Where to find in-person events?

[Devor]

What's the best way to find in-person writing events? That means author appearances, conventions, writing courses, retreats, critique groups, and whatever else.

I live just outside of NYC, where there should be things happening constantly, and I'm still having trouble with this. But I'm sure there are those of you living elsewhere who would benefit from discussing this question.

Is there a good resource for finding these events?

 

[skip.knox]

I just typed "new york city writing conference" and got hits.
Then I entered "new york city writing courses" and got more.
Then I entered "new york city ..." well, you get the idea.

In what way are you having difficulty? BTW, if you think that's tough, try entering "kuna idaho writing groups" and see what you get!

 

[Devor]

It's not my intention with this thread to outsource the googling but to strike up a conversation about whether there are reliable resources for finding events. For example, bookstores like Barnes and Noble sometimes host book signings - here's the B&N link for that.

 

[skip.knox]

Ah, reliability. I missed that. No, I don't know any way to judge reliability other than to try things blindly until one finds resources one trusts. Sort of like finding reviewers one trusts. So, for example, I could go to Writer's Digest and look at their events page. But of course they list only their own events. Or I could go to meetup.com which has thousands of events, but whose quality is going to be completely unpredictable.

You suffer from a glut of possibilities. I guess I'd start by looking at the schedule for some of the big writing conferences--maybe even write to them--specifically to see if they had lists of groups and events in and around NYC. For Idaho, that exercise will take me part of an afternoon. But even then, my own writer's group, which consists of five people, has no public presence at all, and it's the best for me because I know the other four--we broke off from a larger group sponsored by the Boise Public Library. Come to think of it, libraries could be another place to look.

 

[Chessie2]

I found one at my local church back in November. They are out there but it's a matter of asking around. The lady who turned me on to it is a technical writer...so ask people who you know are serious about writing in general would be my only suggestion!

 

[skip.knox]

There are also a variety of writing organizations. The one round these parts (restraining myself from saying these here parts) is the Idaho Writers Guild. Such organizations often know of local f2f writing groups.

 

[Russ]

Cons are pretty easy to chase down.

Where I live the bookstores that have signings regularly also have e-mail lists and news letters that will keep you in the loop. I could refer you to a couple of the better ones in NYC but they would not be for spec pic as I have not tracked those.

I also find events by going to author websites. There are two ways to approach this. When a new book is coming out they will often get sent on tour so you can see if they are coming near you. The other way is to know what authors you want to see live in cities close to you and keep an eye on their sites, as naturally, they tend to do a lot more events closer to home.