Connecting at Writing Conferences
How to find and network with "your people" at writing conferences
Writing Conference Season is upon us. Whether you’re looking to up your writing game and participate in craft workshops or pitch your book to agents, one thing that should be on your radar is networking - meeting other like minded writers.
I have been to a number of writing conferences from Hawaii (the Kauai Writers Conference) to Maryland (The Maryland Writers Association Writers Conference) over the past 3 years and each one is unique, have remarkable speakers, and you meet the coolest people. After the grueling long hours of learning, where you mind seems to be like mush by the end of the day, it isn’t on everyone’s radar to network. Why is that?
Well, of course many of us writers are introverts - quiet speaking individuals, who often aren’t confident to even think we’re as good as other writers in the room, duh! You’re in good company. Every writer is insecure, but we are also in the same boat - everyone at a writing conference came because they want to get better - get better at writing, learn something new, maybe find an editor, etc. However, if you don’t take the initiate to at the very least say hi and introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you in a workshop or at the lunch table, you just wasted a missed opportunity to meet your new best friend, an accountability partner, someone who could introduce you to their editor or maybe be your beta reader.
Like I said, it starts with a hi, that’s it. If you want to strike up a conversation, ask what genre someone writes in or how did they learn about the conference or if they’ve even attended it before. For me, in just doing this simple thing, I ended up sitting next to literary agents and we picked their brain. I sat next to speakers that were about to waiting to do their presentation and struck up great conversations. Found several fellow authors who are horror writers too, in which we swapped info about publications we’ve submitted work to and writing contests we’ve entered. See where I’m going with this?
You never know who you are going to meet at a writing conference, and those in the room will benefit from meeting you too. So, my biggest tip when going to a writing conference, bring business cards! Even if it is just a photo of you and your email address because you haven’t written a book yet, this is so crucial. Why? Because when you have a book coming out, all those who you exchanged business cards with will 100% support you with a shout out to their friends, may very well review your book, or will promote your book on social media. Why? Because of that one connection at a conference and us writers LOVE a good happily ever after. Who doesn’t like the idea of saying I knew her/him/they before they even published their book? And at the same time checking in with them months after to see how their doing with their writing or if they’re going to be attending another conference is a great way to keep conversations going well after the conference.
So if you are going to be going to some conferences like the Eastern Shore Bay to Ocean Writing Conference tomorrow (March 8th) at Chesapeake College on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, the Las Vegas Writers Conference (with the Henderson Writers Association) April 3-5th in Las Vegas, NV, the Writers Digest Conference in July in Baltimore, The Creatures, Crimes and Creativity Con in Columbia, Maryland come September 19-21, The Maryland Writers Association Conference in October AND the Kauai Writers Conference in November, - please find me and introduce yourself (and give me your business card!). I would LOVE to meet you. Comment below and share what conferences you’ll be at this year. Maybe we’ll run into each other and have a drink or sit next to each other at a talk! I’d like to learn more about what you are writing, because the possibilities are endless when it comes to the different ways we can help each other grow as writers.
Promotional plug alert… I’m attending a lot of conferences this year because my first non-fiction book for writers coming out this April. Since my target audience are writers, I want to be where the writers are to spread the word about 150+ Prompts: A Creative Writer’s Journal is to connect with fellow writers. And with some luck, sell a few books too. If you want to learn a bit about what the book is about, see if it’s right for you, AND get 10 free prompts from the book simply go to my website, www.mksholund.com and sign up for the email list. I promise future posts here on Horror on the Page will be focusing on podcasts and books on the genre of horror!
- M. K. Sholund
