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Long
Island
Romance
Writers
Past Workshops
Thinking of joining LIRW or speaking at one of our workshops? Check out our past workshops to see what we offer our members!
March 2026
Linnea Sinclair: Prune Your Prose
As the saying goes, “Close only counts in...hand grenades.” Don’t let your manuscript bomb because of easily overlooked errors, or for lack of sophistication and polish. Learn how to make every chapter count, every scene earn its keep, every main character memorable. Award-winning Bantam Random House author Linnea Sinclair will take you through ten tips (and more!) that will make your story shine, move it out of the slush pile, onto an editor’s desk so that—when on the shelves—it can garner reviews that note: A must-read, by an author who never disappoints! Attendees should bring sample pages of their work-in-progress (including their first page) and be prepared to share and improve!
Winner of the prestigious national book award, the RITA®, science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair is a name synonymous with high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Her books have claimed spots in the Locus Top Ten and received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly. Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine consistently gives Sinclair’s books 4-1/2 stars (their highest rating). Starlog magazine calls Sinclair “one of the reigning queens of science fiction romance.”
Her previous careers include news reporting and private investigation. Since 2000, she’s taught seminars in the craft of writing for all levels of writers via on-line writing sites and at writing conventions nationwide.
Sinclair resides in Pensacola, Florida with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their thoroughly spoiled cats. Readers can find her perched on the third barstool from the left in her Intergalactic Bar and Grille at www.linneasinclair.com
Website: www.linneasinclair.com
Email: linnea@linneasinclair.com
Represented by: The Nelson Literary Agency
March 2026
Jane Cleland presents Tell Your Story to Beat the Bots
A Writer’s Guide to Thriving and Surviving in the Age of AI
You have a story to tell, an important story, your story. Getting that story down on paper is hard, though, and with bots taking over the writing market, authors worry they’ll soon become irrelevant. The answer isn’t to surrender to the doom and gloom predictions. On the contrary, it’s time to lean into your humanity, to do what artificial intelligence can’t—be creative. AI is, by definition, derivative, so the trick is to come up with new ideas, new structures, new approaches. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to harness your innate creativity using science-based creativity-boosting techniques to come up with fresh ideas. When you bring your creativity, your individuality, and your judgment to your work, you’ll out-write a chatbot all day long.
Jane K. Cleland is an Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards finalist and a seven-time winner of the David Award for Best Novel for her long-running Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries (novels published by St. Martin’s Minotaur and short fiction published by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine). Books in the series have received starred reviews from Library Journal and Shelf Awareness, and the series has been optioned for TV/film.
Jane is also the author of several acclaimed books on the craft of writing, including Beat the Bots: A Writer’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Age of AI, praised by Louise Penny as “Brilliant!” Her earlier books, Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot and Mastering Plot Twists, each won the Agatha Award.
Jane teaches writing at Lehman College (City University of New York), mentors in Western Connecticut State University’s MFA program, and serves on the faculty of Writer’s Digest University. She is Vice President of Mystery Writers of America’s Florida chapter, a past President of the New York chapter, and has served on MWA’s National Board. She is also a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime.
More information can be found at https://janecleland.com.
January 2026
Libbie Grant: Query Ready
This hands-on workshop will walk participants through the process of creating an irresistible query letter, a great synopsis, and polished opening pages. Participants will complete the class with a query that’s ready to send to agents and editors, plus the skills necessary to create a great synopsis and revise their opening pages to make them as effective as possible. Topics will include: Crafting a query with a powerful hook; maximizing your bio; understanding and identifying comps; distilling an entire plot into a tight synopsis; evaluating your opening pages for hook, pacing, and voice; and how to improve weak opening pages. Requirement: A manuscript that’s ready for the query process.
Libbie Grant, who also writes as Olivia Hawker, is an author of literary and historical fiction. She is a Washington Post bestseller and has been a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Willa Literary Award, and the Audie Award for outstanding audiobooks. Her novel One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, a favorite of readers around the world, made Amazon's Top 100 Bestselling Books of 2020. A permanent resident of Canada, she divides her time between Victoria, BC and the San Juan Islands of Washington State. For more information, please visit hawkerbooks.com.
November 2025
4th Annual Rom-Con!
3 amazing workshops with:
Libbie Grant
Jamie K. Schmidt
Damon Suede
+ Network with other Writers!
Libbie Grant
Take off Your Pants
In this three-hour masterclass, bestselling author Libbie Grant guides you through her popular "Take Off Your Pants" outlining method. Participants will learn how, when, and why to outline; techniques for creating a blueprint for a great story that will need minimal edits; and will unlock the power of putting character--not plot--at the center of story. Come with a vague idea for a story and leave with a completed outline that's ready to guide you through a relatively pain-free writing process.
Libbie Grant, who also writes as Olivia Hawker, is an author of literary and historical fiction. She is a Washington Post bestseller and has been a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Willa Literary Award, and the Audie Award for outstanding audiobooks. Her novel One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, a favorite of readers around the world, made Amazon's Top 100 Bestselling Books of 2020. A permanent resident of Canada, she divides her time between Victoria, BC and the San Juan Islands of Washington State. For more information, please visit hawkerbooks.com.
Jamie K. Schmidt
Writing Back of the Book Blurbs or Query Letters
You’ve got a great book. You’ve invested in editing and a genre perfect cover. You’re advertising on Facebook and Amazon and are getting clicks —but no sales. It could be your blurb that’s keeping the reader from taking the next step and purchasing your book. In this workshop, Jamie will show you how to tighten up your book blurb and give suggestions on rewriting with an eye on closing the sale. You can also use the techniques in this workshop into crafting your query letter to better attract an agent or editor. Attendees are encouraged to come with one problematic book blurb or a query letter that needs sprucing up. Jamie will try to address as many as she can, time permitting.
USA Today bestselling author, Jamie K. Schmidt is known for her erotically charged romances, Jamie’s books have been called, “hot and sexy, with just the right amount of emotional punch,” and “turbo-paced, gritty, highly sexual thrill rides.” As a #1 Amazon best seller, Jamie writes daily, drinks lots of tea, and sneaks away to play video games whenever she makes her deadlines. Along with her husband and her seventeen-year-old son, Jamie lives in Connecticut with her rescue pup Romeo and two cats, who are cool with her writing schedule as long as they can be cuddled up in a blanket next to her. You can find Jamie on Instagram at @jamiekswriter and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JamieKSchmidtBooks/book
Damon Suede
INDELIBLE DIALOGUE: words that work
Talk isn’t cheap. Conversations can make or break a book and help your characters pop off the page. Dialogue shapes your pace, anchors your stakes, and keeps your plot moving at the perfect rhythm. Whether you’re writing witty banter or heartfelt confessions, dirty talk or silent accusations, dialogue can help you characterize and world-build more efficiently than any other single element in your prose. In this hour, we’ll unpack an arsenal of tricks you can use to cut the flab in your gab and unleash unforgettable communication. Join screenwriter and novelist Damon Suede for an arsenal of nitty-gritty techniques to turn that chatter into convos that matter.
Bestselling author Damon Suede has been a full-time writer for print, stage, comics, and screen for three decades. He has won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.
October 2025
Damon Suede Double feature
INCITING INSIGHTS: making the offer they can’t refuse
The best stories start where they must… the awful predicament, the call to action, the tempting offer that forces your protagonist to get down to tbe business of being fascinating. Your story needs to start, not from scratch, but from ITCH…the moment that makes your character twitch. This workshop gets up close and personal with the roots of drama and emotion, of stakes and spectacle, and what exactly will get a main character off their butt and out of their rut. Join us for 90 minutes of kicking baby birds out of nests and inviting your audience into a fascinating dilemma they can’t put down.
BIG BAD: building memorable villains
Audiences expect more from bookshelf baddies. Whether driving the action or lurking in the shadows, your villain maps your story’s moral landscape and telegraph what matters most. These days, twisted tyrants and cookie-cutter maniacs can seem almost quaint. Without real monsters there can be no heroes. Generic menace, malice, and mustache-twirling won’t cut the mustard… So go beyond the MWA-HA-HA to generate real dread and craft scoundrels blessed with depth, drive, and dire resonance. Join us for this 90-minute workshop and we’ll uncover the evil seed buried in your story and give your heroes someone worth fighting.
Bestselling author Damon Suede has been a full-time writer for print, stage, comics, and screen for three decades. He has won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.
September 2025
Writing Diverse Characters: Your Diversity Toolkit
Are you ready to craft characters and worlds that authentically reflect the diverse tapestry of our society? Join Eliana West, author and founder of Writers for Diversity, for a foundational workshop based on her "Relatable Writing" workbook.
This workshop is designed as a safe space for writers to learn and grow through thoughtful and respectful dialogue. This workshop is not meant to tell you what you can and cannot write, nor does it offer a magic formula to avoid all offense. Instead, its intention is to provide tools and resources that will help you think beyond what Eliana West calls your "default setting" and cultivate greater awareness as you write.
In this workshop we will cover:
• Understanding Your Default Setting
• Confronting Unconscious Biases.
• Exploring Character Identity
• Navigating Tropes, Stereotypes, and Beliefs
• Addressing Microaggressions and Privilege
• Crafting Inclusive Descriptions
Eliana West encourages you to embrace learning as a lifelong journey. You will gain insights to create relatable characters your readers will love.
Join us to become a more inclusive writer, committed to creating characters that reflect the diverse world you live in.
From small towns to close-knit communities, award-winning author Eliana West loves stories that bring people from different backgrounds together through the common language of unconditional love and acceptance. Eliana is an award-winning author who is a passionate advocate for diversity within the writing community. She is the founder of Writers for Diversity, teaching classes and workshops that encourage writers to create diverse characters and worlds with an empathetic approach.
July 2025
Jen Graybeal Presents Emotional Character Arcs
Emotional Arcs are the key to getting readers to empathize with your characters. When the heroine's heart breaks, we want the reader to feel their pain. When the hero is grumpy and closed off, we want to feel vulnerable alongside him. In this session, we dive into the themes, ingredients, and lies that put characters (and readers!) on an emotional roller coaster they won’t forget. 60-minute seminar followed by 1/2 hour Q&A on any writing related topic.
Jen Graybeal (she/her) is dedicated to empowering authors through encouraging feedback, collaborative problem solving and gently-applied tough love. In ten years of coaching, workshops, and editing projects, she has helped over a thousand authors create stories they are proud of and businesses that align with their individual vision of success. Jen is a Certified Creativity Coach with a degree in English, an ever-expanding TBR pile, and a furball assistant that is usually on her lap. Visit her website for client testimonials at jengraybeal.com or follow her on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, and TikTok: @JenTheEditor.
June 2025
Jamie K. Schmidt: Marketing Your Book: What Comes Next?
"Congratulations—you’ve published your book! Now what? Whether you’re traditionally published or going the indie route, getting your book into readers' hands takes strategy, persistence, and the right marketing approach. Join USA Today Bestselling Author Jamie K. Schmidt for an insightful workshop on self-marketing and post-publication next steps.
In this session, Jamie will share practical, actionable strategies for promoting your book, growing your audience, and sustaining long-term sales. Topics will include:
Building an author platform (social media, newsletters, and websites)
Effective book launch strategies (ARC teams, promos, and reviews)
Marketing on a budget (ads, newsletter swaps, and organic reach)
Sustaining book sales beyond launch day (backlist marketing and audience engagement)
Whether you're a first-time author or looking to level up your marketing game, this workshop will provide real-world insights and tangible steps to help you build your readership and sell more books. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from an experienced, multi-genre author who has successfully marketed across different publishing platforms."
USA Today bestselling author, Jamie K. Schmidt is known for her erotically charged romances, Jamie’s books have been called, “hot and sexy, with just the right amount of emotional punch,” and “turbo-paced, gritty, highly sexual thrill rides.” As a #1 Amazon best seller, Jamie writes daily, drinks lots of tea, and sneaks away to play video games whenever she makes her deadlines. Along with her husband and her seventeen-year-old son, Jamie lives in Connecticut with her rescue pup Romeo and two cats, who are cool with her writing schedule as long as they can be cuddled up in a blanket next to her. You can find Jamie on Instagram at @jamiekswriter and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JamieKSchmidtBooks/book
May 2025
Ruth Vincent: How to Throw a Book Party: event planning and public speaking for authors
"Do you want to have a launch party for your debut novel or newest release? Are you scared that only two people will show up? Do you feel comfortable reading aloud at a mic? Would you like to learn how to read aloud better? Author Ruth Vincent draws on over a decade of day job experience in event planning and theatrical production to give authors insider tips and tricks on how to have a successful--not stressful--live event, including:
- the #1 secret of RSVPs that event planning professionals know but that shocks and derails first-time party-planners
-classy catering on a budget; thinking outside the wine-and-cheese box
-read-aloud tips to engage your audience, learned from a professional audiobook narrator
-how to correctly speak into a microphone (it's not what you think!)
Ruth's husband, Matthew Schechtman, is an Emmy award-winning AV professional who has worked on Broadway, TV, and many live entertainment productions, and he will (schedule permitting!) be co-teaching with Ruth.
This interactive workshop will include several hand-held microphones (typical of what would be found in a bookstore or event space) for participants to practice their mic technique.
Participants will also receive a detailed handout with real-life examples of throwing a party on various budgets.
Ruth Vincent is a writer and game designer. She is the author of the Changeling P.I. fantasy series with HarperCollins, beginning with her debut novel Elixir. She is also the creator of the interactive romance novel, Changeling Charade (like a choose-your-own-adventure story, but for adults!) available with Heart's Choice Games. Ruth lives on Long Island with her husband and son, and a cockatoo who thinks he's a dog. Learn more at www.ruthvincent.com
April 2025
Damon Suede Presents: THE GENRE PLOT: form vs. formula
A plotting class even pantsers love… Even when a happy ending is certain, a great plot keeps your writing fresh while anchoring your audience and amplifying your voice. Learn how to craft a sure-fire structure that will keep you on the path to success. In this 3 hour workshop, we’ll go beyond the bullet points, soundbites, and blather to dig into the wisdom in all plot theory with ample examples. Rather than hammering on one “true” blueprint, we’ll break down the major story models from Aristotle to Netflix, identify their seven shared points, and help you develop your own narrative strategy.
Bestselling author Damon Suede has been a full-time writer for print, stage, comics, and screen for three decades. He has won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.
March 2025
Meara Platt: Chemistry between main characters and how secondary characters affect the romance
So you have your hero and heroine, now what do they do? And how do you get your readers to care what they do? Meara Platt, USA Today bestselling author of over 70 historical romances, dives into the elements that create the world within which your main characters (hero/heroine) interact. What motivates them? How do they interact with others? How do setting and secondary characters set the tone for your story? How do you inject yourself into the story to develop your author brand?
Meara Platt is an award winning, USA TODAY bestselling author of over fifty historical romances and one completely left brain, award winning gothic/fantasy series filled with Dragon Lords, Fae warriors, and a mysterious stone containing an ancient Fae prophecy that is about to unfold. Learn more about Meara’s lighthearted and humorous Regency romances in her Farthingale series and Book of Love series, or her warmhearted Regency romances in her Moonstone Landing series, or meet her dark Fae in her Dark Gardens series by visiting her website at www.mearaplatt.com
March 2025
Linnea Sinclair: World Weaving
Characters and their stories require the construction of “worlds,” from the character’s physical location (known or invented), to the character’s occupation, to the character’s social, political, and economic structure...and more. For many writers, this means compiling pages of detailed and fascinating facts that often get dumped into the storyline—and onto the reader—like a load of soggy laundry and with about the same effect: Readers get bored and the story flops to a halt. But wait! Instead of the dump, do the weave.
In this World-Weaving workshop, award-winning author Linnea Sinclair will show you how to seamlessly integrate your beloved research into your story and make it feel real, immediate and exciting.
Winner of the prestigious national book award, the RITA®, science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair is a name synonymous with high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Her books have claimed spots in the Locus Top Ten and received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly. Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine consistently gives Sinclair’s books 4-1/2 stars (their highest rating). Starlog magazine calls Sinclair “one of the reigning queens of science fiction romance.”
Her previous careers include news reporting and private investigation. Since 2000, she’s taught seminars in the craft of writing for all levels of writers via on-line writing sites and at writing conventions nationwide.
Sinclair resides in Pensacola, Florida with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their thoroughly spoiled cats. Readers can find her perched on the third barstool from the left in her Intergalactic Bar and Grille at www.linneasinclair.com
Website: www.linneasinclair.com
Email: linnea@linneasinclair.com
Represented by: The Nelson Literary Agency
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