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| Me, Mark Wiederanders and Antoinette May |
For the last few years, I've attended the Gold Rush Writers Conference. Registration is now
open for this year, and I want to let people know about what a laid-back,
welcoming conference this is. Often, conferences can feel competitive or
there's a sense of panic about those agent pitch sessions...this conference
doesn't include agents, so that stressor is completely off the table. Gold Rush
is a weekend of hanging out with sweet people who love to write and want to be
with other writers. Period. I don't know how author Antoinette May has managed
to create a veritable ambiance of kindness—but she has.
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| Exterior of the Hotel Leger, showing entrance to its saloon |
Last
year, I presented on poetry, including doing an "Exquisite Corpse"
group-writing exercise and looking at Isabella Gardner's "Summers
Ago" and did a separate presentation on historical fiction, I think. I
just glanced back at my website events page to double-check,
and all the events since 2011 have been deleted somehow. Sighhhhh. This year,
I'm going to be talking about social media. The headliners this year are James
Ragan and Donna Levin. Last year I was the brunch headliner and Mark Wiederanders was the after-dinner speaker.
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| One of the sessions in the ballroom |
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For
each timeslot during the weekend, there are four or five options—and as is
often the case, I want to attend more than one. For instance, here's Sunday
morning's lineup:
The conference is for screenwriters, poets and novelists. I've also run into memoirists and
creative nonfiction writers at this conference before.
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| Mark's speech |
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| My speech |
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| My speech: this basically shows how small and intimate the conference is |
After
11 years of hosting the conference, Antoinette May has found success in linking
people together. The Friday night picnic, hosted around her beautiful grotto
pool in a Victorian garden, is always a wonderful evening of people
reconnecting and greeting new attendees.
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| My bedroom at the Hotel Leger |
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| The second story balcony overlooking the main street in Mokelumne Hill |
The
conference takes place in the Hotel Leger, dating to 1879 (but on the site of
an 1851 hotel). The hotel itself is worth the drive to Mokelumne Hill: each
bedroom has its own charming Victorian furnishings, and due to its vintage,
some rooms have bathrooms while others require you to go down the hall. But
that's okay! Everyone's nice and it gives you a taste of what it would've been
like a hundred years ago when Mok Hill was a Gold Rush boomtown. The hotel has a wonderful restaurant onsite, the
Whitewater Grill, which caters the conference. There's also an authentic old
saloon with the long wooden bar and I once had a basil martini here that blew
my mind. If all that isn't fantastic enough: the place is reputed to be
haunted. Just ask Antoinette: she spent the night here alone once.
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| Okay, yes, we stayed in Room #13. You get chills just looking at this, I know |
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I had youngsters in my room with me, nervous about the talk of ghosts. We put a strip
of toilet paper at the door to stop ghosts in their tracks. It worked! |
Hope
to see you next month! Feel free to email me if you have questions about the
conference or tweet me @ErikaMailman.
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| Silliness in the saloon with, from left, Genevieve Beltran, Kathy Boyd Fellure and me. |
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| We might've had a couple already |
Details:
The Gold Rush Writers Conference takes place this year May 5, 6, and 7 in Mokelumne Hill, a few hours easterly-southerly from Sacramento. The cost of $185 includes:
Price Includes:
- Your selection of four workshops out of sixteen. Several are
limited so register early (first-come, first-served).
- Informal supper in a Victorian garden Friday night
- Open mic poetry readings
- Sit-down dinner in an historic Gold Rush hotel with speaker Mark Wiederanders
- Sit-down pool-side brunch Sunday with speaker Erika Mailman
- Plus lectures, demonstrations
To learn more, visit the conference website at www.goldrushwriters.com.
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