Appearances & Workshops

Check here for Barbara's conference and workshop appearances as well as podcasts and virtual event recordings.

2025 Confirmed Appearances (several pending)


SC Comicon in Greenville, SC, April 5-6

Atomacon in N. Charleston, SC, May 3-4

Imaginarium in Louisville, KY, July 18-20



2024 Appearances

Southern Author Expo, January 20

Women in Publishing Summit, March 6-9, virtual

Top Shelf Magazine, Spring 2024

JordanCon, April 19-21

AtomaCon, May 4-5

Author and Artisan Market, As the Page Turns in Travelers Rest, SC May 25, 11-3 

Imaginarium, July 19-21

Storyfest, South Carolina Writers Association, September 27-29

Hampton Road Writers, September 21, virtual

First Coast Romance Writers, Nov. 8, Virtual

Podcasts and Virtual Event Recordings

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Skin Tone: Describing Your Characters

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When you write about character's of different races, how do you describe their skin tone? If you've never thought about this, then consider this question: How do the authors you read described persons of color? A few months ago, I attended a webinar about writing diverse characters. The guest was Eliana West of Writers for Diversity . The information she shared felt fresh and valuable, especially related to describing a character's skin tone. I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive the slave trade--coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There's some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.    -- N. K. Jemisin As this quote from author, N. K . Jemisin , indicates, historically, writers have described people of color using food-related descriptors. Many people of color find this offensive. This surprised me, at first, but she has a point, especially when you view it through the quote above. My fir...
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He Said, She Said, Who Said? Punctuating Dialogue

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Courtesy of Morguefile.com I've been focusing my posts on workshops and panels I taught or participated on at the Imaginarium Convention. Although this serves as a poor substitute for the real thing, I can share some highlights. This week, we're going to explore dialogue punctuation. The first thing writers need to learn is how to properly punctuate dialogue. I've discovered, over the years, that many don't know how. Notice in the first example below, the dialogue starts at the beginning of the sentence, and the speaking tag (he said, she said, Paul said, etc.) follows it.  A few points to notice: The first letter of the quotation is capitalized. What the person says is a sentence, so it must be capitalized. A comma comes directly after the quote and INSIDE the quotation marks. You can, also, have a question mark or exclamation point here. There is a space AFTER the closing quotation mark followed by the speaking tag and a period at the end of the sentence. In the next ...
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