Need an inspiring speaker for your group?

Do you have an upcoming event and need a dynamic speaker? 

I have been speaking and teaching professionally for over 15 years for groups of all sizes. Whether you need to inspire a small MOPS group or hundreds of professionals I have topics that can be tailored to your needs.

General Topics

Six Prayers God Always Answers  - More info coming soon.

How to Have an Unforgettable Life - It’s the small things that add up. If you want to be remembered after you move, change, jobs, or die it’s the small seemingly insignificant things that will make a difference. In this session we talk about some of those and give practical steps you can take now to leave an unforgettable legacy.

Freedom to Dream – Are you held captive by expectations, a job, or family responsibilities? Do you have a dream that you long to set free? In this interactive session, you will discover your dream, find out why your dream is important, discern whether it is God’s vision for you, take steps to invest in your dream through goal setting, and learn how to respond when your dreams are derailed. Bring your Bibles and your pencils and be prepared to leave with a dream that has eternal consequences.




Writers' Conferences

1. Everything I Need to Get Published I Learned from a Magazine - In this interactive class, we’ll start at the very beginning of the writing process to show how you can go from reading a magazine to getting published in it. Using current magazines as examples, we’ll glean who you should contact and how, what ideas the magazine might be interested in, what departments are most open to freelances, what “evergreen,” topics are likely to sell, your chances of getting published, and how to match your style to the editor’s.

2. Career Building Resources – Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been writing for decades, this session will introduce you to some of the best writing-related resources out there including the resources for conducting interviews, software designed specifically for writers, reference books to have in your library, and websites that will save you time. In this interactive class each student will be asked to share the best resources they’ve discovered to help their writing career.

3. "I Wish Someone Had Told Me That When I Started Out!" Information on the craft of writing is available from an unlimited number of sources, but what do you do when you need information on how to live a writing life? In this class, the instructor will share her mistakes (and her successes) to help you make choices that will sustain your career as a writer, teach you what to do now to maximize your future success, and explain how the right reason to write influences how you should write. You will be challenged to think through your own writing life and walk away with your own steps to success.

4. Beyond the Book: Advanced Proposal Writing You can learn to write a proposal by reading a book. But how do you go beyond the book to answer questions specific to your proposal?  How do you find information on competitive books? What if there aren't any competitive books? What goes into the marketing section that doesn't go into the promotion section? How can a bio make or break your proposal? Bring your proposal related questions and a copy of your current work to this interactive session. As a class, we will work together to transform proposals that tell about the book, into proposals that sell the book.

5.  How to Pitch to a Publisher in Under Five Minutes Condensing your pitch to less than five minutes will allow you to make more pitches to more editors and find one who is right for your project. In this session, you’ll learn why you should limit your pitch, what you should include (and what you shouldn’t), how to make the pitch, how to make a pitch on the run, and what you want to happen when the pitch is over. 

6. Relationships Every Writer Should Have and How to Get Them – Writing may be a solitary activity but the writing life shouldn’t be. To have a career in writing there are some relationships you will need. In this session we’ll tell you what they are (everything from a critique partner to an agent), how to get them, and how to maintain them.

7. Do You Want to Be My Friend? – What’s the difference between Facebook and MySpace? Should you list yourself on LinkedIn or Plaxo? Is LibraryThing better than Shelfari? And should you ShoutLife or Author Tour? If the new social networking sites have you confused this session will help you find out which sites are likely to tempt you into writing wall posts to high school buddies and which sites can actually help you connect with readers to reach your career goals.

8. Collaborating for Fun and Profit – Sometimes it makes sense to work with someone else, but when is it helpful and when is it just hell? In this session we’ll talk about different ways to work with a partner including, ghostwriting and co-authoring. We’ll explore what collaborating is, what it’s not and also discuss practical tips such as what to look for in a collaborator, and ways to structure your working and personal relationships. Finally, we’ll look at how to prepare yourself mentally, legally, and financially before you co-sign with a collaborator.

9. Writing for the Future – There used to be some hard and fast rules of writing non-fiction; specific ways to organize your material, and deliberate use of anecdotes to make a point. But the success of Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz changed the rules. Writing for the future means taking your readers on an experiential journey—not giving them a five point plan. What are the new rules? How can you teach yourself to write for tomorrow’s readers? We’ll look at why the changing markets mean your writing needs to be different and then discuss practical ways to help you make the change.

10. Maximize Your Strengths, Minimize Your Weaknesses – So you’re not perfect. So what? Self-knowledge is the first step to getting better.  How can you make the most out of your writing and non-writing strengths? How can you minimize your perceived weaknesses? And how can you package yourself to get the kind of writing projects you desire?

11. No or Low Cost Marketing  - There’s at least ten things you can do today that won’t cost you a lot of money and will help get word out about your new book. Some of them are old standbys, such as blogging or radio interviews, but we’ll cover them in-depth, from how you start, to how you make the most of your opportunity. We’ll also uncover some other inexpensive ways to get the name of your book in front of those who matter the most—readers.