We Nailed It!

 

We aren’t supposed to brag about our own conference, so we will let the numbers do it for us. Of the 70 people who attended the Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference on Saturday, 24 filled out the general evaluation. Of those 24, all said their likelihood of attending again was either good or excellent, with the excellents leading 17 to 7. Here are some of the written comments:

·       Great price, great presentations. Loved it!

·       It was great! Lots of work and truly appreciated.

·       Thank you for the high level of organization.

As with anything, there are opportunities for improvement, and we appreciate those comments, as well. The biggest problem was that one of the rooms was too small, and we already have some ideas on how to resolve that issue next year.

The facility at Fair Oaks Farms also received rave reviews. That’s good, since the Fifth Annual Steel Pen Creative Writer’s Conference will be held on October 27, 2018 at the same place. We will provide more information about next year’s conference in the November 15 blog post.

But back to this year. The highlight was the keynote speech by Catherine Lanigan, who provided inspiration to keep writing even when we’ve been told we aren’t good enough. She also presented a session on writing romance and gave tips for navigating the business side of the writing profession no matter what your genre.

As already mentioned, one of the three rooms was too small. It was supposed to hold up to 24 people, which might have worked if the Committee members had been good judges of which topics would capture the smallest audiences. For those sessions that met in the Boardroom, the classes were cramped but also intimate, as you can see from this picture of the novel-in-stories workshop presented by Melissa Fraterrigo.

Finally, the networking was wonderful, as was the food. The last photo shows the appetizers available during the cocktail hour.

Tune in next week for a personal testimony about the conference.