Upcoming Events: Where You Can Find Us
Here’s a look at our upcoming online events, plus third-party event where you can find our authors and editors! [You may also view past events by using the month view and scrolling back.]
HippoCamp Minis: Publishing, Promotion & the Writing Life- 5 CNF Topics in a Flash (2026)
Some conferences call these fast-paced events lightning round talks. In honor of the short CNF subgenre, we call them flash sessions! These have always been a popular and fun part of our in-person HippoCamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers and, this year, we’re once again bringing their magic online.
In our Sunday HippoCamp Minis sessions, you’ll hear from five speakers who will share bite-sized wisdom with practical takeaways on a topic they’re passionate about, all related to promoting and publishing creative nonfiction (and yourself!), as well as living your best writing life.
This is ONE OF FOUR events we’re hosting the weekend of the 15-16th! Read about all of them here.
About the Sessions & Speakers
This webinar will feature the following five flash sessions:
It’s true that it’s more difficult than ever to publish personal essays in mainstream venues. And yet, editors still want to publish them. In this talk, I will share tips on how to get the attention of editors with your personal essay pitches and drafts. This session will:
- Offer tips on pitching the right essay at the right time to maximize its chance of publication
- Share strategies for forging long-term relationships with editors who want to go to bat for you again and again
- Cover how to find the right publication and vertical for your personal essay and what elements this essay should have to increase your chances of publication
- Explore how pitching personal essays is a long game and somewhat like dating
- Discuss pros and cons of writing pitches vs. full drafts
- Share the secret of how being rejected by my favorite column for years, which I eventually landed, inadvertently helped me publish in many other top venues
About the Speaker: Lauren is a Philly-raised, New Mexico-based freelance writer who has been publishing essays since she started writing for the Bucks County Courier Times’ teenage-run page when she was 14. In her 20s and early 30s, she was head writer for a communications firm that partnered with mission-based organizations. Now she freelances all over the place, and has published essays in The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, BBC Travel, and elsewhere. Lauren coaches essay writing, writes music, and sings. She is at work on a memoir about her decades of funeral singing, which she’s writing with the editorial guidance of her agent.
Being part of a live literary event is a hugely gratifying way to up your literary citizenship and community. And it’s fun! Whether or not you’re the type to emcee an event or perform,
there’s a role for you to get involved in your local events, or even better expand the artistic community with new ones!
- We’ll go over the basics of getting a show running from the idea in your brain to a show—with actual people!
- Weird is good! How to find “I’d pay to see that!” and then make it happen!
- Curating your readers, or tellers, or bellydancers, or dulcimer players.
- Venues and tickets and marketing, oh my!
- Avoiding burnout so you can keep on doing this (because like all art, it’s fun but it is WORK)
About the Speaker: Amy Eaton co-hosts MissSpoken, Chicago’s best Lady Live Lit show. She is a veteran Write Club Chicago combatant with six victories. Amy has read for Chirp Radio’s First Time as well as Voicebox, Tuesday Funk, Louder Than a Mom, and You’re Being Ridiculous at Steppenwolf Theater. A trained actor and dancer and self-taught musician, she can be found unleashing her inner performance artist at 20×2 Chicago.
Amy has taught workshops on Live Lit, Creative Writing, Theater and ASL. She has produced, directed, and performed in fringe theater and solo performances both short and long. Amy co-founded Nature of the Beast, an experimental theater company with Deaf and hearing actors as well as founding and serving as artistic director for Mudlark Theater Company, now in their 21st year.
In this session, focused on igniting (or re-igniting) your creative spark, writer Renee Reese will guide creatives in tools to heal from burnout and inspire new art. One simple way to nurture creativity is by going on an Artist Date, an intentional solo experience designed to connect with your inner creative. Popularized by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, an Artist Date is described as “a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the Artist Date is an excursion, a play date…” This session will:
- Help you find nontraditional ways to get your creative spark back
- Give you ideas for simple, accessible Artist Dates you can try (including free and low-cost options)
- Share tips for overcoming burnout, writer’s block, and creative frustration
- Help you create a sustainable creative practice
Whether you consider yourself a creative or someone who just wants to feel inspired again, this session will be a playful invitation to exploring your inner artist.
About the Speaker: Renée Reese is a lawyer, creative nonfiction writer, and New York native. She is an alum of the Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, and her work has appeared in Huffpost. She runs The Creative Year publication on Substack, which chronicles her journey as an artist. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her dancing, painting, or in a New York City coffee shop, daydreaming about her next project.
TICKET OPTIONS
You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($30) below, or register for the entire weekend, here ($75).
