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Conference Testimonials

I wanted to let you know the cotyledon you nourished has sprouted well. My first children’s book, Substitute Groundhog (Whitman), was named a Junior Library Guild Selection, and was recently bought by Scholastic for paper and audio. I’m told it immediately sold out and they were unable to fill their orders with the initial print run! My third children’s book will be out in March.

At your workshop, I won the “Worst Beginning Line” contest, which might seem inauspicious. However, it gave me confidence that I could create what my audience would like. Thank you for all the inspiration and humor you bring to the process.

— Pat Miller

Conference History

In 1999, Meg Files asked Sheila Bender and Jack Heffron to join her in reviving a conference she had directed in Colorado for many summers. For two years, the three of us met in Glenwood Springs, CO with attendees from the Southwest, West, and East, enjoying the Rocky Mountain air at the end of June as well as the hot springs and hot springs vapor caves Glenwood is home to. In our third year, we moved the conference to Steamboat Springs and continued to enroll people from all over the continental US as well as Hawaii and Australia.

In 2004, Meg suggested Sheila bring the conference to Port Townsend, WA, where it has been held through 2008 with guest teacher Susan Rich. The timing near the summer solstice and the latitudes of the gorgeous Northwest made for lovely long days amidst Port Townsend's charming Victorian seaport ambiance and arts culture.

In 2009, Meg, Jack and Sheila were excited to announce a special conference time and place prompted by the six-week closure of the Hood Canal Bridge, which links the Olympic Peninsula to the Seattle area mainland. While the bridge was being repaired, Writing It Real's annual conference took place on board the Rhapsody of the Seas, leaving Vancouver, BC and cruising Alaska's Inside Passage. We offered our lectures, small group in-class writing instruction, small group manuscript workshops, and writing and publishing consultations aboard Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas.

In the coming years, we hope to offer our conference in various regions of the country as well as on another cruise. Wherever we come together, the writing continues and deepens, connecting us to one another and to our own dreams and experiences.

Visit our conference page for all the details. If you have questions, please email info@writingitreal.com or call Sheila Bender at (360) 385-7839.