The Reporter-Times from Martinsville, Indiana • 15

i him mi A Close Look at Morgan County Hot Tips From the Experts Poe Louis Brodsky confers with author Hank Nuwer. Joanna Henning, editor the White River Valley The 1995 Mid West Writer's Conference, hosted by the journalism department at Ball State, is held every summer at Hotel Roberts in downtown Muncie. Below are some of the highlights and tips from this year's sessions that may be of interest to local writers. It was quite of mix of people that gathered around the hors d'oeuvre tables in the banquet room. They layered their plates with cantaloupe, cheese spears and chicken salad sandwiches.

Leaner souls even added sinfully-rich, chocolate petit-fours to their pile. Fortified by these early evening snacks, the diners settled gently at linen-covered tables, ready to become acquainted with other conference participants. What everyone already knew was they had one specific thing in common all wanted to learn how to write better and had come to listen to experts tell them how to do it. At one table sat Phoebe, a young mother and housewife, who left a three-year-old and a partially-finished manuscript of a historical romance at home. At another table sat a well-groomed forty-ish woman who writes business articles in a banking trade magazine and works as a banking consultant; she yearns to write something more creative.

At a third table sat a clean-shaven, male baby boomer he was interested in writing science fiction or fantasy. Beside him sat Charlene Potterbaum, who turned out to be a published author from Elkhart. She wrote "Lord I Needed That," "His Eye is On The Sparrow" and "If You See Lenny." While waiting for opening ceremonies, she told a funny story about how "Lenny" got published. It seems she had a neighbor who moved, but Charlene kept writing letters she wanted to post to her. She never found her friend's address, so the letters ended up published in a book.

Her former neighbor, who had moved to Pennsylvania, was shopping at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store one day and saw the book, with her friend's name on the cover, tucked into a book rack. She purchased the book and started reading it when she got home. A few minutes later, she looked up at her husband and exclaimed, "I'm a book!" These people, plus about another 100 in the banquet room, looked up expectantly as the conference committee hosts introduced Hank Nuwer, editor of Arts Indiana magazine, author of books on hazing and How to Write Like an Expert About Anything, and featured speaker of the evening. A slim figure, clad in a Nehru-collared jacket, Nuwer spoke in detail about the need wmm for writers to carefullv research articles. FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 21 28, 198 St,.