I’m at Writers at the Beach, a writers conference in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. While it is cold here, we are staying in a cool hotel just steps from the boardwalk and the water. Here is a description of this wonderful conference written by its founder Maribeth Fisher.

Hosted by the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild, a 501 c (3) association, “Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass” was founded in 2005 to raise money for, and awareness of, a little known disease that affects as many as 1 in 2000 children. Mitochondrial disease.

At our inaugural conference in March 2005 we hung posters throughout the conference facility with pictures of children and teens all of whom had this disease. “The Faces of Mitochondrial Disease” the poster said at the top. Over twenty children were shown, posing at Disney world, arms outstretched and standing in front of a lake, sitting before a Christmas tree, hugging a teddy bear. All were smiling, laughing, living.

Over two thirds of those children have since died.

Two of them are my nephews, Sam and Zachary.

Still, why a writers’ conference?

Because unless this story gets told—and heard—the money for a cure will never be raised. Because we all have stories like this that need to get told for whatever reason. “Writers at the Beach” is about helping others to tell their stories.

We’re really excited about the fifth annual conference—not only because we have some of our/your favorite writers returning in 2010, but also because we have some amazing new authors participating for the first time, collectively offering over 30 workshops, a dozen panel discussions and plenty of manuscript reviews.