2024 Conference

Libbie Grant, whose pen name is Olivia Hawker, is a Washington Post best-selling author of historical fiction with thousands of five-star reviews. She will teach two workshops during our Friday master class.
The morning session is based on her best-selling how-to book, Take Off Your Pants: Outline Your Books
for Faster, Better Writing. The workshop guides
participants through writing a complete
outline based on a character’s arc.
The second three-hour session, “How to Write a
Bestseller,” focuses on evaluating the market and writing
to target books to current trends. It’s recommended for
more experienced writers who can complete a
manuscript in a few months (writers looking to go from
midlist to front list).
Libbie, who lives in Canada and the San Juan
Islands of Washington, is the author of One for the
Blackbird, One for the Crow, a finalist for the
Washington State Book Award and the Willa Award.
Her other books are The Ragged Edge of Night, The Fire
and the Ore, The Rise of Light, and October in the Earth

#1 NYT bestselling author of The Art of Racing the Rain. It has sold over 7 million copies worldwide, been translated into 38 languages, and spent over three years on the New York Times bestseller list. The novel inspired a Young Reader edition and four children’s picture books. Stein is the author of three other novels—A Sudden Light, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets, and Raven Stole the Moon.

Stein, winner of two Pacific Northwest Book
Awards and other accolades is co-founder of
Seattle7Writers, a nonprofit collective dedicated to
energizing readers, writers, and their communities.
He was born in Los Angeles in 1964 but grew up in
Seattle. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in
fine arts in film from Columbia University.

During his keynote address, Stein will discuss “The World According to Garth.” He’ll also teach a workshop, “It’s All About the Rock,” focusing on the writer’s role in creating a novel.