Conference News

Speakers

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Ame Zeigler

Amey Zeigler is an award-winning author of romantic comedies and mysteries. Her laugh-out-loud Rom-Com, The Swiss Mishap, won third place in the Book Buyer’s Best for Contemporary Romance and The Casserole Dish won Runner-Up in the Rone Awards. Her ten years of theater training in college and high school inspired her to narrate her own books. She spins stories with humor, charm, and heart, often with a dash of action and adventure. When she’s not writing, she is teasing her three kids, globe-trotting with her husband (for book research of course!), or trying new things.

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Becca Syme

Becca Syme (MATL) is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and has been coaching success alignment for more than a decade. She is the author of the Quitbooks for Writers series and the popular Write Better-Faster course. She also writes mystery novels in her spare time and lives on one of the thousand lakes in Minnesota.

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Brandy L Prettyman

Brandy Prettyman, founder of Indigo Cottage Crafts, is a mother, artist, writer, poet, and creative entrepreneur. Passionate about the transformative power of creativity, she believes it brings joy, healing, and connection to our lives. At Indigo Cottage, Brandy fosters a welcoming space where creatives can share their talents and build community. Whether crafting, writing, or people-watching at a local coffee shop, she makes time for daily creation—even if it’s just a few minutes. Most days, you’ll find her with a large latte in hand, capturing fleeting thoughts in verse before they slip away.

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Brenda Michelle

Brenda Michelle is an author, graphic designer, mediator, mother, and many others. She lives in a small town in Nebraska, where she works hard and plays harder. She strives to share the parts of herself that, ideally, may someday aid others in seeing their innate talent and value. As an avid “armchair detective,” Brenda has learned there is often more to what we don’t say than what we do.

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Cambria Engstrom

Cambria Engstrom, a creative force in the world of fantasy and mythology, holds a Master’s in Creative Writing. Her thesis delved into imaginative variations on the Hero’s Journey, a theme she uses to inspire her own writing and teaching. Cambria is known for her inventive storytelling and unique approaches to mythic narratives, which she shares in her classes for the Nebraska Writers Guild. A former US Navy service member and mother of three, she also enjoys historical re-creation, drawing from ancient cultures to fuel her creative process and help writers explore bold, original paths in their stories.

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Charlene Pierce

Charlene Pierce founded the Nebraska Poetry Society, a non-profit organization, with the not-so-secret mission to get everyone hooked on poetry. Her work has been published in Misbehaving Nebraskans, The Good Life Review, 805 Lit, Quarter(ly), The Gilded Weathervane, Orange Juice and others. She is a Copyeditor for Raleigh Review and published The Poet’s Journal: A Beginner’s Workbook for Writing Poetry. She received a scholarship to the Pacific University MFA program, graduating in Jan 2026. By day, she is a freelance writer appearing on websites and blogs across the country and local magazines. Learn more at CharlenePierce.com or follow @CharWithAPen.

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Danielle Grandinetti

Danielle Grandinetti is an award-winning inspirational romance author fueled by tea and books. With a Master of Arts degree in Communication and Culture, she spent two decades in education. Over the years, she tutored middle and high school writing and taught collegiate-level group dynamics and intercultural communication as an adjunct professor. Her accolades include the UNW Distinguished Faith in Writing Award and the CROW National Excellence in Story Telling Award. Her fiction has also finaled in the FHLCW Reader’s Choice Award, Selah Awards, and Daphne du Maurier Awards. Find her online at daniellegrandinetti.com.

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DeeAnn Williamson

Dee Ann Williamson has a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and has worked in Advertising, Promotion and Marketing in various industries. She has also lent her marketing knowledge to authors, TikTok influencers and her own social media.
Lastly, she has taught Marketing classes at several conferences, per Zoom and at Writing classes over the past 25 years.

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Emma Faye

Emma Faye, aka the “Clean Reads Queen,” is a distinguished audiobook narrator and actor. Emma has lent her voice to more than 100 audiobooks with both indie authors and publishers, specializing in sweet romances, YA fantasy, wholesome nonfiction, and more. Working from her professional home studio, she brings stories to life with a unique warmth and authenticity. Her passion shines through in her characters and narration to bring them to life in an authentic and captivating way. She works closely with indie authors to help them through the process of bringing their books to audio and guiding them every step of the way.

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Jaye Viner (She/Her)

Jaye Viner knows just enough about a wide variety of things to embarrass herself at parties she never attends. She is the author of Jane of Battery Park, the Elaborate Lives series, and The Island of Dreams.

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Jeanne Reames

Dr. Jeanne Reames is not only a member of the history faculty at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she directs the Ancient Mediterranean Studies Program, but also a published author. Her duology, Dancing with the Lion: Becoming and Rise, about the young Alexander before he became “the Great,” has over 750 ratings on Goodreads, with an aggregate total of 4.4 stars. Her novels were recently translated into Italian, and she has both presented and published academically about historical fiction as public history.

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Jennifer Crosswhite

Jennifer Crosswhite is owner and CEO of Tandem Services, an author services company. She has over twenty years of experience in publishing—editing, coaching, and writing. Her experience spans both sides of the publishing desk, from bestselling author to former managing editor of a HarperCollins imprint. She’s worked with traditionally published, hybrid, and independently published authors to empower them to bring their writing dreams to life in both the fiction and nonfiction arenas.

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Julie Haase

Julie Haase is a freelance editor and writer, the Business and Publishing Manager for The Writer’s Ally, an editing and self-publishing services company, and the former Publications Chair for the Nebraska Writers Guild. Julie has published in various NWG pubs and The First Line as well as a guide for narrative writers called Tips & Tricks for Great Narrative Writing. Julie lives in Omaha and is a proud cat mama.

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Katie Garland

Katie never could have imagined she’d be working directly with bestselling authors when she graduated from small-town Nebraska years ago, but somehow she found her way into book marketing in 2018! Wanting to embrace her design skills, she founded Sapphire Midnight Design in 2022 to provide premium design services. While she designs books, graphics, websites, and more for authors, she also runs a bookish-themed merchandise shop. Katie is passionate about teaching authors how to DIY when hiring out just isn’t an option! You will often find her answering questions on social media and designing awesome things at midnight.

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Mandi Blake

Mandi Blake was born and raised in Alabama where she lives with her husband and daughter, but her southern heart loves to travel. Reading has been her favorite hobby for as long as she can remember, but writing is her passion. She loves a good happily ever after in her sweet Christian romance books and loves to see her characters’ relationships grow closer to God and each other.

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Melissa Kay

Melissa Kreikemeier is an editor and forensic science educator. She creates content and courses about forensic science geared specifically to fiction authors.
Prior to becoming an editor, Melissa worked as a forensic scientist for seven years in a state crime lab. She then moved overseas in 2014 to teach science. After repatriating to the USA in 2017, she began her editing career. She is still quite giddy that she gets paid to read.

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Miranda Darrow

Miranda Darrow is a freelance editor, #RevPit board member, and writer. After graduating with a degree in English (and then a law degree), she became a practicing attorney but never lost the urge to read and write fiction. Taking an in-house counsel position fifteen years ago allowed her the time to develop her writing and editing skills. She’s a member of multiple editing organizations and is a frequent presenter to writing groups. Her logic skills honed as an attorney are an asset in detecting and remedying timeline issues, plot inconsistencies, as well as pacing and story arc concerns.

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Robin Buckallew

Dr. Buckallew has an MFA in writing from UNO, and has written numerous novels and plays. She taught science and English to college freshmen, and has done freelance editing. She has learned tricks of self-publishing that help her books look professionally published.

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ShannonDoah

ShennahDoah is a full-time French and Spanish teacher in a rural K-12 school. She also works part-time at a YMCA.
When she’s not working, she enjoys reading, writing, acting in local theatre productions, and working in a seasonal haunted house.
She writes poetry, short stories, song lyrics, and paranormal and science fiction novels.

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Steve Rose

Steve Rose’s poetry appeared in numerous publications, including The Midwest Quarterly, So It Goes, The River Heron, The Journal of Medical Literature, Conestoga Zen, the Dime Bag of Poetry, and Nebraska Writers’ Guild Anthologies. He’s published two books of poetry: Hard Papas in 2014 and Nebraska and Other States in 2017.
Rose served as a judge of various poetry anthologies, including Lyrical Iowa, for 15 or more years. In coaching creative writing, he draws from the psychology of aesthetics, research in persuasion, scholarship in language acquisition and reading, as well as traditional best practices in creative writing.

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Tammy Marshall

Tammy Marshall, the current secretary of the NWG, is a novelist, columnist, blogger, speaker, comedian, traveler, motorcyclist, painter, mother, retired teacher, and all-around busy gal. She has published six novels and has more in the works.

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Tara Grace Ericson

Tara Grace Ericson is a best-selling author of Christian romance and romantic suspense. She lives in Missouri with her husband and three sons. Before embracing her creative side to become a full-time author and mom, Tara worked as a manufacturing and sales engineer for many years.

Tara is also the author of Prayers for Writers and the co-author of the Romance Writer’s Encyclopedia Series.

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Tara Holladay

Tara (T.M.) Holladay is the creator behind “The Only Character Workbook You’ll Ever Need,” along with the other bestselling workbooks in a series to help writers craft immersive worlds, captivating characters, and gripping plots. She lives in Arizona with her family and writes YA fantasy and rom-com. She thrives in “project mode” and doesn’t know how to do things halfway; ipso facto, her story-bible-building workbooks have relaunched as the desktop and mobile friendly Novelio.app, the ultimate creativity index for writers.

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Tasha Hackett

Tasha is a best-selling author of Christian historical and contemporary rom-com. Her husband had no idea what he was about to start when he asked, “If you wrote a book, what would it be about?” One novel led to more and now as Vice President of the NWG, she finds herself planning conferences for people who talk to imaginary friends (and enemies). She currently writes romance about flawed humans who are loved by an unflawed God. Find her on Instagram @tashahackett.author.

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Tessa A. Adams

Tessa A. Adams is a language arts and creative writing teacher in Omaha, Nebraska where she has worked for 21 years helping teens and adults find the motivation and discipline to create. She specializes in flash fiction and poetry. Her work can be found in Fine Lines Literary Journal, Empty Sink Publishing, Route 7 Review, THAT Literary Review, Sammiches and Psychmeds, HuffPost Parent, The Sunlight Press, the Carillon, and Parent.co.

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Victorine Lieske

Victorine self-published her first book, Not What She Seems, in April of 2010. In March of 2011, Not What She Seems began its 6-week run on The New York Times best-selling eBook list. By May 2011 she had sold over 100,000 copies. Victorine’s first romantic comedy novel hit the USA Today Bestselling books list in January 2015. When she’s not writing, she’s watching swoony Korean Dramas, or making something with her extensive yarn collection.