CFCW Conference - About Us

Helping Writers Get Published Since 2002

Our conference was co-founded and run as the Cedar Falls Christian Writers Workshop by author Shelly Beach in 2002. Jean Vaux and Sue Schuerman were co-coordinators until 2023 when Nick and Mary Portzen took over. Our conference attendees have been featured in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies and many have gotten agent and book deals. Each year we choose workshop topics that teach writers the skills they need to get published, including how to write dialogue, book proposals, query letters, building a book from the ground up, getting shorter pieces published, self-publishing options, marketing, and more. Our intimate setting allows for fellowship, inspiration, and encouragement with multi-published authors and speakers, an opportunity for a private paid critique and a free 15-minute consultation. Our keynote speakers are professionals in the industry and have included Cecil Murphey, Twila Belk, Cynthia Ruchti, and James Watkins. Our co-coordinator, Mary, was keynote speaker in 2022.

Nick and Mary Portzen

Mary Portzen graduated from UNI and is a certified grief counselor and prolific author of over 700 published essays and articles and seven books under the name Mary Potter Kenyon, including the award-winning Called to Be Creative: A Guide to Reigniting Your Creativity. She is a member of AWSA (Advanced Writer and Speaker Association). Nick Portzen was an owner/operator of a business in Wisconsin for 35 years. With years of experience in cooking and catering, Nick provides the meals during our event. Nick and Mary speak together on the power of prayer in marriage and released their co-written book on the same topic, Soul Mates: Path to a Praying Partnership in January 2025.

Cherie Dargan

Cherie is our resident tech-guru, webmaster, and part of our planning committee. Cherie's first novel, Grandmother's Treasures, Book One, The Gift, was published in October 2022. Her second novel, Book Two, The Legacy, came out in October 2023 and Book Three, The Promise, was published in August 2024. Book Four, The Recollection was published in June 2025. WordCrafts Press is her publisher. Cherie is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) She lives in Cedar Falls with her husband Mike and has been coming to the Conference since 2011.

Her author website is www.cheriedargan.com

Mary Jedlicka Humston

Mary is part of our planning committee. An author and speaker, her poetry and essays have been widely published locally and nationally. She has won numerous poetry awards. She’s had a poem published every year since 2005 in the Iowa Poetry Association’s Lyrical Iowa. Thirty poems were published in past years in the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper. Another poem was displayed on the 2014 Krakow Wall of Poetry in conjunction with the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature. She coauthored Mary & Me: A Lasting Link Through Ink with Mary Potter Kenyon. Find her on her Facebook Author Page, www.facebook.com/maryjedlickahumston

Sheri Shonk

Sheri is part of our planning committee. She lives in Independence, Iowa and is a storyteller who loves surprises and great endings. Raised in Northern California, she now resides in Iowa with her husband and youngest three children. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a concentration in Creative Fiction Writing, from Southern New Hampshire University. Sheri has five self-published books, with the next book in the Houses of Hope Series, A Promise to Keep, released December 20, 2024. She's at work on the next book.

Susan Hoffert

Susan Hoffert is part of our planning committee. She lives in Newton, Iowa where she writes stories of daily living to warm a reader's heart. Her pet adventures appear in several Chicken Soup For The Soul books and other anthologies.

Follow her Facebook at www.facebook.com/susanA.hoffert

Darci Werner

Darci is our designated prayer warrior. She's an author and artist, sharing life’s stories of faith, family, and farming and helping people build a closer faith relationship through writing, prayer, and creativity. She shares the duties of their small family construction business in rural Iowa, and writes devotionals, memoirs, and custom specialty pieces. Her work has appeared in multiple anthologies including Guideposts, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Law Enforcement, and online publications. In addition, she has had numerous poetry published in Lyrical Iowa.