Sheila's Writers' Conferences and Conference Activities

All of the conferences Sheila teaches and promotes are hands-on events during which participants create new writing, workshop older writing, enjoy writing consults and attend craft lectures complete with exercises that inspire writers with practice in particular craft elements.

All conferences are for mixed levels of writers, from those just beginning to pursue their writing dreams to those who are well published in particular genres and those who wish to switch genres.

The 2013 conference is in April, in Nashville, TN. Check specific conference pages frequently for opportunities to study in-person with Sheila and colleagues throughout the year and in various geographies.

We announce upcoming conferences and in-person writing seminars in our weekly and quarterly newsletters. Be sure you have signed up to receive our mailings.

Writing It Real’s Annual Conference

In 1998, faculty member 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 around the continental US. We enjoyed the June Rocky Mountain air and the hot springs and 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, including Hawaii and Australia.

In 2004, Meg suggested Sheila bring the conference to Port Townsend, WA. 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.

We have now offered this conference in Madison, WI at a gracious Benedictine retreat center and in Oracle, AZ at the historic C.O.D. ranch, in addition to our Port Townsend location. In 2013, we will be meeting April 25-28 in Nashville, TN.

Wherever and whenever we come together, the writing continues and deepens, connecting us to one another and to our own dreams and experiences.

We announce each year’s event in the Writing It Real newsletter with lots of time for  you to make arrangments to join us.