Events

How to Make the Most of Writing and Blogging Conferences

Are you feeling burned out on writing and blogging conferences?

I’m not! And here’s why — this past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at and attend the Southern Christian Writers Conference for the first time and it was amazing! I left with a notebook full of useful information and feeling incredibly inspired. I made new friends, too!

But let’s be honest — sometimes attending writing and blogging conferences can be a waste of money and time. And if you’ve had this experience it may be because the conference was poorly planned and highly disorganized, or perhaps it featured subpar presenters.

However, here’s a hard truth — most of the time when we don’t get anything out of writing or blogging conferences it’s our own fault. Most of the time we were the ones who failed to plan and get organized.

My friend Randi Pink, author of the young adult novel Into White and the forthcoming novel Girls Like Us, calls herself a “conference-a-holic” and with good reason. She proudly proclaims that it’s because of the conferences held by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators that she is published today. (SCBWI’s 48th Annual Summer Conference will be held in Los Angeles, August 9-12. Learn more here.)

I’ve been attending writing and blogging conferences for years and I’ve learned that how much I get out of a conference has more to do with me than the conference itself. To make the most of writing and blogging conferences you must ask yourself important questions before you even step foot in the venue.

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Introducing See Jane Read

One of the best things we writers can do to improve our craft (other than just writing) is reading the works of others. “Good writers read good writing”, I always say. And now See Jane Write is going to help you do just that with our new book club — See Jane Read!

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Magic City Poetry Festival 2019 starts April 4

Get your own Magic City Poetry Festival t-shirt at any of this year’s event.

Since last year’s inaugural Magic City Poetry Festival founder Ashley M. Jones has been busy. She’s been busy publishing her second book, dark / / thing, which she describes as “a book that can’t sit silently.”

Ashley, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award recipient who also won the silver medal in poetry in the 2017 Independent Publishers Book Awards for her debut collection Magic City Gospel, has also been busy planning this year’s Magic City Poetry Festival.

The 2019 festival will kick off April 4 and host events throughout the month including a reading by poetry legend and Birmingham native Sonia Sanchez!

Ashley started the Magic City Poetry Festival to help showcase the talent of Birmingham-based poets and to expose more people to the power of poetry. See Jane Write had a chat with Ashley recently to discuss how this year’s festival will do just that.

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It’s Almost Time to Write and Blog Like Crazy!

Every November I challenge See Jane Write readers and members who blog to publish a new blog post every day for 30 days. I call this challenge #bloglikcrazy. I give participants encouragement along the way by sharing blogging tips and post ideas and if you use the #bloglikecrazy hashtag when you share your posts on social media I’ll help promote your posts, too.

To be honest, I originally started #bloglikecrazy because November can be a lonely time for non-fiction writers. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is also in November, which means all my fiction writer friends are busy trying to write a 50,000-word novel in a month and no one can come out to play! So, I decided to create a writing challenge for non-fiction writers who blog.

But this year I want to make sure I’m supporting See Jane Write readers and members who are taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge, too. So this month I’m hosting two events — one for my blogger babes and one for my lady writers — to help you prepare for all the writing and blogging we’ll be doing in November.

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