Conference Reflections

It’s been a week and I still haven’t quite recovered (but it’s all good).

Waaaaaaaay back in 2004 I attended my first writing conference with a dear friend, Earlene Luke. At the time, given how much it cost, I was pretty sure it would be a one-shot thing, but two years later my daughter Shari Green was attending her first and convinced me to register again. Last weekend we counted up the years we’ve attended the Surrey International Writers’ Conference since then and were surprised to find it took more than two hands to do the tally — this was my twelfth year and Shari’s eleventh.

Maybe we would have stopped after the first ones if our experience had been merely enjoyable, but it was and continues to be exceptional.

We’re both more-than-a-little introverted, so it takes significant effort to psych ourselves up to step into the crowd of hundreds who attend every year. But once we do, the four-day whirlwind of shared workshops and master classes, keynote speakers, banquets and socializing sweeps us up and carries us on a high that lasts for months afterwards.

With more than fifty presenters (authors, agents, editors, publishers and screenwriters) and the opportunity to choose from over eighty workshops in ten time slots, plus all the extras that fill the evenings, it would be easy to be overwhelmed, and indeed we do come home exhausted and with ‘information overload’.

But it’s more than a whole weekend sharing the ultimate writers’ learning experience with one’s ‘tribe’ that makes it worthwhile. It’s the atmosphere created by so much kindness, helpfulness and mutual respect shown by both seasoned professionals and novice writers. There is no ‘us and them’ at this conference. There is a unique camaraderie that stems from a shared passion for writing.

Besides all that, it’s a fabulous mother-daughter writing weekend retreat. 🙂

I’ve never really been able to afford this indulgence — I’d hate to add up the dollars I’ve spent through the years — but at the same time I’ve discovered I really can’t afford not to go. It’s a professional development opportunity like none other! Kudos to all the SiWC organizers for providing this superb conference year after year.

Now it’s time to take a deep breath, pour myself a coffee (or maybe a glass of wine) and go put this year’s accumulation of knowledge and enthusiasm to work.

~  ~  ~

 

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