Storytellers Conference

Description

Calling all storytellers, aspiring novelists, playwrights, poets, and bookworms!

Whether you are developing your first manuscript or just want to hangout with fellow book lovers this conference is filled with workshops, lectures, writing sessions, oral storytelling, and networking opportunities for all literary genres.

Vendors include: Finch & Fern (Sylvania, OH), Gathering Volumes (Perrysburg, OH), Iron Clad Comics (Liberty Center, OH), and American Diary Project selling books, gifts, journals, t-shirts, and other unique book themed items. You do not have to attend the conference to shop the vendors.

Keynote Speaker: KATE ZIRKLE “What We Leave Behind: Diaries and the stories that shape us”  Diaries capture the moments we rarely think of as history, until they are. In this keynote, Kate Zirkle shares how journaling shaped her life and inspired the creation of the American Diary Project. Through moving examples and personal reflection, she explores why preserving everyday stories matters and how writing helps us make meaning of the lives we’re living and the legacy we leave behind.

Kate Zirkle is the founder and executive director of the American Diary Project. She is an avid diarist and member of the Society of Ohio Archivists. She shares her home in Cleveland, Ohio, with her wife, dogs, and enough cats to earn her cat lady status.

Schedule – Saturday

8:00 am                           Vendors Open

8:30 – 9:15 am                Welcome & Opening – “My Evolving Journey” – Katie Gilliand, editor/owner of Finch & Fern Bookstore

9:15 – 10:15 am                “Between the Quotation Marks” – Autumn Owens, playwright

10:15 – 10:45 am              Oral Storytelling – Don Allison, Steve Engle, Bill Senecal

10:45 – 11:00 am               Break

11:00 – 11:15 am                 Guided Timed Writing – Deb Ridgway

11:15 am – 12:00 noon    “A Year of Learning to be Me Again” –  Ann Weir, author

12:00 – 1:00 pm               Keynote Speaker – Kate Zirkle, director of American Diary Project

1:00 – 1:15 pm                  Break

1:15 – 2:00 pm                 “The Castaways Within: Escaping the Island of Self-Sabatoge” – Rose McWilliams-Nowak, author

2:00 – 3:00 pm              “I Met a Ghost at Gettysburg” – Don Allison, author, journalist

3:00 – 4:00 pm             “Ironclad Comics: Forging the Heros of Tomorrow” – Cody & David, IronClad Comics

4:00 pm                          Closing

Location: Carolyn Sauder Education Center

Conference Fee: $89/$79 Sauder Village Members, lunch included.

Additional information about presenters and vendors: 2026 Meet our Presenters and Vendors guide

Willow Lane Kitchen will provide a catered lunch, included in your conference fee.

Stay for the Storytellers Spoken Word Night, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, Saturday, April 4th. Free admission for conference attendees!