A terrific event for creative nonfiction writers
I’ll be speaking at HippoCamp 2022 in August. This is a conference for creative nonfiction writers held each year in Lancaster, in the rolling farmlands of southern Pennsylvania.
“[HippoCamp] offers plenty of opportunities for you to hone your craft, explore publishing options, and find ways to balance your writing and ‘real’ life, as well as chances to meet, learn from, and share with writers like you,” explains the conference website. “This three-day creative writing conference in PA features 40+ notable speakers, engaging sessions in four tracks, interactive panels, readings, social activities, networking opps, and optional, intimate pre-conference workshops.”
I’m presenting a breakout session, Building a Reputation Framework: Personal Brand Strategy for Writers. As I explain in the session description, “Writers are pressured to develop their online ‘platform’ with seemingly endless sources of advice, tips & tricks, and channel hacks. This is a tsunami of information and options, and can be overwhelming without a strategic framework to help make choices about where to put your time and energy. This session explains how to easily create that personal brand and content strategy so you can determine your objectives, the right digital marketing elements for you, and how to optimize your efforts so you have a platform that best serves your purpose.”
I thought this session would be a great way to bring the expertise from my day job (as a global marketing communication leader for the world’s biggest business services firm) and share it with other writers. Meanwhile, when I’m not speaking I’ll be wearing my writer cap and will be learning from the other presenters and attendees. I hope they can help me sort out some issues related to my nonfiction and memoir projects.
HippoCamp is presented by Hippocampus Magazine & Books. The magazine is an online publication (seven issues a year) devoted to creative nonfiction, featuring personal essays, reviews, interviews, memoir, and craft articles. They’ve also begun publishing single-author books.