This past weekend, my friend H. Hunting and I met up at the annual Penn Writers conference in Pittsburgh. Neither of us had ever been to a writer’s conference before, and we were both very nervous going into it.
Our choice of conferences was mostly based on geography and timing, but I have to say that on the whole, as an author who is just starting out, this felt like the perfect conference for where I’m at in my career. (If nothing else, it’s given me the confidence to say the words “author” and “career” in a sentence about myself. This is huge progress, people. HUGE.)
While a lot of what I’ve been hearing at the sessions has been stuff I already knew, listening to agents and editors and authors has helped me gain some much-needed focus, and it’s helped put the whole serious writer thing in perspective. So many people have been so encouraging, and I’m feeling energized and armed with the knowledge I need to hunker down and make things happen, both in my writing and in my plans to get my words out there. It’s been so great to be surrounded by so many friendly, creative, positive people, and I would encourage anyone who’s just getting started to seek out this kind of opportunity.
Over the next few days, I’ll be blogging about some of the information I picked up at the conference, but for now, I leave you with my summative statement: Writer’s Conferences Rock.
Glad to have you among us, Jeanette! I hope you'll join Pennwriters, the organization, because there's a lot of stuff that goes on throughout the rest of the year.
Susan – You guys made the "Become a Member" option so affordable that I joined up when I registered. Looking forward to taking advantage of this great community.
Welcome to Pennwriters, Jeanette. As a past conference coordinator as well as a member of this conference's planning team, I'm so glad you enjoyed yourself. I've been to other conferences, and maybe I'm a tad biased, but I think ours is one of the best!