Four of the five board members were present at the conference L to R: Ellen Gable Hrkach, Ann Margaret Lewis, Jennifer Fitz, Karina Fabian
Four of the five board members were present at last year’s conference L to R: Ellen Gable Hrkach, Ann Margaret Lewis, Jennifer Fitz, Karina Fabian
Where do you get your inspiration for writing? Do ideas come to you at strange times or can you be inspired by reading a book, watching a movie or looking at art work and photographs?

For me, it is all of the above. Ideas often pop into my head at all hours of the day and night. Novels, movies, plays, art work, photography can all give me inspiration. For instance, a visit to the art gallery recently sparked three different ideas for future books/stories.

Many CWG members have shared with me that their greatest inspirations and ideas came when they attended either the online conference or the live conference.

Which brings me to the Catholic Writers Conference Live, to be held in conjunction with the Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show just outside of Chicago from July 29th to August 1st. With daily Mass, confessions and adoration, if you need inspiration, this will be the place for you! The theme will be “Perseverance” and confirmed speakers are Lisa Hendey, Gene Wolfe, Cassandra Poppe, Lizzie Velasquez, Claudia Volkman and many others. There will be interesting panels on self-publishing, rejection, action writing and blogging, to name a few.

So…please consider attending! We’d love to meet you! For more information or to register, please click on this link: Catholic Writers Conference Live.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me president (at) catholicwritersguild.com.

In Christ,

Ellen Gable Hrkach

Ellen Gable Hrkach is an award-winning, Amazon bestselling author. Her five books have been downloaded over 620,000 times on Kindle. Currently, she works as the Marketing Director for Live the Fast, a non-profit Roman Catholic apostolate based in Boston. She does freelance writing and editing for a variety of other websites, she blogs at "Plot Line & Sinker" http://ellengable.wordpress.com and is also self-publishing book consultant and a publisher. She and her husband are the parents of five sons ages 16 to 28 and live in Pakenham, Ontario. In her spare time, Ellen enjoys playing board games with her family, watching classic movies on TCM and reading on her Kindle.

3 Replies to “From the President’s Desk – Inspiration and CWCL”

    1. For being spanish i believe that i can not attend to the lectures, but thanks for the offering Mrs. Gable and the best president that Catholic writers guild can offer to me, (a catholic writer collector, and reader) it is the catholic literature continue having good health. That the new and the old catholic writers share his experience, and it continue appearing new catholic writers, who continue the good moment of the catholic literature in United States, and of course i send a big hug to my friends Julie Davis, and Elena Maria Vidal. And i believe that it is a pleasure an gift that in this lecture appear a legend like Gene Wolfe. The Wikipedia said about him that he is the Herman Melville of the science fiction, and one of the best writers nowadays. Respect the rest of writers i expect that very early in Spain i heard to speak about them. God bless to everybody and i expected the event was excellent.

  1. In my case if you have a good story you ever reflected like a catholic point of view. This story have to be good, and in relation with your faith respect the conference although i can not assist for being a foreign. I like very much the presence of Gene Wolfe. One of the most important writers in the fiction. I have not the chance to read any book, but i know that it is one of the greatest catholic writers. I was speaking of this topic with my friend Julie Davis. One of my maniac is to find a writer who write epic fantasy like Tolkien. Perhaps Gene Wolfe does not write this fantasy, but i have the feeling that he is near to write. He wrote letters with Tolkien in his yout. I wish i could listen his lecture, sincerely Fonch.

Comments are closed.