The dream of publishing the great American novel came to Cape Girardeau Saturday.

Both published writers and those wishing for their break gathered Saturday at the third annual Heartland Writers Conference at Holiday Inn.

Workshop topics ranged from writing for the children's market to submitting manuscripts to plotting novels. Small groups of writers also met with agents and editors to get feedback on their writing projects.

Carol Fisher, president of the Heartland Writers' Guild, sponsor of the conference, said about 150 people attended, up from 50 the first year and about 100 the second year. On hand were people from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and throughout Missouri, she said.

"I think most everyone here considers themselves a writer," she said. The conference's goal, Fisher said, is to provide helpful information to help those writers get published.

One writer Saturday looking for information on getting published was Sylvia Palmer of Dyersburg, Tenn. A tutor of English, reading and writing and a secretary at Dyersburg State Community College, Palmer said she had reached a point on her fiction novel where she needed to learn how to submit a manuscript.

"I'm getting some excellent information. The people here are very concerned that prospective authors receive correct information on the areas they're representing and they have exhibited a sincere willingness to share the information they have acquired throughout their years of experience."

Palmer, who is also taking courses toward a bachelor's degree in English, said the conference buoyed her about the prospects of publishing.

"I feel very good about it now much better than I did when I came in," she said.

Her book, as yet untitled, is a southern regional contemporary novel that has some murder and "delicately handled sex," she said. The book also deals with the emotional trauma of a young woman who is left disfigured for life by an accident.

At the conference was author Robert Vaughan of Sikeston. Vaughan, a former U.S. helicopter pilot who served in Vietnam, said he has published 250 books in every genre but science fiction.

Currently Vaughan is at work on his American Chronicle series, published by Bantam. Each book is about a decade in the 20th century. Book Three of the series, which focuses on the Roaring '20s, just hit the book shelves, Vaughan said, while he has just finished writing the seventh book about the '50s.

Vaughan said a conference of the type held at Holiday Inn is good for two things: it gives aspiring authors contacts in the publishing industry and it motivates them. By attending such a conference, he said, writers are able to feed off the energy of each other.

"That's even good for people who are already published. We draw from the energy level of people who are here," he added.

"I've been doing these conferences now for 10 or 12 years ... in different states. Over the years I've seen a lot of people who have been published who have made contacts here."

Vaughn assured aspiring authors that the opportunity to get a book published remains.

"The publishers are in business to make money. The only way they can make money is to sell books. And the only way they're able to sell books is to get a product, and to get the product they have to come to us."

Agent Joyce Flaherty of Kirkwood, in St. Louis County, had a shopping list of advice Saturday for aspiring writers. She represents 55 published authors, including best~selling author Joe Weber of Florida, a writer of "techno-thrillers."

Writers, she said, need perseverance, must study the market and avoid imitating other authors, and must keep from being a one manuscript author, "unless it's `Gone With the Wind.'"

"Your craft should grow with each book, and sometimes if your later books sell, your earlier ones might too," she said.