My friend, Marian Fontana, and I are making our yearly pilgrimage to "Writers at the
Beach: Pure Sea Glass", a  writer’s conference in Rehoboth, Maryland, founded by Maribeth Fischer, author of The Language of Good Bye and The Life You Longed For.

The conference is also a benefit for a very worthy cause: 100% of the net proceeds from this event are donated to Mitochondrial
Disease Research in honor of two of Fisher’s nephews, who died of the disease.

Here in Fisher’s own words are her reasons for this conference:

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 half 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.
         
In the last three years,
thanks to the writers, agents, editors, publishers and songwriters who
VOLUNTEER their time to this event, thanks to the web-designers and
photographers, to Celia Pearson, whose sea glass images we use each
year, our local restaurants who help make the author dinners possible,
the local and national companies who donate products, and the many many
participants who donate an extra ten or fifty or one hundred dollars to
this event, "Writers at the Beach:Pure Sea Glass" has donated over
$35,000 dollars to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in honor
of Sam and Zach Juhlman.

In
addition to raising money for mitochondrial disease, "Writers at the
Beach" is Delaware’s largest writing conference, bringing to Rehoboth
nationally-known writers from across the US, as well as participants
from nearly two-dozen states. In addition to what the authors do for
the conference, they also volunteer to go into our local schools, offer
free workshops for young writers, and serve as judges in our annual
Young Writers Contest.