattoos, shanks, and the three words an inmate should NEVER say if they want to stay out of trouble--learn all this and more in this eye-opening class.