Want to learn the tricks of the writing trade?

Thriller writer David Hagberg, author of more than seventy suspense novels, will reveal his secrets at a Teen Writers Workshop from 1 to 4 P.M., Saturday, April 26, at the Environmental Learning Center in Vero Beach.

The free workshop, which is open to students in grades 9 to 12, is funded by a grant from Quail Valley Charities, Inc. under the sponsorship of the Laura Riding Jackson Foundation, College Application Consultants, and Charlotte Terry Real Estate.

Hagberg, a former Air Force cryptographer, has a knack for creating fiction that becomes fact. In The White House he predicted North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. In Joshua's Hammer he foresaw the 9/11 attack on the United States by bin Laden and al-Qaeda; in Desert Fire, Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions; and in High Flight, the downing of airliners as a method of terrorism on a massive scale.

His latest book, Mutiny, due out in May from Forge Books, tells the inside story of the events that inspired Tom Clancy's mega-seller, The Hunt for Red October. Written with former Soviet naval officer Boris Gindin, Mutiny is Hagberg's first work of nonfiction since his journalism days in Minnesota.

Hagberg has been one of the most popular speakers at The Teen Writes Workshop, a nationally recognized program that offers high school students a series of half-day seminars with professional poets, novelists, journalists, playwrights, and nonfiction book writers. Since its founding in July, 2000 by Charlotte Terry and Pam Proctor, the Vero Beach program has conducted more than twenty workshops, reaching more than 1000 high school students in six Florida counties. Along with this year's grant from Quail Valley Charities, past supporters have included the National Endowment for the Arts and the State of Florida's Division of Cultural Affairs.

Through the Teen Writers Workshop, local students have won college scholarships and earned top honors in state and national writing contests, including the Guideposts Young Writers Contest, the Parade poetry contest, and the Zora 2001 poetry contest. Five students have published poetry chapbooks, which have been sold at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and at Gotham Book Mart in New York City. Other teen writers have been published regularly in local newspapers.

To register for the April 26 workshop with David Hagberg, please call Pam Proctor at: (772) 231-2221. Registration is required.