There’s no other way to express it - LISA SCOTTOLINE ROCKS!!!

The best selling author and former lawyer delivered a dynamic keynote that set us to belly laughs, touched us, and galvanized everyone in the room with her tremendous energy. (Trust me, some speeches induce comas.) When she finished, every Pennwriter present stood up in an honest standing ovation.

During her speech, she told us of her struggle to get her voice heard - a place where many of us are. Lisa had a tough time of it, divorced, a baby, and credit cards maxed enough to qualify for federal bail out money. But she persevered and succeeded. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t the joke - it was the delivery. And what a delivery it was. 

But the essence of her speech wasn’t about struggle or yukking up the crowd - it was writing. It was the reason we were all there, but it gets lost in the frenzy to pitch, and the mad rush to be published. Lisa just plain told us to write.  

I came out of that keynote recharged and raring to go. I was so fired up that I started fleshing out a World War II novel outline yesterday and began developing a sequel of The Gospel of Matthias Kent.  I feel like a writer and not a query machine for the first time in a long while. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

So thanks to Lisa, and to Annette, and to everybody at Pennwriters who had a hand in getting Ms. Scottoline to talk with us.  It made a good conference great!!!