Writing Conferences and Retreats
Click here for an extensive list of writing conferences and retreats around the state and the country.
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Life in Small Bites: Memoir for Busy People
A Short Form Memoir Workshop with Susan Bono at ArtStays
Session II: September 16-20
For over 100 years, Emandal Farming Resort has offered summer getaways in a pristine setting on the Eel River near Willitts. At its annual ArtStays creativity camps for adults, skilled instructors offer classes in basketmaking, glass mosaic, quilting, writing, birding, and more. ArtStays campers enjoy outstanding, farm-grown, organic meals, private cabins or farmhouse rooms, comfortable beds, hiking trails, perfect swimming holes, warm days and starry nights, and best of all, time and encouragement to create.
The theme for Susan Bono’s Short Form Memoir workshop September 16-20 is “Day and Night.” In this workshop we’ll explore how time of day—and the particular light it casts—shapes memory and meaning. Learn how attending to the way light falls can enrich your scenes and reveal what has been previously hiding in broad daylight, deepest night, and every hour between.
Long-time editor, writing teacher, and workshop leader Susan Bono is the author of What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home. She edited and published Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative from 1995-2015. She’s taught at ArtStays since its inception in 2014.
For ArtStays info and registration: Emandal ArtStays. For questions about the class, contact Susan: sbono@tiny-lights.com
Want to be fed while you work on your own? A limited number of writers and artists with independent projects can attend this session at a reduced rate. Contact director Tam Adams through the Emandal website.
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Sonoma County Writers Conference
October 17, 2026, 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Presented by Redwood Writers Club
Finley Community Center, Santa Rosa
A full day of craft, publishing, and marketing sessions, plus a keynote from award-winning indie poet, historical novelist, and forensic historian Gini Grossenbacher.
Workshops/Panel:
- Jill Lublin — How to Use Publicity to Boost Leads, Visibility and Profits: For Authors
- Sarah Paris — U2 Can Haiku!
- Mary Alice Stephens — Radical Honesty: How to Share Hard Truths in Your Memoir
- Chris Fox — Craft Blurbs that Sell Books
- Albert Flynn DeSilver — The Art of Memoir: From First Sentence to Finished Book
- Natalie Gould — From the Page to the Stage: Finding Your Speaker’s Voice
- Kristen Tate — What’s In a Scene? A Sentence-by-Sentence Look at How Bestselling Authors Build Scenes
- Susan Bono — Writing Courageous Personal Essays: Telling the Truth with Craft, Care, and Emotional Power
- Lisa Manterfield & Shirin Leos (panel) — Your Path Through Today’s Publishing Labyrinth
- Matthew Felix — Beyond Craft: Navigating a Writer’s Personal Realities
Registration fees for the conference range from early bird, by 9/15, $125 (members) / $150 (nonmembers) to $150/$175.
Details and registration: redwoodwriters.org/sonoma-county-writers-conference
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Better Books: A Craft-Based Workshop for Middle Grade & Young Adult Writers
October 24–27, 2026
Better Books Marin has a few spots remaining for its October 24–27, 2026 workshop at the Vallombrosa Center, Menlo Park. So many middle grade and young adult writers credit the workshop for helping them improve their craft, expand their community, find their critique mates, polish their manuscripts, and/or meet their agent or editor.
Limited to fewer than 25 seasoned writers, Better Books is designed to provide deep immersion in craft, discussion, and high-level critique. You need not be published, but we ask that you’ve completed at least one middle-grade or YA manuscript. Workshop fee includes food, lodging, informative sessions, and a written and oral critique of 25 pages. Faculty this year: Gary D. Schmidt, Newbery and Prince Honor; Irene Vázquez, Editor at Levine Querido; Sheyla Knigge, agent with High Line Literary Collective; and Hannah Teachout, literary assistant at Folio Literary Management.
Details and application instructions can be found at betterbooksmarin.com. One scholarship for underrepresented voices is still available. Any questions, you can reach out to Darcey at darceyr@comcast.com.
