47th Annual Willamette Writers Conference
A guest post from Waka Brown:
Hi, GITS readers! It’s me, Waka Brown from Scott’s 2013 Quest Initiative. I’ve been having a great time keeping up with you, participating in Zero Draft 30 (um, more like Zero Draft 84 for me, give or take a few), and continuing on my writing journey. My most recent labor of love has been our local writing conference, The 47th Annual Willamette Writers Conference (WWC), which will take place Aug. 12–14, 2016 at the Portland Airport Sheraton. Approximately 700 writers of every form and style are expected to participate.
Many years ago, a friend pointed me toward the WWC after I had been writing (bad) screenplays for a few years. At my first conference, I was shocked at how much I didn’t know — How to pitch, how to follow up, what’s The Black List? Agent v. manager? — you name it, I didn’t know it. I attended for several years, learned more about the craft and the business (which actually led me to Scott and GITS), made contacts, obtained reads, and received enough encouragement to fuel the dream. The best aspect of the conference, though, is the community of writers. It’s your dreams and enthusiasm and your love of story. It’s being in an environment where one can say, “I’m a writer” and no one thinks you’re crazy. Or, if they do, it’s because they’re crazy, too (and proud of it!). In many ways, it’s a physical GITS-like community, but in the land of Voodoo Doughnuts. And Blue Star Donuts. And Pip’s Original Doughnuts. (AFF may have the BBQ, but PDX has got the doughnuts).
For some time, I’ve thought, “It would be really cool to have…” and this past year when my writing group friend was appointed Conference Director, he handed a large part of the Film & TV organizing to me. Let me just say, I’m really proud of the lineup we’ve put together. We have another Quester, Sandy Leviton leading sessions on TV and short films AND taking pitches. We have our Austin connection Tom Willett leading workshops on structure and the Rewrite. We have multi-dimensional story-telling, Act II Blues, the Antagonist’s Journey, pitching workshops, the business of Hollywood, and much, much more. We have managers such as Lee Stobby (who represents the writer with the #1 script on the 2015 Black List) and Kailey Marsh (founder of The Bloodlist) hearing pitches, as well as a number of other great reps and executives actively seeking out new voices.
And that’s just the Film & TV side. There’s a whole literary section of the conference covering fiction/non-fiction/sci-fi/fantasy/essays/short stories/magazines/poetry/young readers/graphic novels/self-publishing/agent/editor/publisher offerings.
If any of this interests you, please check out our conference site. Registration and pitch sales are now open and if you’re a GITS reader, we’re offering a $25 discount (code: GITSDiscount).
Finally, many thanks to Scott for letting me hijack his blog to promote the conference. If you have any questions, you can find me at @wakatb on Twitter. Hope to see you there!
For all you writers up in the Pacific Northwest, this is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the craft and do some networking. Be sure to take advantage of the special Go Into The Story discount!
Twitter: @wilwrite.