My Adventures in St. Simon's Island ...

Presented at the Southeastern Writers Workshop in St. Simon's Island, GA, this week. It was fun. St. Simon's is one of four islands off the coast of Georgia and there is a fun mix down there of old Southern culture and wildlife with new touristy stuff to do. Man, it was HOT. Arrived to 102 degree weather. It got worse before we left.

This is the road to the retreat
where the conference was held.
Take note of all these insanely
big live oak trees, which are
protected on the island because
they're like 150 years old.

I ended up giving four speeches, which drained me by the end, but all went well. As usual, a nice group of writers and everyone seemed passionate about being there.

Check Out These Great Upcoming Writers Conferences:

• Feb. 11, 2017: Writers Conference of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN)
• Feb. 16–19, 2017: San Francisco Writers Conference (San Francisco, CA)
• Feb. 24, 2017: The Alabama Writers Conference (Birmingham, AL)
• Feb. 25, 2017: Atlanta Writing Workshop (Atlanta, GA)
• March 25, 2017: Michigan Writers Conference (Detroit, MI)
• March 25, 2017: Kansas City Writing Workshop (Kansas City, MO)
• April 8, 2017: Philadelphia Writing Workshop (Philadelphia, PA)
• April 22, 2017: Get Published in Kentucky Conference (Louisville, KY)
• April 22, 2017: New Orleans Writers Conference (New Orleans, LA)
• May 6, 2017: Seattle Writers Conference (Seattle, WA)
• May 19–21, 2017: PennWriters Conference (Pittsburgh, PA)
• June 24, 2017: The Writing Workshop of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• Aug. 18–20, 2017: Writer's Digest Conference (New York, NY)

My buddy Mollie Glick, an agent with Foundry Literary + Media, was the only agent in attendance and got plenty of pitches. She gave a sprawling 90-minute speech on dealing with agents and ended up sharing a lot of good advice. I will end up composing a post or two just to share her good tips. Look for those soon.

Meanwhile, if you're in the southeast and looking for a nice place to take the family while you attend a conference, check out this event in 2010.

I did get to the beach and that
was awesome. The water felt
like it was 80 degrees—almost
like sitting down in a lukewarm bath.
Very nice. I know—rough job.
Somebody's gotta do it.