Thursday, October 8, 2020 9:15 am

There's plenty of room for area writers in the virtual classroom this year as MTSU conducts its FallCreative Writing Conference Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 17-18, with a cornucopia of master classes in multiple genres and topics.

Participants can choose from among a dozen online sessions led by authors specializing in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screen- and playwriting, as well as offering advice about the business and the practical process of writing.

MTSU Write, a non-degree writing program offered by the university's Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts, coordinates the annual writing conference.

The 2020 conference session presenters are authors Karen Alea, Charlotte Rains Dixon, Hank Early, Jessica L. Folk, Christian Anton Gerard, Constantine Jones, Marcus Jackson, John Minichillo, Linda Busby Parker, Michael Ray Taylor, Alex Terrell and Anna Weinstein. Several are instructors in the MTSU Write program, and some are MTSU alumni.

Their topics range from Early's "Finding an Agent," in which he'll discuss the steps necessary to take a project from idea to published manuscript, to Alea's "The Why is as Important as the How," which features her master techniques for using description in writing.

This year's conference program, complete with the schedule of sessions and information about each of the presenters, is available as a PDF at http://ow.ly/fxvk30rdEcK. A text version also is available at https://www.mtsu.edu/write/conference.php.

Participants can sign up for individual sessions at $20 each, choose five sessions for $60, or join the entire 12-session conference for $80. Registration information is available at http://ow.ly/90KC30rdERq.

Conference attendees will receive a private Zoom invitation to each registered session and a permanent link to each session's recording. Instructors will provide all materials for their sessions.

Sessions are set from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central Oct. 17 and 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Oct. 18.

MTSU Write is a three-semester writing program for new and experienced writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting and playwriting, who work from home under the mentorship of professional authors of fiction, nonfiction or poetry.

For more information about the 2020 Creative Writing Conference or the MTSU Write program, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/write or email mtsuwrite@mtsu.edu.