Thursday, March 20, 2025
Noon – 1:00 pm / PST Online via Zoom
Pre-Pitch Coaching Session
By popular demand, WNBA-SF will hold a Pre Pitch-O-Rama Coaching AMA [Ask Me Anything].
Registration is free for anyone already signed up for 2025 Pitch-O-Rama. If you haven’t, prices are $10 for WNBA-SF members and $25 for non-members.
We are VERY excited to hold our fifth virtual Pitch-O-Rama which is looking to be a fabulous event with new agents and editors including those from the New York publishing world. And, since it is virtual, we have many new writers joining us, hailing from all over the country and even a couple of international guests. We have received many questions and suggestions which resulted in this Pre Pitch session.
WNBA-SF stalwarts who have run Pitch-O-Rama for many years will tell you what to expect, tips and strategies for inspired pitching, and how to get the most from this mini-writers conference.
Hosted by Madame President and publisher Brenda Knight, this event will feature experts who can answer any question you have, so make your list now! She will share what editors and agents are looking for, and how to position your project so it will garner real interest from acquiring editors and literary agents.
Steeped in Pitch-O-Rama history, Kate Farrell will offer insight into effective pitches and the kind of good advice only an experienced author and pitch event coordinator can provide.
Another Pitch-O-Rama veteran and WNBA National President, Elise Marie Collins offers techniques on how to overcome nerves and make your best impression.
There’s the book you’ve written and the book a publisher will buy. Are they the same book? In 2024, Randy Peyser secured book deals for 16 people. The mix included: 6 business books, 2 mind-body-spirit books, 2 novels, 2 whistleblower books, a self-help book, a guide book, a memoir, and a political book. Randy will help you discern if the book you are writing is one that is positioned correctly for a book deal.
Goal setting expert Debra Eckerling will share tips for networking in the fast-moving, virtual space.
Every year, writers find agents, get publishing deals and get excellent feedback that advances their writing careers. This year, it can be you!
Registration is free for anyone already signed up for 2025 Pitch-O-Rama. If you haven’t, prices are $10 for WNBA-SF members and $25 for non-members.
REGISTER HERE!
Thank you for your interest! Registration is closed.
Distinguished Panelists
Brenda Knight, author of Women of the Beat Generation, began her publishing career at HarperCollins working with luminaries including Paolo Coehlo, Marianne Williamson, Mark Nepo, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Knight was awarded IndieFab’s Publisher of the Year at the American Library Association in 2014. She is the author of Random Acts of Kindness, Be a Good in the World, and Women of the Beat Generation which won the American Book Award. She is President of WNBA-SF Chapter.
Elise Marie Collins has consulted with small businesses, authors, and alumni associations on social media marketing and believes that a social media plan should be intuitive, fun, and seamless. Helping students and clients form healthy lifestyle patterns is Elise Collins’ passion and life purpose. She has taught yoga for the past 20 years and is the author of several books on healthy living, including her latest, Super Ager: You Can Look Younger, Have More Energy, a Better Memory, and Live a Long and Healthy Life. Elise enjoys sharing yoga wisdom and current scientific research and is President of WNBA National.
Kate Farrell, author, storyteller, and educator founded the Word Weaving Storytelling Project and published numerous educational materials on storytelling. She has contributed to and edited award-winning anthologies of personal narrative. Her award-winning new book is a how-to guide on the art of storytelling for adults, Story Power: Secrets to Creating, Crafting, and Telling Memorable Stories. She offers workshops on storytelling and the heroine’s journey for libraries and writing groups here.
Debra Eckerling is the award-winning author of Your Goal Guide: A Roadmap for Setting, Planning, and Achieving Your Goals and creator of the D*E*B METHOD®, for Goal-Setting Simplified. A goals strategist, corporate consultant, and workshop leader, Debra offers personal and professional planning content development, event strategy, and team-building for executives, entrepreneurs, consultants, and companies. Debra has spoken on stages for TEDx, Innovation Women, SCORE LA, and more. She is the founder of the Write On Online community, as well as host of the #GoalChatLive show aka The DEB Show and the Taste Buds with Deb podcast.
Randy Peyser sells non-fiction manuscripts in all genres and speaks nationally about how to earn book deals. She also serves as faculty for CEO Space International, where she teaches about writing book proposals. She is the author of The Write-a-Book Progra; Crappy to Happy as featured in the move Eat, Pray, Love; and The Power of Miracle Thinking.
Her clients’ books have appeared in Oprah, Time Magazine, the bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, in airport bookstores, Office Max and FedEx stores, and on Hallmark TV. Her work is featured in: Healing the Heart of the World, The Marriage of Sex and Spirit, Secrets of Shameless Self-Promoters, and the national bestsellers, Networking Magic Guerilla Publicity and The Profit of Kindness.
Paul S. Levine “wears two hats:” he is a lawyer (www.paulslevine.com) and a literary agent (www.paulslevinelit.com). Mr. Levine has practiced entertainment law for more than 40 years and established his first solo practice in 1992. Seeing an underserved niche on the West Coast, he decided early on to focus on serving book authors. This naturally evolved into his work as a literary agent. Seeking to expand the range of services he could offer his clients to include the representation of books, Levine opened The Paul S. Levine Literary Agency in 1996, which he has recently expanded. Whether he is considering fiction or non-fiction, Levine will not take on a project unless he feels certain he can sell it. With a preference for politically and socially important works, he represents more than 200 book authors, the vast majority of whom are new, unpublished, or self-published writers. For Levine, the most rewarding moment is holding his client’s published book in his hands at a well-attended book signing and seeing the smile on his client’s face. Enjoying public speaking and teaching, Levine presents extensively at writers’ conferences throughout the country and at entertainment law-related classes and seminars.
Remember to take advantage of this unique opportunity to pitch your book idea to agents, publishers, and editors by registering for Pitch-O-Rama 2025!
Laurie Sue Brockway is a seasoned writer of thousands of articles, 25 books, and many once-unfinished manuscripts. She developed her unique approach to tapping into creative magic after years of writing panic, fear, and frustration! Her books have been published by Penguin, Random House, Sterling, and Llewellyn. Now running her own self-publishing company, she is sharing her wisdom to help other writers. Her books include Writer’s Flow, She Who Scrivens, Goddess Seshat, Lakshmi Magic, and The Goddess Pages. She holds degrees in psychology, ministry, and public history. Find out more at 
Eva Barrows is a developmental editor and content manager in the San Francisco Bay Area. She edits a variety of non-fiction and fiction book projects spanning self-development, memoirs, and historical fiction novels. Eva is the 2023-2025 Vice President of the California Writers Club, San Francisco Peninsula chapter and member of the Historical Novel Society and Women’s National Book Association. Eva founded 
Lila LaBine is a line and copy editor of fiction manuscripts and screenplays. She started her business, 
About Debra: Debra Eckerling is the award-winning author of 
Karen Wang Diggs is a chef and nutritionist by day and a history hound and writer by night. She is passionate about sharing the injustices faced by women throughout history, with the aim of empowering girls and women today to change the future by striving for absolute gender equality. Her work is dedicated to sharing those lesser-told stories to show the world that strong females always have been and always will be crucial to humanity’s progress.
Sheila Smith McKoy, PHD is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker. She is the recipient of the 2020 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Prize in poetry. Her poetry collections include The Bones Beneath (Black Lawrence Press, 2024) One Window’s Light: A Haiku Collection, a collaboration of five Black poets; the collection won the 2017 Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award for best haiku anthology. In addition to her poetry and fiction, Smith McKoy has authored and edited numerous scholarly works. She focuses on vital conversations about equity, inclusion and the Black speculative. A native of Raleigh, NC, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Zoë Flowers is a versatile artist, advocate, poet, and healing practitioner with a body of
Joan Gelfand is the author of three collections of poetry, a chapbook of short fiction and a novel set in a Silicon Valley startup, Joan has taught for California Poets in the Schools, The Writing Salon and the San Francisco Writer’s Conference. In January, 2024 Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley
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Ellen McBarnette is a lifelong writer whose nonfiction work has been published as testimony, fact sheets, and opinion pieces for organizations that include the Sierra Club and the American Bar Association. A professional storyteller, she is a recent transplant from Washington, DC where she ran the Arlington Creative Nonfiction Writers Group. She now runs the Beta Readers and Writers Group and is an active participant in critique groups in the Bay. She lives in Hayward with her partner Ben and their cat Java.
Mary Mackey is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels, including The Earthsong Series—four novels which describe how the peaceful Goddess-worshiping people of Prehistoric Europe fought off patriarchal nomad invaders (The Village of Bones, The Year The Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring). They have made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists, been translated into twelve foreign languages, and sold over a million and a half copies. She has published several collections of poetry, including Sugar Zone and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams. You can get the latest news about Mary’s books, public appearances, newsletter, and writing advice at marymackey.com.
Vanessa MacLaren-Wray writes science fiction and fantasy about people—human and otherwise—connecting in our complex universe. She’s the author of the Patchwork Universe series: All That Was Asked, Shadows of Insurrection, and Flames of Attrition. She also writes for the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy shared-world series and guest-hosts for the podcast Small Publishing in a Big Universe. She’s an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, the California Writers Club, and (of course) the WNBA. When not arguing with her cats, she works on new stories, her email journal, Messages from the Oort Cloud, and her website, Cometary Tales.