First, you have to pick the one you want to attend. Your perimeters will probably include cost, location, schedule and availability. I’ve gone to a couple different writing conferences, the first one was a statewide one, geared towards poets and very disappointing for me since most of the attendees had very little writing experience. I wanted to network with a more professional grade of writer, so I decided to try a conference held at a university known for its MFA program in Creative Writing. It cost more, but every cent was worth it. The Iowa Summer Writing Festival proved to be a fantastic writing conference for many reasons:
1. It’s centrally located with on-site lodging. As a Midwesterner I appreciated the short distance (6 hours driving) and comparatively low travel expenses. Staying on-site meant I had 24/7 access to the festival’s offerings and to networking with the other writers attending the festival.
2. It boasts excellent instructors with a range of publishing and writing backgrounds. Many people return year after year to teach the workshops, but plenty of new faces get mixed in regularly. The small workshop sizes gave everyone great access to the instructors and the additional daily lecture series allowed for extra exposure to different instructors. Since this summer writing festival is closely connected to the esteemed University of Iowa MFA program, the instructors get some prestige by association and the university prides itself on the quality of the festival’s offerings.
3. It offers a huge range of workshops–from novel-writing to historical nonfiction to craft-specific courses in character and plot. No matter what you write, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival offers a workshop to enrich your work.
4. It’s very affordable. My week-long workshop, lodging, meals and transportation cost less than a week on a cruise ship or at an all-inclusive resort. My fellow writing geeks appreciate the value in that kind of vacation!
5. The Iowa Summer Writing Festival offers week-long and weekend workshops almost all summer, so scheduling is unbelievably convenient.
6. People rave about it. I met several people who attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival multiple times, a true testament to the excellence and usefulness of their workshop.
Whether searching for a writing conference by host, location, cost, genre or schedule many sites offer excellent databases with links to various workshop and conference home pages. Check out NewPages.com to find an incredibly inclusive list of writing conferences, retreats, workshops and festivals.
If I were to prioritize, I’d put genre and host at the top of my list. It doesn’t make sense to waste money on a substandard conference experience, nor does it make sense to invest in a poetry workshop when you only write nonfiction. The best workshops don’t necessarily boast the most popular writers–success as an author doesn’t always translate into good teaching skills–but the credentials of the instructors are something to consider. If you tend to write literary pieces, you’d expect to find the instructors have been published in literary magazines like Prairie Schooner and Tin House. If you write nonfiction, you’d want your instructors to have a solid background in nonfiction writing.
Tell us, readers, what writing conferences do you recommend for a new writer? For an experienced writer?
