2017 Santa Barbara Writers Conference June 18-23

We are proud of our many successful alumni — like Fannie Flagg, Dr. Spencer Johnson, Gayle Lynds, Monte Schulz, Gillian Roberts, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Jean Harfenist, Karin Finell and Christopher Moore, to name just a few.

Here’s how the conference works. We offer more than 20 different instructional workshops each day on:

• fiction (all genres)
• nonfiction (biography, memoir and travel writing)
• screenwriting
• playwriting
• poetry
• young adult
• marketing

You can wander from one to another to sample them all, or you can settle down in a couple of particular workshops each day. We encourage (but never require) writers to bring their current work to read aloud in the workshops, where they will get feedback from workshop leaders and class participants.

In the late afternoons we hold a special event — either a speaker or a panel, and every evening we have a major author speaker. We have an Agent/Editor Day in which you can schedule yourself for one-on-one meetings with the agent or editor of your choice to discuss your work and pitch your idea, screenplay, short story, novel. This program is optional and registration for Agent/Editor Day will open in early March.

After the last speaker of the evening, we keep going! We offer “pirate” workshops for those stalwart souls who want to get some really in-depth critiquing. They start at 9 p.m. and have been known to go into the wee hours.