SBWC June Conference
June 20-25, 2009
What is the summer Santa Barbara Writers Conference? It’s a week you will undoubtedly never forget. You can count on working hard, meeting dozens and dozens of other writers, learning from professionals who are passionate about writing, and being inspired beyond your wildest imagination.
The conference is held at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort, one of Santa Barbara’s most beautiful resorts, with every amenity you can imagine and unrivaled conference facilities.
The intent of SBWC has always been and continues to be to give fledgling writers the opportunity to improve their craft, to associate with helpful professionals and to mingle with other writers. Your highly credentialed workshop leaders will talk about everything from characterization, plot and scene-setting (for fiction writers) to how to pitch a story idea to editors (for non-fiction) to selling a script (for screenwriters). We offer workshops that tell you how to make your humor writing really funny, how to make your poetry more poetic, and how to navigate the lure, intricacies and pitfalls of getting published. That’s just the beginning!
We are proud of our many successful alumni – like Fannie Flagg, Dr. Spencer Johnson, Gayle Lynds, Gillian Roberts, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Jean Harfenist, Karin Finell, Jack Kerley and Christopher Moore, to name just a few.
Our workshops are the heart of the conference, and we are pleased to offer a faculty that is unrivaled.
Here’s how the conference works. We have about 30 different instructional workshops offered each day on everything from fiction (all genre) to non-fiction (biography, memoir and travel writing), to screenwriting, playwriting, poetry, children’s lit and young adult, marketing and ways to get those creative juices flowing. You can wander from one to another to sample them all, or you can settle down in a couple of particular workshops each day. We welcome and encourage (but never require) writers to bring their current work to read aloud in the workshops, where they will get feedback from workshop leaders and class participants.
In the late afternoons we have a special event – either a speaker or a panel, and every evening we have a major author speaker. We have a day dedicated to agents and editors, and you can sign up to pitch an idea, screenplay, short story, novel – whatever it is you think is ready for prime time.
After the last speaker, we keep going! We offer three "pirate" workshops for those stalwart souls who want to get some really in-depth critiquing. They start at 9 p.m. and have been known to go into the wee hours.
Then there are the opening Beach Barbecue Dinner, our midweek Cocktail Party featuring our participating agents, and our final Awards Banquet on the closing day. You’ll be exhausted and exhilarated!
You can pay an extra $40 and receive a written manuscript review prior to the conference by one of our workshop faculty. If you request a manuscript review, the manuscripts must be sent to us before May 15. One manuscript only, and no more than 3,000 words (about 10-11 double-spaced and typed pages) of a short story, novel, screenplay, play or poetry. Make sure you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope so it can be returned to you before the conference. If you would like, you may discuss the critique with the workshop leader who wrote it at the conference.
During the conference we also have a number of contests in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Fannie Flagg said in a recent interview: "Winning first prize at the SBWC contest was the first time anybody recognized me as a writer. What a thrill!"
"The conference was fabulous. Lauren and I learned, were critiqued and encouraged, stimulated and wowed. And by week’s end, a little exhausted. Nothing to compare, I’m sure, with how exhausted you must have been. You did such a wonderful job pulling it all together. A smashing success. Thank you so much!" – Christine Beebe, who attended with her teen-age daughter, Lauren
To register, click here.
