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Two kids playing in a sandbox know the secret to the writing life.

"I'm planning on making my parents miserable so my life is intolerable and I can become a writer," one child announces in a Liza Donnelly cartoon.

A limited number of The New Yorker cartoonist's signed cartoon will be available for $16.99 at the workshop, with all proceeds benefitting the University of Dayton's Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Endowment Fund. Donnelly will offer the keynote address at the opening of the April 5-7 workshop.

In addition, other Erma swag and merchandise will be available exclusively through the University of Dayton Bookstore at the sold-out event, then online afterwards:

The popular Erma wine glass ($9.99 or two for $16)

Three coffee mugs, with inspirational Erma quotes ($9.99 or two for $18)

Set of 12 notecards with such favorite Erma quotes as "If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." ($10)

Short- and long-sleeved Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop T-shirts ($16.99, $21)

Short-sleeved "He who laughs…lasts" T-shirts ($16.99)

Laugh Out Loud: 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now…Before We Forget humor anthology ($14.99)

Greetings from the Dayton Riviera! postcards ($.50 or three for $1)

The Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Endowment Fund helps keep the workshop affordable for writers. Approximately 350 writers from around the nation, Canada and Spain are traveling to Dayton, Ohio, for the workshop, which sold out in under five hours, a new record. It's held biennially in Erma Bombeck's honor at the University of Dayton, her alma mater.