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The Pros and Cons of Attending a Writers’ Conference
They’re not for everyone, but are they for you?
If you’re debating whether to attend one of the many writers’ conferences that seem to be flooding the internet right now, my quick answer would be: IT DEPENDS.
I went to one recently in Cincinnati called “How to Get Published,” organized by Writing Day Workshops. Was it worth my time and money? Absolutely — but maybe not for the reasons you think.
That wasn’t my first trip to the rodeo. Years ago, I attended a similar conference in Florida. Armed with a hard copy of my query letter and the first ten pages of my novel, I was hopeful that I’d connect with an agent who wanted to sign me on the spot. A girl can dream now, can’t she?
And dream I did. Even more so after I enticed three agents to request additional pages and another who asked for a copy of my full manuscript. She even requested that I email it to her before the conference ended so that she could read it on the plane. Whoa!
But my dreams died on the vine when none of those requests resulted in anything further, and I eventually shelved that project and moved on to another.
After that, I was apprehensive about attending another conference. Filled with self-doubt, occasionally I wondered…
