A DECADE+ OF STORYTELLING POWERED BY THE BEST WRITERS ON THE PLANET

BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

This FINAL encore experience will be unlike any other. Because like everything we do, it's been "reimagined" from beginning to end. It's not a virtual or hybrid event. It's not a conference. It's not a seminar, a workshop, a meeting, or a symposium. And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill everyday event crammed with stages, keynote speeches, team-building exercises, PowerPoint presentations, and all the other conventional humdrum. Because it's up close & personal by design. Where conversation trumps presentation. And where authentic connection runs deep.

Bodies of Water

I remember Grandpa curled over a barrel filled with rainwater. He scooped up raindrops in a pot, then rinsed his fresh-washed hair. He said it made his hair soft. I never understood why he did not care for the water that came through the pipes.

Other than the barrel of water, I interacted with lots of hard surfaces as a kid in Detroit. Everywhere I looked, I saw geometry: concrete sidewalks, brick homes, asphalt streets, tarred alley ways, freeways, and factories. I seldom noticed maple and ash trees that flanked neighborhood streets.

During the summer, my family spent many weekends vacationing in a rural town 55 miles outside Detroit. We lived in small cabins that overlooked grassy fields and tree-lined Lake Chemung. Stars and fireflies replaced street lamps and traffic lights.

The tranquil fresh waters were my place for adventure. Cold in the morning and warm by lunchtime, I slipped in and out of the basin all day long. A dock provided a runway for swan dives and cannonballs. I dog-paddled, breast-stroked, or floated on squeaky truck inner tubes. The lake floor, where I loved to drag my feet, was peach fuzzy and supple as a baby’s belly.

Sunscreen and mosquito repellant were my only needs. Swim-suited, sun-kissed, and embraced by Mother Nature, Detroit slipped far away.

Grandpa had his barrel of rain transported by clouds and winds. I had my freshwater lake topped off by dew drops. We both found wholeness in a fragmented land.

Marlene Sinicki
Marlene Sinickihttps://lilomar.com/
Marlene Sinicki is an Artist, Designer, and Visual Storyteller. She brings ideas to life for people that care about the greater good. Connecting meaning-making and the arts and design that sparks change are her passions. Marlene’s visual storytelling experience spans multiple disciplines, including painting, illustration, graphic design, photography, presentations, and writing. She has worked as an Art Director and Project Manager for dozens of strategic design projects that provided voice and vision to the collective stories of companies and organizations. Marlene draws on aesthetics and optimism, the ideals of beauty, as a strategy to create hope and a positively imagined future. Her fine arts studio practice fuels her commercial projects. The wisdom of nature and global sustainability opportunities permeate her abstract and representational paintings and drawings. Flowing lines, vibrant colors, and organic forms emphasize the subject’s aliveness. While culture prizes technology and piles of data, Marlene creates visual haikus to reconnect sensuality with ecology. She encourages a respect for our earthly mother and a socially responsible and generative approach to saving her. The art is a glimpse of intimate encounters with the ephemeral. Marlene wants the familiar to feel new again, to make the invisible visible, in order to telegraph the light within.

DO YOU HAVE THE "WRITE" STUFF? If you’re ready to share your wisdom of experience, we’re ready to share it with our massive global audience – by giving you the opportunity to become a published Contributor on our award-winning Site with (your own byline). And who knows? – it may be your first step in discovering your “hidden Hemmingway”. LEARN MORE HERE


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