If you are an aspiring writer the best advice I could give you would be GO to Conferences!! As many as time and money will allow. They are worth every cent.
I took this advice and went to my first Writer's conferences--The Las Vegas Writers Conference in April and the LDStorymakers Conference last weekend. (Not to mention I also painted my new house, moved, and went to the Health & Nutritional Conference as well! Yes, I've been very busy, which is why I hope you'll excuse my absence on my blog--it won't happen again--I hope)
At these conferences I met at ton of amazing people, learned about the industry and writing, found the best critic group, made what I hope to be life-long friends, and I'm inspired more than ever to become a great writer.
By comparing and contrasting my two conference I hope to help you glean a little insight on how to choose your conferences...I'm not an expert, so if you have knowledge of other wonderful conferences PLEASE share. I can't wait to go to others!
The Las Vegas Writers Conference was unique from many others because they only allow 150 attendees. I never felt like a number in a massive crowd and I was able to meet almost everyone. It was very intimate...in fact I was invited to 'have drinks' for 2 hours 2 different times with Peter Joseph (Sr. Editor of Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin Press), Jeff Kleinman (Agent & founding partner of Folio Literary Management), Sara D'Emic (Agent of Talcott Notch Literary) and Rachel Ekstrom (Agent at Irene Goodman Literary)...tell me if there's another conf. out there where you can do that?!
The Vegas Conference is also where I found amazing writers to form a Critic Group; April Khaito, Jenny Ballif, Allysa Shrout, and Amanda Skenandore. I love these ladies!! They are so talented and make me better just by being associated with them.
The LDStorymakers Conferences was much bigger (500+ I'm told), but I learned so much in the classes, met people I will never forget, and even had a famous author read my first chapter and gave me feedback on it!
So research conferences and GO, but tell me about them too!
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