Year five. It’s hard to believe our annual conference is already celebrating its fifth gathering of creative nonfiction writers –at all stages of their journey — from around North America and beyond. This year we enjoyed more than 40 sessions from 50+ writers, including keynotes Nick Flynn and Jacki Lyden. Other highlights included our Story Slam and our hallmark event, A Night of Nonfiction: Readings & Debut Author Panel. This year, featured readers included Jamie Chesbro, Randon Billings Noble, Tyrese Coleman, Anika Fajardo, Suzanne Farrell Smith, and Teresa Wong
We’ve assembled some conference takeaways, tidbits, and conversations to share with attendees (and future attendees!). We’ll add to this page throughout September as more information rolls in.
Some presenters have made slides and/or handouts available; we’ve posted these to the session’s page. For easier reference, the following sessions have materials available:
Plus, view the Takeaways Slides here, download the “My One Thing” worksheet here; and, if you didn’t already, share a pic of your one thing with us using #hippocamp19!
Our Shared Google Album – you can add your own to this album, too!
Here’s a round-up of some blog posts/articles penned by attendees about their Hippocampus experience, about the adventure getting there, or about a golden nugget they found at the conference. (If you wrote one, please send the link to conference (at) hippocampusmagazine.com and we’ll add it to the list.)
Damon Brown (on Inc.) – “Feeling Stuck? Here’s How to Figure Out Your Next Best Move”
Damon Brown (on Inc.) – “Why You Need to Stop Being Afraid to Tell Your Story”
Elizabeth Cone – “HippoCamp 2019! (Rather Suddenly)”
Lisa Ellison – “HippoCamp Highlights: Advice on Craft, Form, and the Writing Life”
Anika Fajardo – “Camp for Writers”
Kristin Kelly – “HippoCamp 2019”
Kristin Kelly – “HippoCamp 2019: Resources”
Christy O’Callaghan – “The Cliche Writer”
Christy O’Callaghan – “HippoCamp Here I Come”
Gayle Pritchard – “With Loving Regard to My Hippocampus, Part 1” (note: it appears there’s no way to link directly to a post, so you might have to scroll through to see the Aug. 27 post.)
Gayle Pritchard – “With Loving Regard to My Hippocampus, Part 2”
Ronna Russell – “Party Train to HippoCamp” (about her journey to the conference!)
Mary Stone – “Living Green Roofs” in which she weaves her HippoCamp experience into a blog post related to her work in landscape design
Our friends from Lancaster Story Slam hosted/produced another amazing evening of stories. We followed the same format as a traditional story slam (10-12 tellers pulled at random to tell a five-minute story with no notes, props, or music), except we did silent judging (storytellers judged on content and presentation.)
Watch Our Storytellers
Our full conference website will go live in early 2020. You can get some quick details here.