This Writing Conference is THE Writing Conference

My birthday week ended with the. best. writing conference in existence. I've been to LDStorymakers three times, and every year it gets better. I live-tweeted most of my classes, but if you missed it here are some of my favorite take-aways:

There aren't many of us NF writers, but we found each other. Allison Merrill and me.

From Matthew Kirby's Form, Not Formula class:

 Brandon Sanderson spoke during lunch on Saturday.

 Jeff Wheeler's First Million Words class:

 Agent Jenny Bent gave the most thorough lesson on queries with a handout that writers might sell their firstborn book for.

However, she did say she would forgive people if they got her name wrong. 

Keynote: Chris Crowe, author of Death Coming Up the Hill

Top: Chris and his lovely wife. 

 Marketing for Authors with Rob and Dan Wells and J. Scott Savage.

I don't have a ton of tweets on this class, but it was one of my favorites. I have copious notes on branding, strategy vs. tactics, and the four Ps. 

Dr. Rosalyn Eves brought down the house with her lecture on the Emotional Correlative.

A graduate-level class. 

I struggled capturing the brilliance of this lesson in a mere 140 characters. 

Thank you, Ali Cross, for your class on Managing Social Media Campaigns.

 A class on pitching + Julie Wright = hilarity.

At the beginning of the conference, they invite the teachers, agents, and publishers to the podium to offer one word to describe themselves or their contributions to the conference. Here are some gems:

This one would take too long to explain, but it is a pretty accurate description of how laid back everyone is. This is a no-pressure conference and one of the best for networking.

Seriously. Come next year. May 12 and 13th.