2024 Thursday Deep-Dive Workshops

Cracking the Code of Great Writing: Powerful Techniques to Master Your Writing on a Line Level – ALMOST SOLD OUT

Kathryn Purdie

Intended Audience: Fiction writers, Intermediate to Advanced

What sets apart a wonderful book from a mediocre one is the quality of writing within it. In this workshop, you’ll learn to identify pitfalls in your prose, as well as techniques on how to make it shine, which involve deep point of view, character connection, powerful prose, enhancing voice, invoking emotions, hooking your reader, creating resonance, and making and delivering promises to your reader. Additionally, you’ll have time to revise your own writing.

During the four-hour workshop, you will:

• Learn how to write in deep point of view for the most gripping character connection.
• Learn the recipe for creating a character’s voice.
• Learn how to avoid “author intrusion” in fiction.
• Learn the importance of endings on a sentence level, paragraph level, chapter level, and story level.
• Learn techniques for writing every kind of ending.
• Learn how to pack the most impact into your prose.
• Level up your writing during workshop revision sessions.
• Have the opportunity to share some of your revisions and receive feedback.

Pre-Work: Bring at least 1–2 chapters of your own writing already drafted to revise during the workshop.

Bio: Kathryn Purdie is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Bone Crier’s Moon duology, The Forest Grimm duology, and the Burning Glass series. Kathryn has taught writing classes at Storymakers, Futurescapes, Writing and Illustrating for Young Children (WIFYR), Sundance Workshops, FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, and Teen Author Boot Camp, and she was a keynote speaker for Writing for Charity, Young Authors Academy, and the BYU–Idaho College of Language and Letters.

Getting Published: How to Find the Right Agent, Attract the Right Publisher, or Cost-Effectively Self-Publish Your Book

Sabine Berlin and Lindsay Flanagan of Eschler Editing

Intended Audience: Fiction and nonfiction writers who are ready to start exploring publishing paths.

Learn the path to publishing from senior editors at Eschler Editing! We’ll guide you through key points of manuscript creation and the must-dos to see your book find its way into the world.

Upon successful completion of the four-hour workshop, you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of hitting the correct target audience, including placing your manuscript in the right genre and ensuring it’s within accepted word count 
• Find beta readers and developmental editors 
• Write queries, synopses, book proposals, and back cover copy, which will then be workshopped in class 
• Study the different publishing paths (traditional and self-publishing, including a discussion on small versus big presses and hybrid publishing) 
• Identify the need for literary agents for traditional paths and professional editors and designers for self-publishing 
• Give an overview of the book distribution and book marketing process

Pre-Work: Please write a query, synopsis, or back cover copy to workshop in class!

Bios:

Sabine Berlin is a senior editor at Eschler Editing, where she has worked for over twelve years to help writers bring their stories to life. She is the co-publisher of Mad Cat, the young adult imprint of Roan and Weatherford publishing. Sabine has also successfully self-published (Oh My Oppa!) and traditionally published (And the Sky Full of Stars). 

Lindsay Flanagan is a senior editor at Eschler Editing and the co-publisher of Mad Cat, the young adult imprint of Roan and Weatherford publishing. She is an award-winning editor and author and has worked in the publishing industry for a decade, editing for traditional publishers and working at literary agencies. Her debut novel, AnnaGrey and the Constellation, the first of six books in the Laéth RealmAdventures series, was published in August 2023, and the second, Little Red Wraith, came out in August 2024. The third installment, AnnaGrey and the Red Fox Girls, will hit bookshelves in April 2025.

How to Thrive as a Freelance Editor: Strategies for Efficiency, Project Management, and Attracting Clients

Liz Kazandzhy

Intended Audience: Editors, from beginner to advanced

A career as a freelance editor is often flexible and highly fulfilling, but it also presents its own challenges. For example, how do you find new clients and manage projects? How do you hone your craft and maximize your productivity? And for beginners, how do you even start out as a freelance editor? All these questions and more will be answered in this workshop through in-depth instruction, hands-on exercises, and plenty of time for questions and answers.

During the four-hour workshop, you will:

• Discover resources and technology tools that will help sharpen your editing skills
• Find ways to optimize your editing workflow
• Complete helpful worksheets, exercises, and quizzes
• Discover how to grow your client base as a new or experienced editor, including through the popular online platform Upwork
• Learn how to improve communication with clients
• Get answers to your questions about editing and freelancing

Pre-Work: Participants should have a basic understanding of The Chicago Manual of Style and copyediting principles.

Bio: Liz Kazandzhy has worked as a freelance editor since 2019. She began her editing career specializing in academic and nonfiction work on the website Upwork, where she was consistently among the top 3% of freelancers on the platform. Later she landed her dream job with Cedar Fort Publishing & Media doing line editing and interior layouts for Latter-day Saint nonfiction. She is the author of several books, including The Holy Ghost from A to Z and Ask, Seek, Find: 1,000 Questions to Deepen Your Scripture Study.

Watch the Pros Produce a Song in Real Time! (Includes a field trip to Noisebox Studios)

Daniel Blomberg & Dave Zimmerman

Intended Audience: Musicians and songwriters

Come watch a song take shape in real time! Music producers Dave Zimmerman and Daniel Blomberg have worked on hundreds of songs together, including some you have likely heard at Church or on YouTube. In this session, you will experience a slightly abbreviated version of Dave and Daniel’s process that takes a song from a basic outline to a fully fleshed out production. There will be opportunities for Q&A at the end.

Note: This session takes place at Noisebox Studios in Provo, a 10-minute drive from the main LDSPMA conference. Since parking is limited at the studio, participants will be picked up from the UVU Sorenson Center at 7:45am and be dropped off again afterwards.

Bios:

Daniel Blomberg built a six-figure music production company in just over three years with his wife and business partner, Kathryn, making mainly religious music, in a place where musicians are often viewed as a “dime-a-dozen” commodity. Blomberg Music Productions works with professionals and hobbyists alike, including several of Utah’s household music names, to help flood the Earth with God’s music.

Dave Zimmerman is an accomplished recording engineer and producer and the owner of Noisebox Studios. He has worked with renowned artists such as GENTRI and Mat and Savanna Shaw, whose music has achieved multiple top-three rankings on the Billboard Charts. With an eighteen-year career in the recording industry, Dave has worked on close to ten thousand songs with hundreds of artists.

Buzzworthy Podcasts: How to Develop, Produce, and Market Your Podcast for Success

KaRyn Lay

Intended Audience: Current and future podcast hosts, producers, and storytellers

Most podcasts today end after only 6 episodes. And of the ones that stick around, only the top 1% have a reach of over 3,500 downloads per episode. But you…you have a microphone and a vision…so how do you make it past the first 6 and find your audience? Or maybe you’re in full swing with your production but you’re having a hard time knowing how to expand your current reach. Wherever you are in the podcast journey, this workshop will give you some new strategic tools to up your game, hone your instincts, and help you to define success on your own terms.

During this workshop, you will:

• Create an actionable core strategy for your podcast (in utero or in production)
• Define your key measures of success 
• Identify your intended audience and brainstorm content structure (or restructure) to meet that audience’s needs
• Learn strategies to streamline your production process & enhance production value in simple ways
• Complete a simple, personalized marketing roadmap and channel strategy

Pre-work: Each attendee will receive a resources/big vision worksheet to fill out before they come to the workshop.

Bio: KaRyn Daley Lay is a writer, storyteller, gatherer, media producer, and content strategist. She was the developing producer and strategist for LDS Living Podcasts, including All In, Sunday on Monday, and Joseph. She hosted and produced the storytelling podcast This Is the Gospel, which has won an LDSPMA Praiseworthy Award every year since 2019 and reached over 3 million people during its 4 seasons. KaRyn currently works as the lead content strategist for the communication channels of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and organizes writing retreats in her spare time.

Use Short-Form Videos to Attract Loyal Fans!

Austin Falter

Intended Audience: Personal Brands! Authors, artists, singers, and soloprenuers who want to crack the code for social media growth

How can you use short video posts to lead people from viewer, to follower, to fan and customer? In this workshop, you’ll learn how with one film day a month, you can knock out an entire month’s worth of value-filled content to grow your social media following!

In our time together, you will:

• Participate in a live demonstration (ideas, script, film, edit, post)
• Create a 30-day video marketing plan (with deadlines!)
• Create 30 video ideas/hooks.
• Create a software and tools list (to automate parts of the process)
• Learn the best way to take people from a view to a conversion
• Draft and receive feedback on your own social media ideas
• Gain access to free content idea guides and downloadable film checklists

Pre-Work: Rule #1 of Marketing: Know your audience. I want you to have an idea of EXACTLY who you want to reach before you walk in the door. Have one persona in mind, think of what they struggle with, what they love, and what they relate to. Know your audience. That’s it! 

OPTIONAL PREP:
If you want specific film, audio, or lighting gear recommendations, bring a photo or video of your usual film space and make a list of the gear you already have! 

Bio: Austin Falter is the owner of Falter Media, a TEDx speaker, and yes, a “TikToker.” His agency is responsible for hundreds of millions of organic video views on social media. His superpower (besides karaoke) is helping brands build systems to efficiently batch their social media videos into one film day!

[SOLD OUT] Crafting Commercial Fiction: How to Create and Sell Impactful Stories

Brandon Mull

Audience: Beginner and intermediate fiction writers

Come explore tactics for generating, creating, and marketing fiction. Attendees will learn principles of creating stories, including building engaging characters, writing effective scenes, and reaching a satisfying conclusion. We’ll also explore what makes fiction worthwhile.

The workshop will also include an in-depth Q&A where you can ask Brandon Mull anything and he’ll give you the advice he would give his best friend on the topics of your choice, including finding time to write, getting paid, marketing, movie deals, foreign rights, agents, touring, working with publishers, building a career, and whatever else you want to delve into.

During this workshop, you will:

• Write a succinct pitch for your story
• Practice putting a personal stamp on your prose
• Generate some dialog between two characters
• Take notes on principles of effective fiction
• Obtain professional advice on the topics of greatest interest to you

Prework: It helps if you have stories you are working on or stories you wish to write.

Bio: Brandon Mull is the author of 18 New York Times bestselling novels. His books—which include the Fablehaven, Beyonders, Five Kingdoms, Dragonwatch, and Candy Shop War series—have been published in over 30 languages. He also created and outlined the Spirit Animals series for Scholastic, writing the first of its seven novels. He lives in Utah with his wife and eleven kids.

Self-Publishing Step-by-Step: How to Prepare Your Manuscript for Physical and Digital Publication Like a Pro

Debbie Rasmussen

Intended Audience: Anyone interested in self-publishing a book.

The goal for this workshop is for you to walk away with the knowledge and tools to self-publish your manuscript. We will briefly discuss the necessary steps that you should take to get a manuscript ready to self-publish, including cover creation, content and copy editing, and interior design. Then we will go through the self-publishing process step-by-step.

Questions are welcome throughout rather than saving them for a Q&A at the end (we can have that, too!). We will have hands-on experiences as well.

What you’ll learn in this workshop:

• Decide a course of action.
• Prepare a manuscript for publishing.
• Understand the step-by-step process and financial costs.
• Learn to navigate Ingram Sparks. (We will discuss Amazon.)
• Create a plan for each step of the process.
• Choose publishing formats.
• Gain an understanding of ISBN, LCCN, and your copyright page.
• Create a product that does not look self-published.
• Start now—right where you are.

Pre-work: Devices such as iPads and laptops are helpful but not required. Phones are a little harder to work from. 

Bring something to take notes, a manuscript if you have one, and all of your questions.

Bio: Debbie Ihler Rasmussen started writing at age ten. Decades and many stories later, it took her two years to figure out the process and she self-published in 2014. In 2018, Richard Paul Evans taught her how to prepare a manuscript that didn’t look self-published. After more extensive research, she has now published eight books and guides authors through the process. She is a freelance ghostwriter and successful content editor for Author Ready. Debbie writes paranormal mystery, is working on two books for a series, and is writing the life story for singer Alan Osmond. 

Don’t Tell Me About Paris . . . Take Me With You: Hooking Your Nonfiction Readers With Sensory & Emotional Depth

Krista M.  Isaacson

Intended Audience:

• Nonfiction writers: memoir, family history, etc. 
• Could also be a helpful crossover class for fiction writers trying to add realism to a character or storyline.

What’s more moving: a friend telling you about their visit to the Eiffel Tower, or seeing it in person? In this interactive workshop, I’ll guide you through nine writing methods that transport readers into the author’s shoes and connect them deeply to a story. We’ll work together with a simple personal memory of your choosing and craft it into a small masterpiece!

What you’ll learn in this workshop:

• Explore a simple personal memory and mine it deeply for details
• Practice writing specifics of the memory using sensory prompts
• Add critical emotional depth to the story
• Analyze and get creative repairing writing elements that distance readers, such as cliché, filter words, telling instead of showing, and more
• Blend everything we’ve learned and write a final masterpiece of a memory
• Be prepared to share!

Pre-work:

• Participants will dive deeply into a personal memory. Come prepared with two or three simple ideas, something you can describe in a single paragraph. For example—scoring the game-winning point or wearing mismatched shoes to an important meeting. All emotions welcome.

• Bring something to write with—laptop, pen & notepad, etc.

Bio: Krista M. Isaacson is a felicitously married mother of six children—including a daughter who has earned her angel wings. She is the award-winning author of Unbearable Burden: One Mother’s Decision to Trust God When He Asked the Impossible, the founder of Reality Writers (an online guild for nonfiction authors), and a believer that everyone has a story worth writing down. Krista’s passion for writing and sharing her testimony of Christ has led to incredible opportunities to speak at various conferences and venues, including BYU Women’s Conference, BYU’s Life After Loss Conference, BYUtv’s Come Follow Up, and on several podcasts and church videos. She is also a contributing writer for the LDS Living magazine.

Praises We Sing: Infuse Your Vocal Performances with Greater Confidence, Musicality, Stage Presence, and Soul

Dave Kimball & Bret Bryce

Intended Audience: Vocalists starting out or seeking to develop their performance careers.

Dive deep into vocal mastery while keeping God at the forefront of your artistic journey. Through hands-on exercises, group worship, and spiritual reflection, discover how to infuse your music with purpose and praise. Elevate your skills while nurturing your connection to God in this unique workshop experience.

In this workshop, you will:

• Master vocal techniques for improved resonance and projection.
• Explore the art of musical interpretation to infuse emotion into performances.
• Learn effective strategies for stage presence and audience engagement.
• Cultivate a deeper understanding of musicality and expression across genres.
• Collaborate in small groups, improvising melodies and harmonies together.
• Brainstorm lyrics and melodies collectively, providing constructive feedback and support.
• Lead interactive exercises focusing on vocal harmonization techniques, helping participants develop a keen ear for blending voices.
• Showcase your skills, followed by constructive critiques and suggestions for improvement.

Bios:

Dave Kimball has been performing since he was twelve. He started in ballroom dance and was able to travel to Blackpool, England to compete in the world formation championships when he was fourteen. He then got into vocal performance and eventually was accepted into the Music Dance Theater program at BYU. Following his mission, he participated in the BYU Young Ambassadors group for 3 years and was able to tour around the world including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Far East Russia, and Japan. It was in Young Ambassadors that Dave met his other bandmates who would go on to form the faith-based group Jericho Road. Jericho Road enjoyed a 13-year run and performed all over the globe in concerts, firesides, and Time Out for Women. They produced 5 full-length albums, with their most recent album, Day of Rest, being released in 2010. Individually, Dave also provided the vocals for various EFY albums and did studio recordings for numerous other projects. He currently resides in Highland, UT with his wife and 3 children and continues to perform occasionally. He loves the way music can communicate with others and cherishes the experiences that have come from spreading the gospel message via this powerful medium.

Bret Bryce also began singing at the age of 12 in middle school choir in Knoxville, Tennessee. Throughout middle and high school he continued to develop musical performing skills and training his ear for harmony as a member of All State Choir and his high school madrigal singers. After his mission he performed in the world renowned BYU Young Ambassadors for 3 years with Dave, touring to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, the Southeastern United States, and Japan and Russia. After graduating with a business degree, he and 3 of his best friends started Jericho Road after performing as an acapella group first, honing performance and vocal skills. Jericho Road toured to Chile, Japan, the UK, Canada, and all throughout the United States for 13+ years. They broke numerous sales records and cumulatively sold over 150,000 albums and continue to reach people through the timeless media of music over YouTube, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and other streaming platforms. Bret lives in South Jordan, Utah and works as an attorney, and loves to help serve others, especially in deep ways that sacred music allows. He’s grateful for all the amazing LDS and Christian artists who have influenced and inspired him throughout the years, and wants to continue to uplift others and honor the Savior through music and service.

How to Stand Out Online in a Noisy World: Creating Your Subscriber-Getting Machine from Start to Finish

Doug Pew & Daniel Blomberg

Intended Audience: Fiction and nonfiction writers, editors, musicians, and graphic artists with beginning to intermediate business experience

Everyone wants more people to care about their craft, but how do you get people’s attention? How do you keep their attention? How do you help them become subscribers and eventually buyers?

What you’ll learn in this workshop:

• Constructing a valuable piece of content that attracts the attention of your best potential customers or fans
• Writing and launching an online portal to deliver the content piece and build your list of subscribers
• Receiving several professionally written social media post templates you can personalize and use immediately
• Automating the delivery of your content so you can grow your following in your sleep

Pre-work: Any Latter-day Saint creative can benefit from this knowledge. But to really get the most out of this workshop, it would be super helpful if you do some serious thinking about: 

• Who your general audience is, and how you best serve them
• What makes you or your product unique in the marketplace

Bios:

Dr. Douglas Pew is an award-winning composer of classical music. He is also a sought-after marketer and online business coach who has helped his clients make millions selling their expertise in the form of digital courses, memberships, masterminds, and coaching programs. Doug’s music is published by Boosey & Hawkes, Schott Music, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Jackman Music Corporation, and his own publishing house, Blue Shore Music.

Daniel Blomberg built a six-figure music production company in just over three years with his wife and business partner, Kathryn, making mainly religious music, in a place where musicians are often viewed as a “dime-a-dozen” commodity. Blomberg Music Productions works with professionals and hobbyists alike, including several of Utah’s household music names, to help flood the Earth with God’s music.

Unleash the Video Potential of Your Smartphone: How to Plan, Film, and Edit Book Trailers, Short Films, and More with Only Your Phone

Brian Howard

Intended Audience: Authors, musicians, and other content creators who want to learn how to share their story and market their content with video.

This workshop equips you with the knowledge, skills, and practical experience to create compelling short-form and medium-length videos using your smartphone and affordable video editing apps. In just four hours, you’ll learn everything you need to take your creative marketing to the next level, reaching a wider audience and boosting your visibility and impact. 

What you’ll learn in this workshop:

• Learn the process of pre-production planning for video projects
• Develop a two-column video script for marketing videos
• Learn the basics of shooting quality video with a smartphone
• Learn the basics of audio and lighting to look and sound great on camera
• Identify low- and no-cost software and resources to create video on a budget
• Learn simple but effective video editing techniques 
• Shoot and edit a video bio
• Edit a promotional trailer for your book or message

Pre-work:

• Bring a smartphone
• Download the video app CapCut on your phone
• Bring an outline or a completed short bio and related photos we can use for your video bio
• Bring a blurb for one of your books or a book or project you are working on. We’ll use the blurb to create a video trailer.

Bio: Brian Howard teaches social and digital media, content marketing, video journalism, and mass media courses at BYU–Idaho. He is the host and executive producer of Latter-day Profiles on BYUtv. His side business, Shoebox Story, produces videos for local businesses, online news outlets, live events, and personal history videos to preserve family memories.