Friday 1 February 2008

Winchester Writers' Conference

This is probably an odd time of year to be writing about this, but I keep checking their website to see if the 2008 listings are there yet. If you've never been have a look at their site here which still details the 2007 programme. The main part of the conference takes place on a Saturday, this year 28th June, and is a series of 5 hour long lectures over the day. Last year there was a choice of 12 talks for each hour, which makes choosing incredibly difficult. Writing is the only link between these lectures because they cover an enormous variety of subjects. Whilst one talk was discussing how to submit to agents, another was discussing short story writing with the next room detailing police procedures for crime novels!

There are also mini courses on the Friday and Sunday as well as the one to one appoinments that I have yet to brave... These can be with agents, publishers or authors. The main aim of course being to pitch your novel to an agent face to face in your allotted 15 minutes. For the last 3 years I've deluded myself that there was no point booking any of these because I hadn't finished my novel. This is the year.

Meeting other writers is also a great part of the weekend and the Friday mini courses are a good way to do this. I've always come away with massively renewed enthusiasm for writing, having spent 2 days with a few hundred others all doing the same thing.

Although the website is good they also send out lovely little booklets with all the details, so get your name on their list to get one. There's something very satisfying about scribbling asterisks on the talks you might want to attend!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It all sounds very exciting. I just hope that one day I shall be in the position to go...complete with new NOVEL!
Also, hope I get a chance to talk to you more at the next meeting. xx

Lane Mathias said...

It looks like deciding which talks to attend is the difficult bit:-)
I've never been to a writer's conference but I must say, this one looks interesting.

(and of course your book will be finished by then!)