The Colorado Writers’ Collective is hosting a free virtual conference over on YouTube – head on over and look them up!

I’ve enjoyed all of the virtual conferences I’ve attended this summer! Jericho Writers’ Summer Festival of Writing was excellent (and we had Neil Gaiman read his newest children’s book to us). The Utah League of Writers put on a great event with a “bar” and pitch sessions. DragonCon did their usual bang-up job without the 85,000 people jostling for position in line. And the Colorado Writing Collective looks like it’s going to be just as educational as the rest.

If you’ve never attended a writing conference, you should seriously consider finding a good one and joining in on the fun. You’ll get informational sessions on writing and publishing, fun panels with the guest authors, usually a chance to pitch your book to an agent or editor, and plenty of time and opportunity to network with your fellow writers (and those agents and editors, too). They’re usually not free, of course, but I think most of them are well worth the cost of attendance.

Our SC Writers’ Association will be hosting our yearly conference in April 2021 in Columbia. We’ve got Patti Callahan Henry and Jeffrey Blount as guest speakers. There are workshops from submission tips to the heart of the story to the perfect pitch to memoir tips. There are slushfests where you can have agents and editors respond to your query letter and/or writing sample. We’ve even got an open mic night. Hop on over and check it out.

Does your local writing group have a conference? Where’s the best conference you’ve attended?