Thursday, January 25, 2018

Ridgefield Writers Conference 2018

Inspiration and Imagination 2018
Due to the overwhelming success of the 2017 Ridgefield Writers Conference, we are expanding the off-year open house to become an inspirational single-evening event on Friday, September 21, with a similar format to the two-day conference.


Overview
Amid today's challenging publishing climate and the pressures of writers' professional and personal lives, what is the writer's source of inspiration? How can the writer remain inspired and rekindle inspiration when it wanes? We'll explore responses to these and other questions through the author-editor relationship and our 2018 conference theme of Inspiration and Imagination. To make the most of this year's event and the author/editor seminar workshops, bring your writing project and questions.
Ridgefield Library, Main Street Entrance


Date, Time & Location
Friday, September 21
From 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Ridgefield Library
472 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877
T.203.438.2282


Arrival & Check-In
Lobby Entrances - Main and Lower Levels
6:15 p.m. - Attendees can arrive via the Main and Lower Level lobby entrances
6:20 p.m. - Check-in occurs in the Lower Level lobby area


Conference Schedule
Main Program Room - Lower Level
6:30 p.m. - Introduction by Ridgefield Library
6:35 p.m. - Welcome by Ridgefield Writers Conference
6:40 p.m. - Keynote address and reading by acclaimed author Rachel Basch
7:00 p.m. - Readings by guest authors Pete Nelson, Sonya Huber and Chris Belden
7:15 p.m. - Wine and cheese reception with writer attendees, authors and guest publisher
7:30 p.m. - Q&A panel with agent, authors and guest editors
8:00 p.m. - Author/editor breakout seminar workshops

For the location of each of the workshops, see the Author/Editor Seminar Workshops section below.


Keynote & Reading
Photo Credit: Phil Keane
Rachel Basch is the author of three novels: The Listener, a finalist for the 2016 CLMP Firecracker Award; The Passion of Reverend Nash, among The Christian Science Monitor's five best novels of 2003; and Degrees of Love. Basch was a 2011 MacDowell Colony Fellow, and her nonfiction has appeared in n+1, Salon, the Huffington Post, The Millions, and Parenting. Basch received the William Van Wert prize for an excerpt from The Listener and currently teaches in Fairfield University's MFA Program and Wesleyan University' Graduate Liberal Studies Program.


Jim Childs
Marilyn Allen

Agent & Editor Panelists
- Jim Childs (Publisher, Editor Globe Pequot, Rowan &
  Littlefield, Time, Inc., Books, The Tauton Press, John
  Wiley & Sons, HarperBusiness, Prentice Hall)
- Marilyn Allen (Allen O'Shea Literary Agency)
- Tamar Mays (Senior Editor, HarperCollins)
- Collin Hosten (Editor, Disney Publications)
- Adele Annesi (Moderator and Editor, WordforWords)






Author/Editor Seminar Workshops
Inspiring the Imagination for Nonfiction and Fiction for Young Readers: FILLED
Pete Nelson and Tamar Mays
Location: Randolph Board Room - Upper Level
Pete Nelson is the author of the acclaimed novel I Thought You Were Dead; his WWII history, Left for Dead, won the Christopher Award. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Tamar Mays is a senior editor with Harper Collins and has worked with Scholastic Book Clubs and Penguin Group.




Inspiring the Imagination for Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction and Memoir: FILLED
Sonya Huber and Colin Hosten
Location: Dayton Program Room - Lower Level
Sonya Huber is the author of Opa Nobody, Cover Me and Pain Woman Takes Your Keys. She teaches at Fairfield University. Colin Hostin is co-founder of Woodhall Press, an editor for Disney Publications, and a lecturer at Fairfield University.




Inspiring the Imagination for Short and Long Fiction: FILLED
Chris Belden and Adele Annesi
Location: Main Program Room - Lower Level
Chris Belden is the author of Shriver and Carry-on, and the award-winning short story collection The Floating Lady of Lake Tawaba. He teaches at the Westport Writers' Workshop. Adele Annesi is an award-winning editor, writer, and teacher. She has worked as a development editor for Scholastic and WordforWords. She also teaches at the Westport Writers' Workshop.



How the Seminar Workshops Work
At the heart of each Ridgefield Writers Conference, among the most instructive small venues for writers, is pedagogy. This year's instructional focus takes the form of seminar workshops with seasoned authors and editors, with whom writers can share their fiction, nonfiction and hybrid projects for stimulating discussions to help break through roadblocks and spark creativity.

Through the workshops, writers will have the opportunity to see in real time how authors and editors collaborate and sometimes spar to resolve challenges relating to such elements as audience, beginnings and endings, character development, genre, market, narrative pull, plot, prose, reader engagement, structure, style, theme, viewpoint, voice, and that ongoing challenge, revision.

To make the most of the workshops, writers should bring their projects, plans, questions and concerns, especially what they believe is their biggest writing challenge, as it relates to their project. Sometimes we believe one element to be the obstacle when the underlying issue is something else.


Application, Format & Fee
This year's event is on a first-come, first-served basis, and registration is now closed, as all workshop spaces have been filled. The $25 registration fee includes the evening's keynote, readings, reception, panel, and one author/editor breakout seminar workshop.

Conference Brochure for 2018
To access and download the conference brochure, click Ridgefield Writers Conference 2018 Brochure. Or click the web page for Conference Brochure 2018.

General Information
More about the conference background and methodology is available at on the About Us page of the website.
For questions or more information:
Email Word for Words
Call 203.894.1908

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