Home from Hippocamp with a Bunch of Thoughts about Writers Conferences

I’ve begun, and put aside, several drafts of a wrap-up post about my time at Hippocamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this past weekend. (I was both a speaker and attendee.)

Partly I hesitated because it’s getting more difficult to distill every good thing I want to say about my personal experience and history with this conference (which, since it began in 2015, has come to feel like a kind of home base). But also because I wanted my post-conference report to be something useful to any writer who happens upon it, regardless of genre, location, finances, or personal conference experiences, etc. 

During several periods in my writing life I attended no conferences, and other times I could get to just a few, dictated by a confluence of budget, geography, logistics, day-job demands, family logistics. When I could attend, I had to be picky. 

I came to understand that a conference will not make me a better writer or a more published writer by itself. But the right conference can helping make one into a writer who better knows how to identify, create, pursue, participate in, and evaluate the writing life, career, projects, and submission/publication plan that will work best for me, and make me happy.

So, I thought I’d offer this list, and hope it has some value for others. All these things line up for me with the Hippocamp conference, and by extension might help you pick conferences.

What makes a writing conference right:

. It directly, seriously, fully, and openly addresses, embraces, and celebrates the genre or category of writing most important to you. If you can find it, specialization rocks! One big reason I love Hippocamp is that it’s focused on CNF writing. Yes, I learn a lot at conferences that aren’t so specialized, but a hyper-focused event means you are with your tribe. Everything that happens, each break-out session, panel, reading, or other element is for folks who write what you write.

. Enough of what’s on offer is for writers at your skill and/or experience level. Yes, it’s good when some sessions push you to extend your reach; that’s good for learning what to aspire to. But do you want to spend all day, or most of many days, feeling either completely overwhelmed because you have no idea what the speakers are talking about, or bored and antsy because you already know and have mastered what’s being covered.

. The mix, intent, and focus of material jives with what you want and need now. Only craft-related sessions? Hands-on (“generative”) sessions? Lecture style only? Workshops (with feedback)? Presentations with opportunities for Q-and-A? Marketing/submission/querying skills?

. The size fits. I love a mid-sized conference best so I can make personal connections. Small to mid-sized events usually also foster casual, follow-up interactions with speakers and presenters at meals, breaks, and just wandering about the venue—another thing I like. (I do occasionally like a huge conference, but for very different reasons.)

. The conference organizers respect every attendee, and don’t play favorites. This is one of those intangibles that, for me, can make or break a conference experience. At Hippocamp for example, I’ve heard attendees describe the organizers in ways you might reserve for your favorite teacher, coach, or BFF: they listen, help, and care. Every person on the grounds is IN THE CLUB. (I’ve attended way too many conferences where some writers are made to feel inadequate and lesser-than because they don’t “have a book,” are not sufficiently well-connected, and find themselves feeling left out in an us-and-them kind of way.) At Hippocamp, the club is everyone in the room. Look for that.

. The fees make sense. Who wants to be someplace where you feel the conference is mostly interested in your wallet? I happen to like conference fees that also include meals, coffee, snacks and parking; offer hotel room discounts; and small goodies that make me feel welcome. If I can get that, and it also lines up with reasonable travel costs, I’m in. (Don’t go broke attending conferences.)

. Everything’s included, but there’s also an a-la-carte add-on menu. One year at Hippocamp, I paid for agent pitch sessions, other years not. Twice I took a pre-conference workshop. Choices like that can add value to your time away from home, and (for someone like me who likes to cram every hour with something useful), make the conference a more robust writerly experience.

. There’s a little bit of fun built right in. Door prizes? A casual open mic? Fun snacks? Optional, casual meal meet-ups for when it seems everyone else has made dining plans? We’re writers, not robots, and only some find it easy to organize themselves socially.

My door prize from Hippocamp!

. The conference encourages, and facilitates, continued learning beyond the time limit of each program element. I like to leave a session with something that I’ll consult later (besides my own notes) -- handouts, recommended links, the speaker’s email address or resource website, maybe something I’ve been urged to generate during the session. Even better if (as is the case with Hippocamp), I can find some speakers’ entire slide presentations on the conference website later. 

. There's a balance between too much and just enough. One day? Four days? Five break-out sessions running concurrently? Or 25 to choose from simultaneously? A crammed daily schedule or one with breaks and free (writing?) time built in? Each is likable for different reasons, by different writers. What do you like at a conference?

. The organizers want your feedback. Whether it’s a matter of listening sincerely to an in-person complaint or suggestion during the conference, or providing and urging attendees to fill out post-event surveys, I like it when speaking up about what didn’t go quite right, what was stellar, and what might be a good future addition (or deletion), feels welcomed.

I’m sure I’ve left something out. What do you love about, and look for in the conferences you attend? 


Images: Crowd illustration - Flickr/Creative Commons-openDemocracy; others, mine.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- July 28, 2017 Edition

> An end of a book review era: Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, steps down.

> At the Brevity blog, Jennifer Lang, on how she conquers the loneliness and isolation of writing alone at home, and is building a writing community post-MFA while living abroad. 

> If you can't get away for weeks, sometimes, you can still claim your own mini writing "residency," as Chloe Yelena Miller did.

> At The Millions, check out the Booker Prize longlist (including four U.S. titles).

> Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: If you are headed to HippoCamp17: Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers, here's an interview with me about my breakout session, "Submission Strategy: Beyond Wish Lists, Tiers, and Industry Buzz," and my Lightning Round talk, "I'll Take Titles for a Thousand, Alex."  > And over at The Bookends Review, I'm interviewed by poet and anthology editor Carol Smallwood.

Have a great weekend!


Image Flickr/CreativeCommons

The Post-Conference, Post-Vacation Post

Probably the smartest thing to do after a writing conference would be hurry home and burrow in, open a new document (or six!) for all the ideas that skittered across your mind while there. Or, better yet, take a solitary decompressing trip, that frees you to write and muse. I've done both of those things before.

What I hadn't done was return home, run a load of laundry, answer only the urgent emails, repack, sleep a few hours, and then set out with my family for an enforced four days of R&R—strictly away from my computer, all of us together in a small seaside house (often huddled in the A/C to escape daunting heat and humidity when not under a beach umbrella to escape frigid A/C), and on unspoken but rather clear orders from my husband not to disappear into my brain and essentially away from the moment

I had books. I had my notebook. What I didn't have was time to spread out all my notes from Hippocamp 2016 (a conference for creative nonfiction writers), and reflect, make notes, tackle follow-ups in the immediate manner I like, and to write a post-conference post.

But I'm back at my desk now (feeling of course as if I never did leave it!), so here goes.

If you read my post from the first day of activities this year, you already know how much I love this conference. You can scroll the live-at-the-time tweets, and read other post-Hippocamp coverage here and here and here, and at the official conference recap page. I'll just share some of what showed up in my notebook and program margins when I was sitting in the audience at various presentations.

First, I'll note that I was completely unprepared and overwhelmed by the lovely, positive reaction to my own session, "Writing About the Same Experience Across Multiple Pieces." Not only did people fill every seat in the break-out room (nerve-wracking and wonderful), but I was gobsmacked by how—for hours afterward and into the next day—so many writers approached me to say that the session opened up something for them about their own CNF work. I've never had that kind of response before, and almost cannot adequately express how much it meant to me. (And served as a timely reminder that when I'm in the audience and find value in a speaker's presentation, saying so afterward, face-to-face, can be a true gift to that person.)

Now, on to some of the small gems I came away with.

> In the Collage Essay Workshop (a pre-conference add-on), we got to talking about other fragmented forms, and Sarah Einstein shared her own definition of a segmented essay, which she thinks of as not exactly linear, but a series of interconnected stories that follow a timeline progression. Yes! That makes so much sense; something I think I intuitively understood but hadn't worked out a definition for.

> During a panel on query letters, one agent (sorry, didn't record who!) suggested a simple formula: "The hook, the book, the cook." What's the essential heart of the book?  What is the book about (slightly extended description)? Who is the writer?  Another noted that query letters should involve no more than "one scroll" of the email screen. Still another advised digging through the Manuscript Wish List's site or following #MSWL on Twitter.

> Wendy Fontaine, part of a panel on truth in nonfiction, shared some of her captivating research on memory and recall, brain anatomy and function. This, for example: "The brain makes no biological delineation between a true memory and a false one." Whoa! Certainly makes me want to think twice, or three, maybe four times when writing about what I think I remember clearly.

> At a presentation on designing and delivering a writers' retreat, Joanne Lozar Glenn advised working backward from the intended outcome. Ask yourself what you want the writers who will attend to take away from the experience. Newly generated pages? A notebook of ideas? Feedback? New process skills? Community? A combination? Something else?

> In a talk on incorporating science into CNF, Jeannine Pfeiffer, writer and scientist, suggested ways to track down data and experts without spending a lot on abstracts or other access to scientific journals—such as using Google Scholar; the Public Library of Science; asking a professor friend to let you search on Academia.edu or Researchgate.net; gaining in-person access to a local university library; and searching the terms "open access journals" + "your topic".

> At a session on content marketing, Kelly Kautz noted that for writers who are marketing themselves, their books, and/or their services, it's wise to tame the intimidating monster that is analytics data, focusing only on areas that are meaningful to you. Identify keyword combinations that work, and then purposely use them in posts or social media exchanges. That means, for me, posts incorporating the word combinations "New Jersey… Editor" "Writing teacher…NJ" and "NJ…writing coach," might be in my future.

> Jim Warner, on a panel about literary citizenship, invited writers from everywhere to submit audio files from literary events, especially interviews with authors, for consideration for his podcast, CitizenLit.

> Finally, it would be impossible to sum up all the wonderfulness that was Mary Karr's keynote address, so I'll leave you with these notes:

On writing about family: "A dysfunctional family is any form of family with more than one person."

On stories within memoir: "Memoir is, by its nature, episodic. Everyone has stories."

On melodrama: "Don't write how you suffered. Write how you survived."

On writing from reality: "Don't exaggerate. Trust that what you experienced was enough."

On blame: "Judge yourself more harshly than anyone else."

On her writing process: "One sentence at a time. There's no strategy. Jump lump along. Six hours or 1000 words a day, whichever comes first."

On revision: "Make the ugly parts prettier. Make the pretty parts better. And if you can't, cut it out, because you don't want to be boring."

There was so much more. I suspect it's all going to be buzzing around my writer's brain for weeks or months to come, and maybe as long as it takes to get back there in September 2017. Which is what I want out of a conference after all.

Images - Beach umbrella: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Monkeyatlarge - Memory stone: Flickr/CreativeCommons-Tim Green aka atoach

Writer Communing with Notebook: Early Morning Conference Insomnia (the good kind)

This definitely-not-a-morning person is up at 5:30 on a Saturday because I am at my favorite writing conference, and after Friday's invigorating start, well—who can sleep? (And not just because I'm a little jumpy about my presentation later today and suddenly remembered that little change I need to make on slide number six.)

I'm propped up in bed, my hand whipping across notebook pages. So many new ideas are flying around in my brain, so much stimulation, all the fresh perspectives I absorbed yesterday, all insisting on equal time. I'm exhausted already (you know, in that good way.). And baby, I've got lists. Write this…research that…read her book…read his essay…think about that other angle…this other point of view…try a new essay form…add this to next semester's syllabus...share that with my clients.

HippoCamp, a conference exclusively for creative nonfiction writers (sponsored by Hippocampus Magazine), is in its second year in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and if day one was any indication, it hasn't outgrown its well-earned inaugural appeal.

This dazzling little gem of a conference feels like that secluded, still-undiscovered-by-the-masses vacation spot you want to shout about to everyone but at the same time, want to keep secret to it doesn't get overrun next year. For me, it's also just the right size (smallish, around 150 or so attendees), the right distance from home (under a three hour drive), and embodies just the right vibe (welcoming inclusion for all writers, where everyone is in the club regardless of publishing resume).

Last year, I could only manage to be here all day Saturday and a bit of Sunday morning. This year, I decided to plunge all in, say yes to more, and signed up for the optional post-conference agent/editor pitch sessions (never did one of those!), as well as one of the pre-conference workshops (don't get much chance lately to be one of the writers at the table instead of the leader).

My workshop was on the collage essay with the lovely Sarah Einstein, whose intriguing pre-workshop emails and Facebook posts promised unique sensory prompts—and she delivered. Which meant I generated 12 notebook pages of rough writing for a future essay (essays?). What unique prompts, you ask? How about these: we lit sparklers, danced the hora, sniffed Tequila-soaked cotton balls, blew up balloons, passed around party favors, and listened to a sad/not sad funeral dirge. Phew.

I'll be back next week with more about the wonderful time I know I'm going to have later today and tomorrow. As for my presentation nerves, I keep telling myself (like I do when I go to the dentist) that in a few hours it will all be over, and (unlike post-dentist) before you know it, keynote speaker Mary Karr will be on stage in the main room and I can relax. Except for my pen flying across new notebook pages.

To get more out of the rare opportunity to connect for several days in real life with writers (many of whom I "know" only from social media), I've decided I'll mostly keep my phone in my pocket. I want to keep my eyes up and alert and have live conversations even if they are sometimes awkward. 

But you can follow some of the action on Twitter with #HippoCamp16, where lots of people more talented than I (who can do two things at once), are already sharing the wisdom and the fun.

Onward…

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Blachswan

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- August 5, 2016 Edition

 > At the L.A. Review of Books, Tarn Wilson takes a close look at "How to Write a Collage-Style Memoir" by examining the craft and structure in A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice by Christine Hale. (Tip: Don't let #1 fool you!)

> Wondering what college students will be reading this fall? (Humor me, I have one of these species.) NPR rounded up some of the books being read campus-wide at a variety of universities.

> Yet one more site that rounds up links of interest to writers on Fridays -- Being Rudi.

> Has anyone (I'm thinking about you, list essay writers) explored (or tried posting at) Li.st? 

> Now that Oprah has named his new novel, The Underground Railroad, her newest book pick, Colson Whitehead talked to the New York Times about "Slavery, Success, and Writing the Novel That Really Scared Him."

> Department of Shameless Self-Promotion. My nonfiction narrative, "The Amazing Technicolor Horse Dream" appears in the July Hippocampus Magazine (part of their "Firsts" theme issue). It's my second essay on the site; I'm proud to have my work appear in the same venue beside so many excellent examples of the creative nonfiction genre. Have I mentioned (maybe only a zillion times!) that last summer Hippocampus put on a stellar first conference for CNF writers, one where every writer, at every level, was made to feel welcome? And that I'll be presenting once again when the second installment convenes next week in Lancaster, PA?

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons