This annual conference is a series of seminars and conversations with two highly praised authors, offering local writers the chance to learn directly from seasoned professionals. Through workshops, discussions and Q&A sessions, participants will explore the craft of storytelling, from character development and structure to the publishing process itself.

Beyond the educational side, the event is also about connection – bringing together writers of all backgrounds to share ideas, find inspiration and strengthen Steamboat’s vibrant literary community. For many attendees, it’s a rare opportunity to step away from the solitary act of writing and engage with others who share the same passion for words.

The conference itself grew out of the Steamboat Writers Group’s long tradition of collaboration and support. What began as a small circle of local writers meeting weekly to share drafts and offer encouragement eventually evolved into something much larger – a regional gathering that attracts authors, poets and storytellers from across Colorado and beyond. Over the years, it has become both a celebration of the written word and a testament to Steamboat’s creative spirit.

While the format has changed and new voices continue to join, the heart of the event remains the same: helping writers find their voice and connect with others who understand the joys and challenges of the craft. From its early days in community halls to the professional seminars it hosts today, the conference stands as a reminder that great writing often begins with a supportive community.

This year’s conference date has been set for Friday, Oct. 17 and Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025. Registration, now open, costs $125 and can be found on either the Steamboat Writers’ Group website or at Steamboat Creates with this link: https://www.steamboatcreates.org/the-writers-group/

Meet the Speakers

Steamboat Magazine staff writer, Skylar Leeson, spoke with Mark and Martin.

Steamboat Magazine: What can you tell me about your recent work? 

Mark Obmascik: I just do non-fiction storytelling. My first work was about three guys in a race to break the North American bird watching record – how many species can you see in a year. My second one was about how I did all the fourteeners in Colorado in a summer – so the idea there was what can you do when your body’s best days are behind you. And then my third one was a book about when the Japanese had invaded and conquered part of Alaska in World War II. I had a Japanese surgeon who had been trained in the U.S. I did it through the eyes of the Japanese surgeon who had fallen in love with America, and then through the eyes of the American soldier who got a medal for killing him; who then spent the next 40 years trying to find his family and seek atonement.

Martin Smith: My most recent non fiction book came out in 2021, it's called “Going to Trinidad,” and it’s a historical look at Trinidad, Colorado as a gender crossroads. For 41 years, between 1969 and 2010, there was a surgeon there who specialized in gender confirmation surgery, male to female and female to male. He was a pioneer in that realm at a time when university gender clinics were backing away from those surgeries, so that Trinidad, this little small town in southern Colorado, mostly a Hispanic, Catholic mining town, became the center of the universe for transgender men and women looking for that kind of surgery. So much so that the phrase ‘going to Trinidad’ became a euphemism for having surgery. I was kind of delighted to find that no one had actually written that book when I moved to Colorado in 2016. 

Steamboat Magazine: What are the central ideas you hope participants take away from your session?

Mark Obmascik: When I started writing books, I got a quote that somebody sent me that said, ‘writing is the art of avoiding procrastination.’ It’s one thing to have writing talent and skill, but really it's about writing discipline. On the days when you don't want to write, when you feel like you can't write, when you feel stuck, you just have to kind of grind through it. 

Martin Smith: The main session I’m leading is called ‘Pressure Test Your Novel Idea,’ and it's a system I developed over the years. I’ve written six novels now, five non-fiction books, and I’m a journalist by trade so fiction was a whole new realm for me. I started in the mid-90s and at the time I was helping raise two kids, working my day job as a magazine editor and I was trying to write fiction on the side. So I had to be very efficient about that because I didn’t have a lot of time. And I think that's the case with most people. I suspect most of the folks that participate in the Steamboat Springs writers group are in the same boat – they’re trying to make a living, they're trying to raise a family and they're trying to pursue some sort of destiny beyond that. So I came up with this very simple three step system. You take a novel idea that you’ve got in your head and you have to make sure that the main components are in place before you write 400 pages and realize ‘oh I’ve got this all wrong.’ It’s a very simple process to kind of pressure test that idea. Make sure that you’ve got really good character at the center of that story, and you’ve got a really good conflict. What is that character up against? And you got to have some sort of idea of how that story ends, the conclusion. I call it the three C’s: character, conflict and conclusion. It’s a short hand way of putting your idea through that process to see if it holds up, or how you might be able to make it better. 

Steamboat Magazine: What projects or publications have you been most excited about lately?

Mark Obmascik: I’m working on a bunch of stuff but it’s all top secret!

Martin Smith: I just finished a novel that I've been working on for the last three years and I am very excited about it, though I’m not sure publicists are as excited about it. I am having a little trouble finding a home for it right now, but we’ll get there. I think it’s probably the best novel I am capable of writing. It’s based on my older brother Bill’s experience as a sniper in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. It’s not history, it’s a fictional story. But that story enabled me to get at the broader idea of something called moral injury, which is what happens to warriors when they put themselves in a position of doing things they know, based on their own moral code, is wrong and yet they get rewarded for it. They get pats on the back, they get medals, they get promoted even though they know what they're doing is not morally just. That was the experience with my brother, and I think that was the experience of a lot of veterans. So that’s kind of the broader theme of it, but it’s really a story of three survivors of a river boat that get together after fifty years to relive those times. So I am very excited about it, I just need to get a publisher excited about it as well.

Steamboat Magazine: What’s your main piece of advice for writers looking to improve their craft?

Mark Obmascik: I guess the main one is don’t be afraid to suck. I go back and look at what I wrote, how I wrote, the way that I wrote in the early days and I just cringe. But you get better. The more you do it the better you get, the more feedback you get the more confidence you get. It’s lonely work sitting in front of a blank screen trying to get a word count every day. But it's like most things – fishing, running, biking – you should get better in time. The difference is that you don't usually fish for an audience. With writing you succeed or fail in front of a crowd. But you get an idea after a while of what works. It’s like Miss Frizzle with the Magic School Bus: ‘Make mistakes, break things.’ The only way you know if things work or not is to try it. Don't be afraid to screw up.