Course Description: A series of topic-specific workshops designed to drill deeper into the finer points of storytelling. Writing exercises will help you hone your skills and give you the confidence to take your writing to the next level.

Deep Listening for Writers: A writer is an observer first, last, and always. This session is an invitation to consider every interaction as an opportunity to follow one’s curiosity about people of other genders, races, ages, cultures, and socio-economic backgrounds with an eye on creating interesting and varied characters. This session will be interactive, with opportunities to practice listening techniques.

Characterization Through Dialogue: When characters talk to each other, the story moves forward and the reader learns about the speaker. In this session you’ll learn how to create characters out of thin air and learn the do’s and don’ts of finding the right words to put into their mouths.

Planning vs. Seat-of-the-Pantsing: Are you a meticulous planner, or do you just wing it? In this session we’ll explore writing strategies designed to add variety to your palette of writing techniques. If you’re a planner, we’ll explore how seat-of-the-pants writing can help you connect the dots. If your style is more free-form, we’ll look at how peeking at the road ahead can inspire your writing in the here-and-now.

Facing Your Writing Fears: Not only is writing a lonely process, it can be downright scary – especially if you’re shy, or an introvert. And, when it comes to mustering the courage to share our work with others, fear can turn to terror. In this session, we’ll look at understanding what frightens us — and how to get beyond those fears.

Your Instructor: John DeDakis is a former editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” DeDakis is the author of six traditionally published novels. Enemies Domestic, his latest political thriller, won eight writing awards in 2025 including the Pencraft, Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion, Feathered Quill, and the Grand Prize for Chanticleer’s Clue Award for Best Suspense/Thriller. DeDakis is a writing coach, manuscript editor, motivational speaker, podcaster, and regularly teaches novel writing at literary centers and conferences nationwide and abroad.

Learn more:www.johndedakis.com

About John’s books:

Fast Track is the story of Lark Chadwick, a young woman searching for purpose as she solves the mystery surrounding the car-train collision that orphaned her as an infant. The novel deals redemptively with issues of suicide, journalistic integrity, anonymous sources, and mentoring relationships. It grew out of two events in the author’s life: a fatal car/train crash he witnessed as a youngster in 1959 and the suicide of his sister in 1980. Fast Track won Silver (2nd place) in the 2021 Reader Views Literary Awards in the Classics/Adult Fiction category.

Bluff, a sequel to Fast Track, is John’s second novel that is based on his four-day, 25-mile hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. Both novels are set in south central Wisconsin. In the 2021 Reader Views Literary Awards competition, Bluff won Silver in the Mystery / Thriller category and placed first in the Great Lakes Region.

Troubled Water, John’s third novel in the Lark Chadwick saga, Lark discovers the first victim of what turns out to be a serial killer while on her way to her new job as a cops and courts reporter at a kick-ass daily newspaper in Georgia. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how journalism works — and doesn’t.

Bullet in the Chamber, was published by Strategic Media Books October 1, 2016. In John’s fourth novel, Lark once again finds herself at the wrong place at the right time: front-row center when the White House press briefing room is suddenly attacked. The president is missing, the first lady’s life is at risk, and Lark’s personal life is falling apart when the man she loves disappears. In this story, John draws on his own personal pain – the heroin overdose that killed his 22-year-old son Stephen in 2011.

The book won the Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award for 2016/2017, placing first in the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense/Horror category. Bullet also won a Silver Medal (second place) for The 2016 Foreword INDIES Book Award in the Thriller/Suspense category. It was an INDIES finalist in the Best Mystery category. And Bullet won the 2017 Feathered Quill Book Award (Bronze/3rd Place) in the Best Mystery/Thriller category.

Fake, John’s fifth Lark Chadwick novel, we find Lark thrust into a media-bashing frenzy at a time when facts are suspect and reporters are targets. Fake was published September 1, 2019. Fake earned Honorable Mention for the Reviewers Choice Award and was a Finalist for two book awards: Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion, and the CLUE Award sponsored by the Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA).

Enemies Domestic, a political thriller, Lark is White House press secretary. The story is set at a time when abortion is a crime and a dictator becomes president. Enemies Domestic is the winner of the Literary Titan Book Award.

Each book in the Lark Chadwick series is written to stand alone and don’t need to be read in order.

More intesting info:

• John’s literary agent since 2004 is Barbara Casey and he’s working with agent Garry Dinnerman of Beverly Grant Associates (BGA) to bring the screenplay adaptations of his novels to the attention of Hollywood.
• From 2013 to 2015, John was an adjunct journalism faculty member at the University of Maryland-College Park. In the fall of 2014, he began leading the “From Novice to Novelist” writing workshop at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He’s also taught writing workshops at Washington’s popular independent bookstore Politics and Prose.
• In addition to book signings and readings, DeDakis frequently speaks around the country on the topic “From Journalist to Novelist: (Or How I Learned to Start Making it Up).” He is also available as a one-on-one writing coach, a leader of day-long workshops for aspiring and/or struggling writers, and as an editor of book-length manuscripts.
• From June 28-July 4, 2015, John led a series of workshops at an immersive writing retreat in County Donegal, Ireland. He led a series of writing workshops aboard the Coral Princess on an 11-day cruise to the Panama Canal Oct. 24 – Nov. 4, 2013. Between April 7 and May 29, 2013, he was the Writer in Residence at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta teaching fiction writing classes and holding one-on-one writing tutorials.
• He taught a journalism/writing class for student interns during the summers of 2007/08 as a lecturer at American University, Washington, D.C. (Guest speakers included legendary White House Correspondent Helen Thomas, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, and Michael Ruane of the Washington Post.) John was an on-line adjunct professor at Regent University where he taught newswriting to grad students in 2008 and led a seminar in June 2009 on how to write a novel.
• In April 2010, he led writing workshops at The Writers’ Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was the keynote speaker in May 2010 at the Scribblers’ Retreat writers conference on St. Simons Island, Georgia.
• In recent years, John has been a popular workshop leader at the following writers’ conferences: Sleuthfest (Florida), Killer Nashville (Tennessee), Pennwriters (Pennsylvania), Flathead River (Montana), Hampton Roads (Virginia), BooksAlive (Florida), Lakefly (Wisconsin). He returned to the Lakefly conference May 9-10, 2014 to be a keynote speaker.
• John is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. In 2013, he served as a judge for the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel (Hardcover). The winner, “Ordinary Grace” by William Kent Krueger, was announced May 1, 2014 at the Mystery Writers of America banquet in New York City.

More about the Author: John DeDakis (pronounced deh-DAY-kiss) is the author of six mystery/suspense novels — Fast Track, Bluff, Troubled Water, Bullet in the Chamber, Fake, and Enemies Domestic. The novels provide a behind-the-scenes look at real-world journalism.

A native of La Crosse, Wisconsin, John began his journalism career in 1969 at a campus radio station at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was tear gassed while covering an anti-Vietnam War riot in 1970. He earned a B.A. in Journalism from that university in 1977 following a stint in the U.S. Army where he worked from 1972-74 as a Special Events Reporter at The American Forces Network – Europe (AFN-E) based in Frankfurt, Germany. During that time he interviewed legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock.

In the 1960s, DeDakis was an actor and performed in several productions at the La Crosse [Wisconsin] Community Theater where he won a Dionysos Award for his portrayal of Fleet Foot, a decrepit Indian guide in the musical spoof “Little Mary Sunshine.” He played the role of Grandma in a production of Edward Albee’s “The Sandbox” which placed first in a state-wide one-act play competition in Wisconsin.

In 1970, he became the first news director of WLSU-FM (88.9 NPR) located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. From 1976 to 1983, DeDakis was a reporter at WMTV (NBC-15) in Madison, Wisconsin where he covered energy and transportation issues. From 1983 to 1988, he was a General Assignment Correspondent with CBN News in Virginia Beach, Virginia. DeDakis was CBN’s White House Correspondent during the last three years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. In addition to interviewing Reagan, John also interviewed former president Jimmy Carter.

In March 2013, John retired from CNN after a 25-year career there that began in 1988 when he joined the network as a writer. From 2001 to 2005, he supervised the writing on CNN’s “Daybreak,” anchored by Carol Costello. He also copy edited newscasts anchored by Donna Kelley, Leon Harris, Bill Hemmer, Daryn Kagan, Kitty Pilgrim, and Martin Savidge. From 2006 to 2013, DeDakis led workshops in broadcast newswriting in CNN’s Washington, D.C. bureau.

Learn more about John’s six books, below. He is currently at work on book seven in his Lark Chadwick series, plus a memoir (Working Title: Plot Twists: On the Path to Personal Integrity).