Archive for the ‘Attendees’ Category

By Jeff Posey, Director of the 2011 DFW Writers Conference

Last week I thanked the writers who attended the 2010 conference. This week, I want to thank those of you who have already signed up or are planning to attend the 2011 conference.

Big things are in store for next year’s conference, and the all-volunteer team from the DFW Writers’ Workshop is hard at work getting everything organized. What can you expect to see on this blog in the next few weeks and months?

• A firm list of agents and assigning editors who will be at the conference in greater numbers than any previous conference (you’ll be able to sign up for ten-minute sessions to speak with your agent/editor of choice)
• A list of speakers, teachers, and panelists who will share their expertise to help us become better writers
• A class schedule (probably in the early fall)
• Instructions on making hotel and flight reservations at discounted rates
• Questions to you about how you’d like to see certain events and activities handled
• Updates on agents/editors/speakers in the news
• Special and (hopefully) fun activities planned for the conference
• Introductions to the behind-the-scenes conference volunteers
• Explanations of decisions we’ve made, especially the hard ones (there are more than you can imagine)
• Anything else my brain can kick up

Meanwhile, I encourage you to follow this blog: DFW Writers Conference Blog RSS Feed. Then you’ll always be in the know of what’s going on with the DFWcon (our shorthand for the conference).

Also, if you do Twitter at all, follow our news here: DFWcon on Twitter.

Until next week, take care and I wish you good writing.

By Jeff Posey, Director of the 2011 DFW Writers Conference

We are just launching the new 2011 DFW Writers Conference site, and the first thing I want to do is thank all those who attended the 2010 conference in April. It was a great conference, our last at the old location. All the people who showed up and made friends and connected with other writers were what made it great — as well as our agents, speakers, and teachers.

I also want to thank all the volunteers from the DFW Writers’ Workshop who planned this conference for a year and then executed it far better than the year before. Perfection is never our goal. We only want to improve from year to year.

Next year’s conference is in a new location, the American Airlines Training & Conference Center. When we were scouting for new locations last fall for 2011, we immediately liked this setting. It’s the refurbished AA stewardess training center from fifty years ago and has a lodge-like feel, with forests of post oaks surrounding the buildings, and little casual gathering areas in every direction. It seems the perfect setting for a writers retreat and gathering.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. For those of you who attended 2010, I hope you learned enough to keep you going for a year or more. Many of you, I hope, will return for 2011.

I’ll keep this blog weekly, with a goal of posting updates every Tuesday. As things develop — such as when we get confirmation from agents and acquisition editors, as well as speakers and teachers — I’ll post the information here. Guest bloggers may step in on occasion.

So if you’re interested in what we’ll bring to the writing community the last weekend in February, 2011, please come back often. I don’t see an RSS feed icon on the site yet, but we’ll try to get that up soon so you can easily keep up.

As always, if you have any questions at all, please let me know. We have an official DFW Writers Conference email address, but it’s not yet pointing to me, so feel free to contact me directly in the meantime: JeffPosey@Verizon.net. I’ll feed a Twitter account as well, at @DFWcon. Please follow.

Until next week, take care.

We’ve been looking at statistics for the nearly 200 people who have already registered for the DFW Writers’ Conference, April 10 & 11 in Grapevine, Texas. And we discovered something very interesting. Not only did registrations exceed last year’s total a full three months out from the conference, but writers are coming from across the country! Thirteen states are represented so far, and registrations are still rolling in!

Writers are coming in from: California, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio and of course, the conference’s home state of Texas. Within Texas, the largest contingent is from Dallas but they’re coming in from all over the state, including several from the Houston area and others from Amarillo, San Antonio, Laredo and Corpus Christi.

With 10 literary agents, more than 40 workshops and a gathering of writers from around the country, this is shaping up to be the best DFW Writers’ Conference yet!