AWP Conference and Bookfair 2026
2026-03-04 - 2026-03-07
Hippocampus Magazine & Books will have a presence at the 2026 AWP Conference & Bookfair.
Stop by Booth 315 to meet members of our volunteer team, browse our books, grab a pen, share your “why I write CNF” response, and just chat with us about what you’re up to!
Get full details about the conference itself at the AWP website.
Where You Can Find Members of the Hippo Team

Flashes of Truth: A Celebration & Examination of the Flash Essay Form – Friday 9-10 (feat. Rae Pagliarulo)
No Pants? No Problem: “Planners” Share Their Outline Process – Friday 9-10:15 (feat. reviewer Elizabeth Austin)
Our own off-site event and book launch! – Saturday 7-8:45

Hippocampus Magazine Anthology Launch & 15th Anniversary Party: Selected Memories Vol. 2
2026-03-07 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | The Game Lounge (MAP Technologies), 322 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, MD, 21201, United States
[Note: If using Google Maps, you may also find it under MAP Technologies, as The Game Lounge is a space within their building. The address 322 W. Baltimore.
Please double check the address if you’re using GPS to walk or drive. There happens to be a barcade in the Federal Hill area with a similar name that may show up if you just search by name.]
Join us for the launch party of Selected Memories Vol. 2, an anthology, celebrating 15 years of creative nonfiction at Hippocampus Magazine. Readings from contributors, light refreshments, camaraderie, and books!
You can also pre-order the book here!
Nitty Gritty Details
Doors open at 7 p.m.; program begins by 7:30 p.m.
Please RSVP using the form to help us gauge interest, even if you aren’t 100% sure you can make it.

This event is free, but donations are appreciated.
We have a 120 capacity limit for this space.
RSVPs will help us track this, as well as plan for food.
This is an event space (similar to a gallery); we suggest eating dinner before arriving.
We will have some snacks and assortment of beverages, such as bottled water, seltzer, beer, and wine.

Confirmed Line-Up
The following Selected Memories contributors will read from their work:

Holly Abbe
Sayuri Ayers
Margaret Luongo
Nicole Piasecki
Ronit Plank
SJ Sindu
Tori Walters

More to possibly be added.

The Write Stuff Conference 2026
2026-03-12 - 2026-03-14
Hippocampus Magazine and Books is thrilled to return to the annual The Write Stuff conference, hosted by the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group. This year, associate editor Rae Pagliarulo is leading two CNF-focused events.
Get full details at their event website.

Gotham Writers Nonfiction Conference
2026-03-21 - 2026-03-22
Gotham Writers hosts a variety of workshops and conferences each year, both in New York City and virtually.
Among them is the Gotham Writers Nonfiction Conference, slated for March 21-22, 2025. This online, two-day event will feature a variety of TBA sessions and panels. Donna Talarico, our founder and publisher, will be part of a nonfiction book marketing panel.
Get all the details at the Gotham Writers website.

Stories on Sunday: Bloom: Letters on Girlhood by Nicole Breit & Claire Sicherman
2026-04-26 19:00 - 20:15 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Note: If you are having any issues with checking out or don’t get a confirmation email, please email info@hippocampusmagazine.com. We had a report that there was an issue with PayPal yesterday; things appear clear on our end, but we wanted to put a note here just in case.
Enjoy a reading, then hear the story behind the stories during Stories on Sunday with Nicole Breit and Claire Sicherman, co-authors of Bloom: Letters on Girlhood — a timely memoir exploring how societal expectations shape identity, and how we can continue, at any age, to release the past. This event listing will be updated soon with full details.
All Stories on Sundays guest readers have a connection to Hippocampus Magazine; both authors are past contributors to the magazine. We were so excited to hear about this collaboration!
About the Book, from the jacket copy: A raw, searching and intimate memoir, Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is a conversation between two acclaimed writers about silence and shame and what it means to come of age as young women.
Over the course of two and a half years, authors Claire Sicherman (Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation) and Nicole Breit, an award-winning poet and essayist, exchanged letters chronicling their coming-of-age in the suburbs of late 1980s Vancouver.
Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is a candid memoir-in-letters in which Claire and Nicole explore the awkwardness and confusion of adolescence, delving into everything from periods, first bras and body hair to desire, sexuality and consent. As they reflect on their silent struggles as girls, women and mothers from the perspective of mid-life, the true impact of patriarchy and misogyny on their lives becomes increasingly apparent.
With unflinching honesty and insight, Bloom is a timely memoir exploring how societal expectations shape identity, and how we can continue, at any age, to release the past. Written by two feminist authors from underrepresented communities (Claire is a Jewish woman and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors; Nicole is a queer, neurodivergent writer), this memoir-in-letters will resonate with anyone who has ever asked themselves: Who was I taught to be? And who do I want to become?
About the Series: Stories on Sundays are bi-monthly readings from a recent/forthcoming work of creative nonfiction followed by an author interview + audience Q&A. Your registration helps fund our contributor payments and other costs associated with running our journal.

About the Authors/Speakers:
Nicole Breit’s love affair with the arts began when she received special recognition for her Kindergarten crayon drawing of an orange chicken with both male and female human genitalia. Her girlhood pastimes included dressing Barbie in her pink satin night set with matching heels, applying make-up from her cousin’s Mary Kaye collection and lingering over the Sears Christmas Wish Book lingerie section. Many years passed before Nicole identified as femme and queer (or felt comfortable calling herself a writer and artist). She is based on Canada’s Sunshine Coast and teaches the art of storying – shaping our potent memories into transformative creative nonfiction.
Claire Sicherman grew up in a Vancouver suburb and is still recovering from her mom shaping her curls into a full mullet. Memorable coming-of-age moments include stumbling onto a nude beach at age 12, her first naked man sighting (not her last), and her grandmother proudly lifting her shirt in front of the entire family to admire Claire’s new training bra. A bookworm raised on Judy Blume and Sweet Valley High, Claire wrote bad poetry, then avoided the page until writing found her again. She now supports brave humans as a writing coach, helping them tell the stories they carry.

STORIES ON SUNDAY: No Contact: Writers on Estrangement with Jenny Bartoy, Danielle Jernigan and Nicole Graev Lipson
2026-06-28 19:00 - 20:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Enjoy readings and hear the story behind the stories during this next Stories on Sunday. Registration details to follow, after event + book info.
This edition of Stories on Sunday features an anthology: No Contact: Writers on Estrangement. We’ll be joined by editor Jenny Bartoy and two contributors: Danielle Jernigan and Nicole Graev Lipson. Our associate editor Rae Pagliarulo will lead the discussion.
All Stories on Sundays guest readers have a connection to Hippocampus Magazine; Jenny is one of our regular interviewers and Nicole Graev Lipson is a past contributor (and contest finalist!).
About the Series: Stories on Sundays are bi-monthly(ish) readings from a recent/forthcoming work of creative nonfiction followed by an author interview + audience Q&A. This is event is free or by donation; Your registration helps fund our contributor payments and other costs associated with running our journal.

ABOUT THE BOOK (from BookShop): Estrangement presents an essential existential question: who are we without our family? What kind of person cuts the proverbial umbilical cord and why? And who do we become, once untethered from our kin?
Families fall apart and individuals cut ties for myriad reasons — abuse, politics, mental illness, and addiction, among others — and reunification often is not in the cards. Through thirty-two intimate, first-person accounts, No Contact: Writers on Estrangement counters the prevalent trope of reconciliation as a happy ending, focusing instead on the complex grief, healing, and authenticity found in the rupture from family.
This collection features work by Hannah Bae, Eben E. B. Bein, Soni Brown, Lorne Daniel, Lindsey Danis, Michelle Dowd, Nick Flynn, Stephanie Foo, Gabriela Denise Frank, Susan Ito, Danielle Jernigan, noam keim, Erika Krouse, Monique Laban, Cassandra Lewis, Kate Lewis, Nicole Graev Lipson, Tiffany Aldrich MacBain, Jamal Mahjoub, Onita Morgan-Edwards, Emi Nietfeld, Geneva Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, Anna Qu, Domenica Ruta, Oslyn Serratos, Alyson Shelton, Cheryl Strayed, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Raksha Vasudevan, Jane Wong, and Kristen Millares Young.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS:
Jenny BartoyDanielle Jernigan headshotNicoleGraevLipson–AuthorPhoto
Jenny Bartoy is a French American writer, developmental editor, and critic. She’s the editor of No Contact: Writers on Estrangement (Catapult, 2026). Her work appears in several anthologies and in publications such as Hippocampus Magazine, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Under the Gum Tree, Room, Chicago Review of Books, The Boston Globe, and The Seattle Times among others. She holds a master’s degree in sociocultural anthropology from Columbia University and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Danielle Jernigan is an essayist, editor, and book coach with a background in birth work, maternal mental health, and publishing. Her Tiny Victory microessay appeared in the New York Times, and she has been quoted in the Washington Post. Her work explores how childhood abuse and birth-related trauma shape matrescence and our capacity to love. Her current project is a literary magazine focused on the same themes. Danielle lives in the Midwest with her youngest child.
Nicole Graev Lipson is the USA Today bestselling author of the memoir in essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, River Teeth, Hippocampus Magazine, LA Review of Books, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, among other venues. Her work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays, and shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. Lipson received her MFA in creative writing from Emerson College and lives outside of Boston with her family.

How-To Tuesday: Writing Rage in Enraging Times with Amy Monticello
2026-07-21 19:00 - 20:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
As writers, we’re often told that rage can turn a reader off. And yet we live in an angry time. This session focuses on writing rage that enhances the insights of creative nonfiction rather than dilutes them.
Amy’s talk treats rage as a complex rather than simple emotion—one that has endless iterations. She will analyze works where rage enters the narrative voice, enhancing its urgency, transgression, reclamation, and humor.
Brief takeaways:

Rage has a bad rap but this is often weaponized against writers (largely women and BIPOC writers)
Rage is like any emotion — it can be used bluntly or with subtlety
Rage can be enormously satisfying and/or freeing to write
Rage provides a heat source that powers other emotions and insights

Attendees will leave this talk armed with rage as a craft tool of precision and candor.
About the series: How-To Tuesdays are monthly talks on the craft of creative nonfiction, publishing, marketing and the writing life led by Hippocampus Magazine editors & contributors. Your registration helps fund our contributor payments and other costs associated with running our journal.
About the Speaker
Amy Monticello is the author of Close Quarters, a chapbook memoir about unconventional divorce (Sweet Publications), and the essay collection How to Euthanize a Horse, which won the 2016 Arcadia Press Chapbook Prize in Nonfiction.
She is also co-author, along with husband Jason Tucker, of The Routledge Introduction to American Life Writing (2023). Her work has been published in the North American Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, under the gum tree, the Iron Horse Literary Review, Hotel Amerika, CALYX, The Rumpus, and Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. She teaches at Suffolk University in Boston.

HippoCamp Online Weekend 2026: Multiple Events [Ticket Package Page]
2026-08-15 - 2026-08-16 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Note: We are leaving the full ticket package open, even after some of the Saturday events have passed for those who would like recording access. Registered attendees will get access to event recordings for 30 days, with the exception of Deep Dives.
HippoCamp Online Weekend, the virtual version of our conference founded in 2015, will include four separate webinar events, plus evening “chill and chats,” which will be informal Zoom meetings that allow registered attendees to connect and reflect. As an optional add-on, there will be two Deep Dive sessions to choose from each day.
For more info, including an FAQ and links to our BookShop store, visit our HippoCamp 2026 informational page.
At a Glance: An Overview of the Weekend’s Events
You may register for events separately or purchase a weekend package on this page. A brief description and links to each individual event page are listed in this table.

EVENT
DAY & TIME
all times are ET
DETAILS & REGISTRATION

HippoCamp Minis: Craft
Five 10-minute sessions on craft-based topics specific or relevant to creative nonfiction.
Saturday, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
$30, register or see details here

A Night of Nonfiction: Debut CNF Author Readers & Discussion
Readings from debut authors, plus a featured reader, followed by a discussion and audience Q&A.
Saturday, 6-8 p.m.
Free/Donate what-you-can ($10 suggested), register or see details here

HippoCamp Minis: Publishing, Promotion & the Writing Life
Five 10-minute sessions on getting your work out there.
Sunday, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
$30, register or see details here

Book Champions: Meet the Agents and Publicists: A Publishing & Publicity Roundtable
A moderated discussion with agents and publicists, followed by an audience Q&A.
Sunday, 6-8 p.m.
$20$30, register or see details here

OPTIONAL ADD-ONS
(Not part of weekend ticket package)
DAY & TIME – all times are ET
DETAILS & REGISTRATION

Deep Dives (purchase separately)
90-minute, interactive session in meeting format. Seating limited. These are live only, not recorded.
Saturday & Sunday
2 to 3:30 p.m.
($50 each; not part of weekend package; sharing here as FYI)
Saturday, Option 1
Scenes that Work: Choosing What Stays in Your Memoir & What Goes w/ Ronit Plank
Saturday, Option 2
Postmarked: Modern Takes on the Ancient Art of Letters w/ Brenda Miller
Sunday, Option 1
Making a Newsletter Work for You w/ Allison K Williams
Sunday, Option 2
Mining Your Obsessions: Writing (Nearly) Endless Essays On One Subject w/ Elizabeth Austin

PURCHASE WEEKEND PACKAGE TICKETS
You may purchase a ticket for the entire weekend on this page. You will get individual Zoom invites by for EACH webinar closer to the event. Note: First, select quantity using (+) sign and then add to cart.
If you prefer to only attend one or two events, you may purchase tickets a la carte at the individual page for each event, linked above or see the full list at our main calendar page.

HippoCamp Minis: CRAFT - 5 CNF Writing Topics in a Flash (2026)
2026-08-15 11:00 - 12:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
NOTE: This event is over, but we left the ticket open for anyone who would still like to sign up in order to get the replay video. Registration includes access to the recording for 30 days.
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 Saturday 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 writing creative nonfiction.
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:
Did You Get My (sub)Text? (Wendy Fontaine)
When we write creative nonfiction, there’s the story we want to tell and then there’s the story beneath the story. That’s where subtext comes in. Subtext is the underlying meaning that gives our writing depth and texture, the unspoken clues and suggestions that allow our readers to connect the dots. In this flash session, you will learn to:

create layers using word choice, detail, and blank space
strengthen themes, connotation, and nuance
find balance between clarity and subtlety

About the Speaker: Wendy Fontaine is the flash editor at Hippocampus Magazine. Her work has appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Pithead Chapel, Hippocampus Magazine, Longridge Review, Creative Nonfiction’s Sunday Reads, Sweet Lit and Yemassee. She has received nonfiction prizes from Identity Theory, Hunger Mountain and Tiferet Journal, as well as nominations to the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthologies. A native New Englander, she currently resides in southern California with her daughter and husband.

Measure Twice, Cut Once: How to Edit Your Pieces Before Submission (Marissa Gallerani)
Editors are said to have a keen eye, but what happens when you want to use their skills before you submit your work?
In this talk focused on editing for writers, Hippocampus contributor Marissa Gallerani will share her tips and tricks to polishing your pieces before submission. The session will:

review the importance of editing and explore how editing can improve a piece
provide tangible tips that writers can implement with their own work
define different editing strategies for fiction and non-fiction pieces alike
share how to be your own best editor when no one else is around

Attendees will leave feeling more confident about their own editing skills, and with practical tips to use for their short and longform writing.
About the Speaker: Marissa Gallerani is a queer and disabled writer, living and working in Providence, RI. She holds a MFA from the Newport MFA at Salve Regina University, and has had featured publications in Hippocampus, Write or Die, and The Harvard Review Online, among others. She has taught at Salve Regina University, the New England Institute of Technology, Write or Die, and has courses forthcoming this year with Elegant Literature.
Marissa writes The Chaotic Reader newsletter on Substack, where she details the life of a working writer by interviewing authors, and analyzes literature through the lens of political science. A book club dropout who loves fantasy the most, she will read anything and knows that reading books and buying books are two separate hobbies.

Writers with ADHD: Throw Away the Rulebook (B.K. Jackson)
Writing poses numerous challenges for people with ADHD, and much of the problem stems from trying to follow advice that’s intended for neurotypical people. In this flash session you’ll learn to:

understand how conventional wisdom and writing advice can hinder rather than help neurodivergent writers
work with your ADHD brain instead of against it
recognize the roadblocks ADHD builds and overcome or work around them
harness those aspects of ADHD that boost creativity

About the Speaker: B.K. (Kate) Jackson is an author; a developmental editor and certified book coach; and a journalist with bylines in HuffPost, The Los Angeles Times, The Sun, SurvivorLit, Whale Road Review, Hippocampus Magazine, WIRED and more. She earned a BA and an MA from UCLA.
Kate is the editor of the anthology Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship, and founder and editor of Severance (severancemag.com), a magazine and community for adoptees and individuals who’ve discovered misattributed parentage. She’s revising a memoir about maternal abandonment and family secrets. She lives in Milford, Pennsylvania. Find her at www.bkjacksonwriter.com and creativelyadhd.substack.com.

Props as Prompts: How to Pull Story from Found Objects, Artifacts, & Photos (Leslie Lindsay)
When writers hit the wall, or otherwise burn out, they may stare at the blinking cursor, give up, and walk away. What if you took yourself on a (focused) field trip, instead? This session is aimed at delving into the physical archives, items, and places of your story. Hippocampus Magazine interviewer Leslie Lindsay shares tips from her research in writing a blended memoir about her Kentucky-born great-grandmother, Cora Bell. These tips, insights, and ‘prompts using props,’ will help you get deeper into your character, your story, and allow your intuition to surface. This session will:

cover what to research in person using found objects, maps, photographs. (hint: you’ll get into story/character if you leave your desk and go out into the world)
offer tips on allowing the subconscious to ‘do its thing’
explore how certain ‘found objects’ can act as a touchpoint on your writing desk, and/or show up as a motif in your work

Attendees will leave with ideas to revise existing (or create new!) material or deepen current work, including historical fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and poetry.
About the speaker: Leslie A. Lindsay is the author of Speaking of Apraxia: A Parents’ Guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech. She has contributed to the anthology, Becoming Real: Women Reclaim the Power of the Imagined Through Speculative Nonfiction. Leslie’s essays, reviews, poetry, photography, and interviews have appeared in The Millions, DIAGRAM, The Rumpus, LitHub, and On the Seawall, among others. She holds a BSN from the University of Missouri-Columbia, is a former Mayo Clinic child/adolescent psychiatric RN,and an alumna of Kenyon Writer’s Workshop. Her work has been supported by Ragdale and Vermont Studio Center and nominated for Best American Short Fiction.

Narrative Medicine: Why the Chart Is Never the Whole Story (Renée K. Nicholson)
What if the skills that make you a better writer could also make medicine more compassionate? Narrative medicine trains healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers, educators, and others to read and respond to the stories that surround illness and healing, often using the very tools you already bring to creative nonfiction. In this session, Renée K. Nicholson explores where narrative medicine and creative nonfiction meet, and why that intersection matters. This session will:

introduce narrative medicine and examine how close reading and reflective writing function as tools for witness and understanding
explore how creative nonfiction writers are uniquely positioned to contribute to this growing field
consider how narrative medicine’s core questions can deepen and expand your own work on the page

About the Speaker: Renée K. Nicholson is a writer working across poetry, essays, fiction, and criticism. She holds a BA from Butler University, an MFA from West Virginia University, and a certificate in narrative medicine from Columbia University. The author of six books, including the poetry collection FEVERDREAM, the memoir-in-essays FIERCE AND DELICATE and a début novel under contract, her work has appeared in over 100 publications, among them The Gettysburg Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and River Teeth. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and a 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Château d’Orquevaux in France, she left academia in 2024 to write full time and lives in Morgantown, West Virginia.

TICKET OPTIONS
You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($30) below, or register for the entire weekend, here ($75).

Deep Dive: Postmarked: Modern Takes on the Ancient Art of Letters (Brenda Miller)
2026-08-15 14:00 - 15:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Deep Dives are intensive/generative 90-minute workshops, with two options to choose from each day during HippoCamp Weekend; these are NOT included in the main ticket package and require separate registration. Registration is limited to 20 attendees; we suggest signing up early. This format is intentionally designed to be live; it will not be recorded.

About the Session
Remember the joy of finding a handwritten letter in your mailbox? Letters used to be our primary form of communication, but they’ve fallen out of favor in the technology age. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll:

explore the literary power of letter writing in our modern lives
examine how authors often used letters to elucidate not only their everyday lives but also to grapple with the complexities of their work
study contemporary authors, who employ the letter form as a structural device for their stories. We’ll even turn to oral storytelling in podcasts such as This American Life and Letters Live!
analyze how writers use the letter form to create intimacy, reveal historical context as well as personal details, and provide a container for difficult subjects

In a supportive, encouraging environment, participants will then engage in short, guided writing exercises designed to draft personal stories in letter form. These could be real letters one would send to a particular recipient, or they might be autobiographical essays using the letter form as a literary device.
About the speaker:
Brenda Miller’s most recent book is Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems (Skinner House Books, 2026). She is the author of six essay collections, including A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form. She co-wrote, with Suzanne Paola, the popular textbook Tell it Slant, and her work has received seven Pushcart Prizes.

TICKET INFO
You may register for this event a la carte, independent of the full HippoCamp Online Weekend. (But if you would like to attend other sessions or the entire event, you can learn more here.)
This session is limited to 20 attendees for optimal engagement with speaker and each other; we suggest signing up as early as possible to secure your seat. Note: Deep Dives are using the Zoom meeting format where all attendees will be on screen.

(Sold Out) Deep Dive: Scenes That Work: Choosing What Stays in Your Memoir & What Goes (Ronit Plank)
2026-08-15 14:00 - 15:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Note: This Deep Dive is sold out. If you would like to join the waiting list, please email conference@hippocampusmagazine.com. Or peruse our other amazing Deep Dive options!
Deep Dives are intensive/generative 90-minute workshops, with two options to choose from each day during HippoCamp Weekend; these are NOT included in the main ticket package and require separate registration. Registration is limited to 25 attendees; we suggest signing up early. This format is intentionally designed to be live; it will not be recorded.

About the Session
The heartbeat of a memoir is a mind at work trying to make sense of what we’ve experienced and why it matters now. As memoirists our job isn’t merely to report the circumstances we endured but create gripping narratives that keep readers invested and turning the page. In this session we’ll work with tools and generative prompts to help you write scenes that amplify the stakes, tension, and resonance in your memoir.
This session will help memoirists:

craft a map of key events that belong in their memoir
deepen the emotional and psychological dynamics in their pages
write scenes that create propulsive narrative arcs
experiment with potential structures for their project

About the speaker:
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Pushcart Prize nominations.
Her first book is the memoir When She Comes Back, her second the story collection Home is a Made-Up Place. She’s CNF editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir widely, and hosts the podcast and Substack Let’s Talk Memoir featuring interviews with memoirists about their creative process and writing life. Find her across social media at: @RonitPlank.

TICKET INFO
You may register for this event a la carte, independent of the full HippoCamp Online Weekend. (But if you would like to attend other sessions or the entire event, you can learn more here.)
This session is limited to 20 attendees for optimal engagement with speaker and each other; we suggest signing up as early as possible to secure your seat. Note: Deep Dives are using the Zoom meeting format where all attendees will be on screen.

A Night of Nonfiction 2026: Debut CNF Author Readings & Discussions
2026-08-15 18:00 - 20:00 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Registration includes access to the recording for 30 days.
This is the online version of our ever-popular in-person event, which was first held in the summer of 2015 at our inaugural HippoCamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction!
This event will feature readings from a group of debut CNF authors, followed by a special guest reading and then a panel discussion and audience Q&A. Learn more about (or purchase!) their books at our Bookshop affiliate site (coming soon).
This is ONE OF FOUR main events we’re hosting the weekend of the 15-16th! Read about all of them here.

The 2026 Night of Nonfiction will feature:
[Additional authors and moderator to be confirmed soon]
Gaar Adams
Gaar Adams is the author of Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction in 2026. The book was also longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize as well as runner-up for a Forward INDIES Book of the Year and the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award.
His reporting from the Middle East and South Asia has been featured in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera and elsewhere. He received his Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Glasgow, teaches creative writing at Falmouth University, and lives in London, UK.

Courtney Kocak
Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian who splits time between Austin and Los Angeles. She wrote for Amazon’s Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs and Netflix’s Know It All. She’s produced a slew of highly-ranked podcasts and currently hosts three of her own with over two million downloads to date. Her bylines include The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, Business Insider, and more. Her debut memoir, Girl Gone Wild, with Trio House Press, is out now! For more, check out her website at courtneykocak.com.

Amanda McCracken
Amanda McCracken is the author of When Longing Becomes Your Lover. She is an award-winning journalist passionate about experiences that highlight the intersection of wellness, travel, and relationships. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Vogue, National Geographic, Runner’s World, and many others.
Amanda published her first article about longing in 2013, which led to additional articles featuring personal anecdotes and deep research and interviews with the BBC, Katie Couric, and USA Today. Her 2023 TED Talk, “How Longing Keeps Us From Healthy Relationships,” and her podcast, The Longing Lab, highlight how longing can become self sabotaging and shares how to change our patterns of longing. To learn more, visit her website: www.amandajmccracken.com.

Shanda McManus
Shanda McManus, MD, is a physician and writer whose work lives at the intersection of medicine, memory, and the stories we carry in our bodies. A 2021 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and 2023 Baldwin For The Arts Fellow, her debut memoir, Brother Epistles: A Sister’s Memoir (Split/Lip Press; June 2026), is a series of letters to her late brother Monir. A book about grief, Black family love, and the structures that took him. Jacqueline Woodson writes that it will “grab your heart, hold it gently, then hand it lovingly back to you.”

FEATURED GUEST READER: Brenda Miller
Brenda Miller’s most recent book is Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems (Skinner House Books, 2026). She is the author of six essay collections, including A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form. She co-wrote, with Suzanne Paola, the popular textbook Tell it Slant, and her work has received seven Pushcart Prizes.
(Brenda is also leading a Deep Dive session on Saturday afternoon called Postmarked: Modern Takes on the Ancient Art of Letters.)

MODERATOR: Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast
Brendan O’Meara is the host of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast and the author of The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine. Subscribe to Pitch Club, where writers audio annotate their pitches that led to publication and Rage Against the Algorithm, Brendan’s monthly, up-to-11 newsletter. You can follow him @creativenonfictionpodcast on Instagram and @brendanomeara.bsky.social on Bluesky. Learn more at brendanomeara.com.

TICKET OPTIONS
You may reserve a ticket for just this event by making a donation of any size (including a free ticket) OR you may register for the entire weekend, here ($75).

HippoCamp Minis: Publishing, Promotion & the Writing Life - 5 CNF Topics in a Flash (2026)
2026-08-16 11:00 - 12:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Registration includes access to the recording for 30 days.
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:
The Personal Essay Is Not Dead: How to Get Yours Noticed by Editors in a Relentless News Cycle (Lauren DePino)
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.

If You Build It, They Will Come: Creating and Producing Fabulous Live Literary Events You Want to See in the World! (Amy Eaton)
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.

How to Find Your Readers On Substack (Liz Charlotte Grant)

Everybody has a Substack now, but how many of us know how to leverage our email newsletter to find and retain readers? Liz Charlotte Grant is a CNF author whose Substack, The Empathy List, has has also grown from 300 subscribers to nearly 2,000 — all without a hint of AI or marketing cash!

In this session, you’ll learn the value of:

collaboration with other substackers,
the Substack “recommendations” feature,
commenting on others’ posts and writing “notes,”
and predictability of content, brand, and publishing schedule.

About the speaker: Liz Charlotte Grant’s Substack, the Empathy List, has been nominated twice for a Webby Award for best independent newsletter. Her debut CNF book, Knock at the Sky, was Foreword Indies finalist, and she writes a monthly online column for the progressive Christian magazine, The Christian Century.

Finding + Keeping Your Creative Spark: The Artist Date (Renée Reese)
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.

OPEN THE DOOR! Demystifying the Nonfiction Book Proposal and Query Letter (Carolyn Roy-Bornstein)
Maybe you have a killer idea for a sure-to-be-successful nonfiction book. Perhaps you’ve even got a couple of chapters drafted. You might even after a polished, edited manuscript and are wondering about next steps. You’re in the right place! After this 10-minute round-up, you will be able to:

Articulate the purpose and importance of each section of a successful nonfiction book proposal and compellingly answer the questions: why you, why this book, and why now.
Explain precisely who your primary, secondary, and tertiary audience is (hint: it’s not everyone in the world!) and demonstrate how you will reach them.
Define your author platform. (Let me prove to you that you already have one and that it’s bigger than you think you think it is!)
Write a dynamic, winning query letter that gets your proposal requested by agents and editors.

So, pull on your best pair of boots and get ready to kick down some doors!
About the Speaker: Carolyn Roy-Bornstein is the Writer-in-Residence at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program in Lawrence, Massachusetts where she teaches narrative medicine. She is the author of two memoirs and an essay collection. Her fourth book, A Prescription for Burnout: Restorative Writing for Healthcare Professionals was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in April. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Poets & Writers, The Writer and many other venues. She has led writing workshops for the American Medical Women’s Association, the Women in Medicine Summit, and the Well-Med conference on physician well-being in Kastoria Greece.

TICKET OPTIONS
You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($30) below, or register for the entire weekend, here ($75).

(Sold Out!) Deep Dive: Making a Newsletter Work for You (Allison K Williams)
2026-08-16 14:00 - 15:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Note: This Deep Dive is sold out. If you would like to join the waiting list, please email conference@hippocampusmagazine.com. Or peruse our other amazing Deep Dive options!
Deep Dives are intensive/generative 90-minute workshops, with two options to choose from each day during HippoCamp Weekend; these are NOT included in the main ticket package and require separate registration. Registration is limited to 20 attendees; we suggest signing up early. This format is intentionally designed to be live; it will not be recorded.

About the Session
Writers need direct contact with their audience more than ever before. But how can a newsletter be part of your creative life instead of a drag on your time? Learn how writing a newsletter feeds your creative process, develops your craft, and creates literary community — no matter how many people are on your list.
(Note: We will not dive into specific newsletter platforms on a technical level, this is about mindset, writing, and big-picture best practices).
This session will cover:

How regularity feeds your writing as well as building audience
What to do when no-one is listening
Newsletters are flash essays—key craft techniques that make people open the email
Repurposing your stories across platforms
How to teach yourself that your newsletter isn’t pushy, selfish, or sales-y.

Allison will also look at samples of your newsletters (submitted in advance) and live-edit to make them both better newsletters and your best writing.
About the speaker:
Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She has helped 30+ authors find their agents, and edited and coached writers to publishing deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, and St. Martin’s Press as well as literary and university presses.
She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks.
As social media editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life. Her Substack, Adventures in Writing, and Newsletter, The A-List, total 17,000+ subscribers.

TICKET INFO
You may register for this event a la carte, independent of the full HippoCamp Online Weekend. (But if you would like to attend other sessions or the entire event, you can learn more here.)
This session is limited to 20 attendees for optimal engagement with speaker and each other; we suggest signing up as early as possible to secure your seat. Note: Deep Dives are using the Zoom meeting format where all attendees will be on screen.

(Sold Out!) Deep Dive: Mining Your Obsessions: Writing (Nearly) Endless Essays On One Subject (Elizabeth Austin)
2026-08-16 14:00 - 15:30 | https://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/event/deep-dive-mining-your-obsessions-elizabeth-austin/
Note: This Deep Dive is sold out. If you would like to join the waiting list, please email conference@hippocampusmagazine.com. Or peruse our other amazing Deep Dive options!
Deep Dives are intensive/generative 90-minute workshops, with two options to choose from each day during HippoCamp Weekend; these are NOT included in the main ticket package and require separate registration. Registration is limited to 20 attendees; we suggest signing up early. This format is intentionally designed to be live; it will not be recorded.

About the Session
We all have obsessions: the subjects, relationships, and questions we can’t stop writing toward, whether we mean to or not. In this generative workshop, we’ll treat these topics as a renewable resource. Through a structured exploration, you’ll dig into the patterns hiding in your existing work — recurring images, emotional landscapes — and turn them into a visual thematic map you can mine for years.
In this session, writers will:

excavate patterns, working to surface recurring images, tensions, and questions.
build personal thematic maps, placing a core focus at the center with 3–5 satellite themes radiating out, then spotting the intersections where unexpected new essays are born.
generate at least five fresh essay ideas using six concrete strategies, plus tactics for matching themes to submission calls
study how the pros do it, looking at writers who’ve mined the same territory for decades across forms and genres

Open to writers at all levels, whether you’re assembling an essay collection, hunting for the through line in a memoir, or simply tired of feeling like you write “the same things.” No pre-class reading required.
About the speaker:

Elizabeth Austin’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Literature, Narratively, McSweeney’s, and others. She has been awarded residencies including Sewanee, Hedgebrook, and Turning Points. She holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts, writes a newsletter on her writing and post-cancer family life, and lives outside of Philly with her two kids and many pets.

TICKET INFO
You may register for this event a la carte, independent of the full HippoCamp Online Weekend. (But if you would like to attend other sessions or the entire event, you can learn more here.)
This session is limited to 20 attendees for optimal engagement with speaker and each other; we suggest signing up as early as possible to secure your seat. Note: Deep Dives are using the Zoom meeting format where all attendees will be on screen.

Book Champions: Meet the Agents and Publicists -- A Publishing & Publicity Roundtable
2026-08-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Registered attendees will get access to event recordings for 30 days.
Join us for an evening of all things CNF publishing and publicity. This year, we’re putting a new spin on what we typically called An Evening with the Editors. We’re still focusing on book champions, but we’re centering the conversation on what literary agents are looking for — and how to get your book noticed with the help of an in-house or independent publicist.
Hippocampus Magazine associate editor Rae Pagliarulo will moderate a discussion with a group of publicists, literary agents, and other publishing professionals. You will:

get a behind-the-scenes look at the book submissions process
find out what they’re looking for their respective lists and agencies
diver into the writer-agent and writer-publicist relationship
explore a timeline for book publicity
learn the various moving parts of a book marketing/publicity campaign
….and so much more

There will be plenty of time for audience questions at the end.
This is ONE OF FOUR main events we’re hosting the weekend of the 15-16th! Read about all of them here.

Meet Our Panelists
Michelle Blankenship
Michelle Blankenship spent 16 years as an in-house publicist working at John Wiley & Sons, Picador USA, Harcourt Trade Publishers, and Bloomsbury Publishing specializing in literary fiction, poetry, and a variety of nonfiction topics. During her time as an in-house publicist, she served as director of publicity for Harcourt and as an associate director of publicity at Bloomsbury. She has worked with Jesmyn Ward, Eimear McBride, Barney Frank, Martha S. Jones, Senator Sherrod Brown, Ana Castillo, James Forman Jr., Drew Gilpin Faust, and Mitchell S. Jackson, among others. Blankenship has also been on the board of the Publishers Publicity Association (PPA) since 2007, and she currently serves as the PPA president.

Ashley Lopez
Ashley Lopez is a literary agent at Massie McQuilkin & Altman Literary Agents with over a decade of publishing experience. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and represents both adult fiction and nonfiction as well as select Young Adult and poetry titles.

Cassie Mannes Murray
Cassie Mannes Murray believes in cold emails and cold pizza. She is the founder and director of Pine State Publicity, a publicity firm for independent and small press books. You can always find what she’s up to in the Pine State newsletter. Her mom calls it “weirdly rambling.” Before launching Pine State she was a literary agent, earned her MFA in creative nonfiction, designed book interiors, edited for literary mags, taught high school, and once even worked as a laundromat drive-thru gal. When she isn’t talking books, she’s a mom to three kids, married to the guy she met on Myspace in high school, and living under some big oaks in North Carolina.

Isabella Nugent
Isabella Nugent (she/her) is a senior publicist at Page One Media, where she manages publicity campaigns for authors and experts across a wide range of subject areas, including history, philosophy, sociology, and more. Some of her recent campaigns include Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, McNamara at War by Philip Taubman and William Taubman, winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, and Making the Presidency by Lindsay Chervinsky.

Eric Smith
Eric Smith is an award-winning Young Adult author and literary agent living in Philadelphia. He’s worked with New York Times and USA Today bestselling and critically acclaimed authors across genres and categories, and is the founder of Neighborhood Literary.

TICKET OPTIONS
You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($30) below, or register for the entire weekend, here ($75).

Language Arts: Creative Nonfiction 101/Memoirs & Moments - (Donna Talarico for Paper Kite Press)
2026-09-19 10:00 - 14:00
This is a non-Hippo event, but somewhere you can engage with a member of our editorial team. This is in person, so it’s ideal for those living near Lancaster, PA.
Language Arts, from Paper Kite Press, is designed as a day-long exploration of writing, reading, and creative community.
The featured writer for the month of September is Donna Talarico, who is bringing us a workshop in creative nonfiction. The workshop is followed by an evening reading (6-7:30 p.m.) that features Donna and the writers from her workshop. We will have a very limited open mic for community members who would like to share their work.
Location: Tenfold, 308 E King St #1, Lancaster, PA 17602, USA
Learn more about the event and register on the Language Arts event page.

HOW-TO TUESDAY: Unlock Your Creative Energy for 2027 with Janna Maron
2027-01-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Online (Zoom Webinar)
Write in alignment with your energy, not against it.
You don’t need more discipline. You don’t need another productivity system. You don’t need to force yourself to write like someone else.
You need a writing practice that fits your energetic design.
Hosted by Janna Maron, book coach & editor, Unlock Your Creative Energy is a workshop designed to help you understand how you are meant to create, focus, and move words onto the page. This is not about fixing yourself. It’s about remembering how you work—and letting your writing flow from there.
In this session you will:

Identify your Human Design energy type and understand how it influences your writing process.
Recognize why common productivity and writing advice may not work for you—and what to do instead.
Leave with practical strategies for creating a more sustainable, aligned vision & writing practice for the new year.

About the series: How-To Tuesdays are monthly talks on the craft of creative nonfiction, publishing, marketing and the writing life led by Hippocampus Magazine editors & contributors. Your registration helps fund our contributor payments and other costs associated with running our journal.
About the Speaker
Janna Marlies Maron is a book coach and editor with 20+ years of experience helping writers to complete their projects and produce the best work possible. Her experience includes time as a magazine editor, college professor, agency editorial director, and content director for a leading online business brand. She has worked on a number of book projects from self-published Amazon bestsellers to traditionally published New York Times bestsellers. Since starting her business, More to the Story, in 2020, nine of her clients have books published or forthcoming. She’s also the founding editor and publisher of Under the Gum Tree, a literary arts magazine publishing creative nonfiction and visual art.
