Special Event
Romancing the Tarot: Planning & Writing Heart-Stirring Stories
Registration is NOW OPEN!
Saturday, October 18, 2025
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Please join us for our unique Special Event with author and book coach, Paula Scardamalia! Paula will be presenting a totally new way to get the best out of your characters and your plots!
This workshop will be offered both in-person and live-streaming.
This workshop will be offered both in-person and live-streaming.
Romancing the Tarot
Writing is such a mysterious process, especially for fiction writers. A journey into deep and uncharted waters, you set out thinking you know where you are going only to discover that you’ve lost your sense of direction and haven’t the slightest idea of how to course-correct. That’s why writers like Nora Roberts use the tarot as one of the tools for charting and guiding their writing journey to “The End.”
Once a game played by the court in 16th century Italy and elsewhere, the tarot has evolved into an inspiring, useful, adaptable tool for writers of all genres and categories.
This day-long interactive workshop gives you the opportunity to discover ways to use this powerful tool for plotting, character development (using the Major Arcana), creating settings and effective props (with the Minor Arcana), as well as editing, title creation, and guiding your writing process and path. A brief history, brief writing exercises, and handouts are included.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own decks, if they have them, but there will be decks available to pull cards from as well.
No previous tarot experience is necessary, only a willingness to play, explore, and write.
Once a game played by the court in 16th century Italy and elsewhere, the tarot has evolved into an inspiring, useful, adaptable tool for writers of all genres and categories.
This day-long interactive workshop gives you the opportunity to discover ways to use this powerful tool for plotting, character development (using the Major Arcana), creating settings and effective props (with the Minor Arcana), as well as editing, title creation, and guiding your writing process and path. A brief history, brief writing exercises, and handouts are included.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own decks, if they have them, but there will be decks available to pull cards from as well.
No previous tarot experience is necessary, only a willingness to play, explore, and write.
Meet Paula
Paula Chaffee Scardamalia is an author and book coach who loves helping other writers write their stories and life discoveries using her experience and knowledge, as well as intuitive tools such as dreams and the tarot. She’s the author of Enchanting Creativity; Tarot for the Fiction Writer; the award-winning Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Les-sons from the Loom; and her fantasy romance novel, In the Land of the Vultures. The Tempting Voice will be published in February 2026. Divine Muse-ings is her weekly newsletter on writing, creativity, dreams, and tarot. She lives with her husband in an 1840s Greek Revival farmhouse, constantly in need of TLC, in the foothills of the Catskills.
Registration Fees
NJRW Members: $75
Non-NJRW Members: $95
Price includes breakfast and lunch!
Virtual Attendees (via Zoom): $50
Students: $45
Non-NJRW Members: $95
Price includes breakfast and lunch!
Virtual Attendees (via Zoom): $50
Students: $45
Location
Hampton Inn Woodbridge
370 Route 9 North
Woodbridge, NJ 07095
732-855-6900
Convenient to all major highways.
370 Route 9 North
Woodbridge, NJ 07095
732-855-6900
Convenient to all major highways.
Questions? E-mail programs@njromancewriters.org