Imaginarium 2025 is proud to announce the addition of eighteen new Workshops and three new Panels to our programming! There will be over 135 panels and workshops hosted in our 12th year, so make sure to check back regularly on our official site to see all new additions!
The titles, presenters, and descriptions for these new programming additions are as follows:
New Workshops Added:
All You Need Is Word: Presenter – R.C. Reid. For beginning authors and folks who like to keep things simple and cheap, this workshop walks through specific features of Microsoft Word, with plenty of real-life examples and demonstrations, which can make writing easy and effective, no matter how you like to do it.
Battle of the Word Counts. Presenter – Rebecca Johnson. How to boost your word count effectively without causing your story to drag AND how to trim your count to speed pacing or meet submission specifications. Will address redundancy, showing vs telling, additive information, and other cutting room strategies.
Better Beta Reading: Both Sides of the Pen: Presenter – Morgan Hazelwood. Writers can’t get better without feedback. Maybe you’re a writer yourself, trying to figure out how to best use the feedback you’re given — or if it’s useful at all. Maybe you’re just willing to read your friend’s work and give them feedback, but aren’t sure exactly what to say past “I liked it” or “It kinda sucked”. This workshop should help both readers and writers.
Crafting Your Novel’s Story Structure: Presenter – Angie Andriot. Struggling to wrangle your brilliant story ideas into something that actually makes sense on paper? This hands-on workshop will guide you through three essential steps: clarifying your “why,” building a compelling protagonist, and mapping key plot points. Perfect for first-time authors or writers stuck in the murky middle, this session will help you shape a structure that supports your vision—without killing your creative spark.
Death, Taxes and Freelancing: Presenter – Elizabeth Donald. Let’s face it, if we were good with money, would we be writers? Learn how to manage the money side of being a writer and file with Uncle Sam in ways that helps keep you from paying too much while also not going to prison. Elizabeth Donald is not a tax professional, so don’t sue, but she’s been doing her own bookkeeping and taxes for freelance writing and other entrepreneurial misbehavior since 1994 and knows ways to help the math-challenged figure out the money stuff.
Diversification Strategies to Build an Ironclad Author Career: Presenter – Lydia Sherrer. Come learn proven strategies for diversifying your operations and exploiting your IP to the fullest in order to create stability and longevity for your career.
As the independent author industry matures and technology advances to bring more opportunities to individual entrepreneurs, there are a myriad of traditional as well as new and innovative ways for authors to exploit their Intellectual Property, grow their brand, and find new income streams. Join award-winning and USA Today-bestselling author Lydia Sherrer to learn proven strategies for diversifying your operations and exploiting your IP to the fullest in order to create stability and longevity for your career.
Intended audience: Emerging and established authors
By the end, the audience will understand:
How to balance your core income activities with new diversification opportunities
What sorts of diversification strategies are available (different media types, publishing avenues, retail platforms, and creative ways of exploiting your writing skills and story IP)
How to determine what diversification opportunities are right for you
Essay Me This: Crafting Compelling Narrative Nonfiction: Presenter – Alisa Childress. In this hands-on, generative workshop, you will learn to create a personal story others want to read. I will introduce you to various types of essays and ways to structure creative nonfiction to best showcase your voice. We will discuss what makes a creative nonfiction piece compelling to the reader and many ways to get your piece out into the world.
Generational Storytelling: How To Share & Preserve Your Family Stories: Presenter – Jessica Starks. Generational Storytelling: How To Share & Preserve Your Family Stories. Jessica Starks This workshop teaches participants what generational storytelling is, how to tap into memories, ways to preserve those memories, and how you can use generational storytelling and memorywork in your writing or preferred art form.
Historical Recreation of Late Victorian and Edwardian Ladies’ Garments: Presenter – Dr. Conni Spotts. This session is led by DR. Conni Spotts who holds a PhD in Apparel, Merchandising, and Design. She will demonstrate the Keister System of scientific ladies’ tailoring and pattern drafting. Participates will draft (or view how to draft) a basic bodice with actual measurements and learn how the Keister Method translates the measurements into a pattern draft and ultimately into a finished muslin.
How to Successfully Make a Short Film: Presenter – Austin Sheehan. Have a story burning to be told through film? This workshop is your launching pad! Discover the key ingredients for successfully making a short film that captivates audiences. We’ll break down the filmmaking process into manageable steps, empowering you with the tools and techniques to bring your vision to fruition, regardless of your experience level. Get ready to roll camera on your short film journey!
Indiepublife: Make a Short, Easy Book Trailer. Presenter – Page Zaplendam. Increase your book marketing content by creating a book trailer! From software to sourcing materials and bringing it all together, this 30-minute tutorial will show you how to create your own unique, short book trailers perfect for all social media platforms.
Follow up the instructional with a 30-minute live demo, where Page will create a book trailer for Quanta Publishing’s newest release, Noblesse Oblige Stellaris.
Length: 1 hour in two parts
Part 1: 30-minute Instructional
Part 2: 30-minute Live demo
Revealing Character Through Active Setting: Presenter – Dr. Mary Leoson. This session focuses on how fiction writers can create an active setting to make characters more dynamic; this approach supports “showing rather than telling.” This is a generative writing session, so participants walk away with words on the page.
Santiago’s Healing Mental Health with Motivation and Humor through Entertainment: Presenter – Santiago Cirillo. This dynamic workshop brings actor/author Santiago Cirilo from the entertainment world to discuss the surprising and significant role of motivation and humor in healing and maintaining mental well-being. He will share personal experiences and professional insights on how finding the funny, embracing uplifting messages, and engaging with entertaining content can provide comfort, reduce stigma, and inspire hope on the path to mental wellness. Expect a lively conversation that blends vulnerability with levity.
Skeletal Analysis for Authors: Presenter – Sara Marian. In this workshop, archaeologist & author Sara Marian will discuss how bioarchaeologists and forensic anthropologists go about estimating features of a deceased person’s identity, as well as a crash course on how different types of trauma show up on skeletonized remains.
Story to Table: A Game Design Workshop for Creators: Presenter – David Sherrer. Got a world, series, or story you’d love to turn into a board game? This hands-on workshop is designed for authors and creators looking to adapt their books or IP into engaging tabletop experiences. Learn the basics of game design, explore how narrative and mechanics intersect, and start developing a concept that brings your world to the game table. No prior game design experience needed—just bring your imagination and your story!
Supercharge Your Sales by Mastering the “Emotional Promise”: Presenter – Lydia Sherrer. Readers don’t buy books because they want a book. They buy books because they want an emotional experience. It is your job as the author to convey through your brand, your newsletter, your social media presence, and your ads exactly what kind of emotional experience readers will get. Join Lydia Sherrer, USA Today bestselling- and award-winning author, as she teaches you how to craft your marketing to attract readers in droves with an emotional promise they can’t resist.
Intended audience: Emerging and established authors
By the end, you will understand:
How to apply your brand’s emotional promise to each area of your marketing
The psychology that drives people to buy books
What an emotional promise is and how it generates sales
How to discover the emotional promise of your particular brand or book and tailor it to your audience
What Your Fight Scenes Are Missing and How to Punch Them Up: Presenter – Meadoe Hora. Writing action scenes can be tough to nail. We’ll go through the difference between fight scenes in movies and those in books, talk about the purpose underlying every action sequence, the parts that make up a fight scene and ways to make yours unique.
Writing Habits That Stick: Presenter – Elizabeth Donald. They say if you do something every day for 21 days, it’s a habit. But not all habits are good ones! Develop good writing habits that help you produce strong work and avoid the dreaded writer’s block to set and meet your goals as a writer. Come prepared to share things that work for you – or really, really didn’t – so we can all learn from each other!
New Panels Added:
Critique Groups: A Writer’s Friend or Waste of Time?: Moderator – Alan Goldstein. Writer’s groups are often cited in the acknowledgments of books, including many successful authors. But can you benefit? This panel explores the many faces of critique groups, how they function, meeting frequency, factors to measure success, and determining whether their goals and objectives mesh with yours.
The Literary Underworld: Moderator – Elizabeth Donald. A lot of people are really confused by the concept of an author-small press cooperative, and it makes for a fun panel to talk about what we do, what we don’t do, and how a cooperative can help your writing career.
Psychology in Fiction: Moderator – Eleni McKnight. How do you make your fictional characters feel real? This panel explores the practical application of psychological principles in fiction writing. Discover how to develop nuanced motivations, believable reactions, and compelling internal conflicts. Our panelists will share insights on researching psychological concepts, avoiding stereotypes, and using psychology to drive plot and theme, ultimately enriching your storytelling.
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