A Steel Pen Weekend

Almost one-hundred people experienced the Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference last weekend, and the number swelled to over one-hundred when including attendance at the pre- and post-conference events.

It was a great weekend, and I can think of several ways to describe it: fun-filled, enlightening, stimulating, and entertaining. In this week’s blog post, I am going to leave you with pictures from some of the events and workshops I experienced.

At Friday night’s welcome, we viewed an exhibit of river flags and enjoyed an offering from emerging poet Lily Rex. The highlight of the evening was a talk and poetry reading by author/poet Wang Ping. Here are some pictures.

 

 

 

At the conference on Saturday, I enjoyed browsing through the bookfair and attending the sessions. Here is a picture from the bookfair.

 



And here are pictures from the sessions I attended:

 

A panel on “Historical (Re)tell: The Writing and Craft of Telling Retellings of the Historic”;

Another panel presentation on “Getting Over the Transom: Tips for litmag acceptances from ccr eds.”;

Carla Lee Suson talking about “Perfect Pitch: Developing the Phrase that Defines Your Manuscript”;

And “How to Work with an Illustrator, Self-Publish, and Promote a Children’s Book” with author James B. Dworkin and illustrator Michael Chelich.

 

But the highlight of the conference was the evening banquet with keynote speaker Bryan Furuness, who addressed us on “Writing in the Wilderness.”

 

 

I hope to see you at next year’s conference.