Unlock the Art of Storytelling: Writers Gather at Chesapeake College

The Bay to Ocean Writers Conference, one of our region’s most popular and anticipated literary events, is being held this Saturday, March 9, at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills and there are just a handful of tickets still available.

Hosted by the Eastern Shore Writers’ Association, this 27^th annual edition of the BTO conference will continue the organization’s tradition of providing attending writers of every genre and level of experience first rate educational experiences and a chance to socialize with likeminded logophiles and storytellers.

Katie Aiken Ritter, an Eastern Shore novelist, editor, and mentor, believes that BTO allows for the rare occasion to “be with one’s clan. Not blood relatives, no – but it’s a clan of people in love with books and storytelling, people enthralled with that solitary art of word wrangling coming together.”

The day’s schedule offers thirty-two different 50-minute workshops and classes over six tracks – Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Craft and Editing, Publishing and Marketing, and Specialty sessions – to choose from and are designed to help attendees hone their craft while interacting with exceptional session presenters.

Founded in 1985, the Eastern Shore Writers Association, or ESWA, is a “nonprofit, all-volunteer organization supporting writers, other writers’ groups, and the literary arts across the Delmarva Peninsula and the Eastern Shore.” Made up of authors and members of the support systems that authors need, part of the group’s ongoing mandate is to “provide opportunities for members to share (their) experiences with other writers about every facet of converting ideas, feelings, hopes, dreams, and opinions to the printed word.”

Regarding BTO, conference chair and ESWA Executive Director Tara A. Elliot says that what this gathering gives to working and aspiring authors is something that can’t be found anywhere else: “unique, substantive, in-depth seminars given by some of the most knowledgeable and skilled presenters…in this beautiful area we all love.”

The Eastern Shore and the Delmarva region have always been places that inspire creative types – writers and artists and musicians and their ilk – and even going back to early ESWA pre-BTO conference efforts in the 1980s it was noted that our area has contributed much to the American literary scene including works from Frederick Douglass, John Barth, James Michener, William Warner, Douglass Wallop, and Lucille Fletcher. Organizers have dedicated the 2024 Bay to Ocean Conference to Gilbert Byron, “the Thoreau of the Chesapeake.”

The first BTO was held in February 1998 at Easton’s Avalon Theatre. Program coordinators were aiming to start “a spirited dialogue about the merits of this area’s prodigious volume of regional literature,” an ideal that has evolved into a more encompassing and inclusive approach to planning the event in the succeeding decades. Presenters at that first event included the esteemed environmentalist, author, and longtime Baltimore Sun columnist, Tom Horton, the historian and writer Eric Mills, and Helen Chappell, a well-known journalist and author of many books and stories including The Oysterback Tales and the Eastern Shore-based Sam and Hollis mystery series. Speaking in character on the history and culture of the Eastern Shore, Talbot County’s David Foster made an appearance as Maryland’s iconically acerbic H.L. Mencken. After a break for dinner there was a performance of Chesapeake Bay-centered songs and tales with performers including Rock Hall’s Tom McHugh. The day’s keynote speech was given by Jonathan Yardley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic for The Washington Post.

The keynote speaker at this weekend’s 27th annual event will be Maryland’s award-winning Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri. Cavalieri, the longtime host of public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem,” recently published her twenty sixth book, The Long Game, Poems Selected and New and is also an accomplished playwright. Tara Elliot is excited to share Cavalieri, one of her heroes, with attendees and says the 92-year old headliner is “the most energetic, inspiring speaker I’ve ever heard. She’s a living dynamo and she’ll be bringing her experience and uplifting message to share with attending writers.”

This year’s returning instructors include the Spy-contributing columnist, short story writer, and essayist Laura J. Oliver, poet Nancy Mitchell, and the novelist, editor, and writing coach John Dedakis. Author, editor, book reviewer for the New York Journal of Books, and this year’s ESWA Legacy Award winner, Judy Reveal, will also be among the encore presenters at this year’s conference. As always, there are also a number of new faculty participants scheduled to teach classes and lead workshops.

The award-winning poet and novelist Pat Valdata, who, along with David Healy, the author of nearly 30 novels and nonfiction books, will be leading a class on using history and family stories as a writing tool, says that BTO is a “friendly, low stress conference where it is easy to meet other writers in a congenial atmosphere.”

Robert Whitehill, past presenter, screenwriter, and author of the bestselling Shore-centric Ben Blackshaw thriller series of books is impressed by the “depth and breadth of knowledge” from BTO instructors as well as the ambitions of the attendees looking to be inspired and to improve their writing skills.

Jean Burgess, who has a new novel, The Summer She Found Her Voice, coming out in the spring has attended the conference as both a student and a speaker says that what stands out for her is the excellent balance BTO provides between “interesting, diverse presentations and networking with fellow writers.”

Tara Elliot says that paying close attention to the million little moving parts of the conference is what make for a successful BTO. Her committee’s strong partnerships with ESWA, Chesapeake College, loyal volunteers, local educators, and supporting business people like Kathy Harig from Oxford’s Mystery Loves Company who will be selling the books of conference presenters throughout the day all contribute to staging a literary event that “tries to exceed expectations at every opportunity.”

Tickets can still be purchased at the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference link at https://www.easternshorewriters.org/.

There aren’t many left so don’t delay.

Brent Lewis is a native Chesapeake Bay Eastern Shoreman. He has published two nonfiction books about the region, “Remembering Kent Island: Stories from the Chesapeake” and a “History of the Kent Island Volunteer Fire Department.” His most recent book, “Stardust By The Bushel: Hollywood On The Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore”won a 2023 Independent Publishers award. His first novel, Bloody Point 1976, won an Honorable Mention Award at the 2015 Hollywood Book Festival. He and his wife Peggy live in Centreville, Maryland.