26 Glorious Writing Conferences and Workshops in July 2024

This July there are more than two dozen writing conferences and workshops. Some conferences and workshops will be held online, but most will be held in person or use a hybrid format.

These writing events offer everything a writer might want: intensive workshops, pitch sessions with agents, to how to market yourself and your books, discussions - there is something for everyone.

For a full list of conferences held throughout the year see Writing Conferences. If you miss an application deadline, put it on your calendar for next year. Quite a few conferences offer scholarships, so apply early. Plan ahead!

Be sure to check out Highlights list of workshops. They offer many throughout the year. 

(Image: Wallowa Lake, Oregon: Robert Shea: Flickr)

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Young Writers Workshop. July 7 - 27, 2024: Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Restrictions: For students completing grades 9, 10, 11. Three 90-minute workshop sessions daily, including imaginative writing activities and discussion of readings. Weekly individual meetings with workshop instructor. Focus is on using various forms of creative writing to develop language and thinking skills. 

Hurston/Wright Summer Writers Week. July 8 - July 12, 2024: Rutgers. For more than 20 years, the Hurston/Wright Summer Writers Workshop has offered a safe space for Black writers in intensive workshop sessions and master classes. Workshops are led by award-winning writers who are influencing today’s literature. The program features critiques, craft talks, writing time and public readings. Hurston/Wright workshops serve emerging and experienced writers who are starting projects, developing projects or seeking to polish projects. More than a thousand writers have participated in workshops since the first session in 1996. See website for individual workshops.

Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers. July 8 - 14, 2024: Wallowa Lake, Oregon. Take a weeklong writing workshop in your favorite genre: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, or short story. Each workshop is limited to no more than 13 participants, giving you the opportunity to build connections with a world-class instructor and your fellow writers. Throughout the week, we’ll bring the best of Summer Fishtrap to you through craft talks, discussions, open mics, readings, and a special 35th Anniversary Celebration.

Community of Writers Workshop in Fiction. July 8 - 15, 2024: Olympic Valley, California. These workshops assist serious writers by exploring the art and craft as well as the business of writing. The week offers daily morning workshops, craft lectures, panel discussions on editing and publishing, staff readings, as well as brief individual conferences. The morning workshops are led by staff writer-teachers, editors, or agents. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/ Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscript, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in an individual conference. During the week, a portion of our workshops is devoted exclusively to nonfiction. Memoir, narrative nonfiction, and essays are invited. Literary criticism and scholarly work will not be considered. Nonfiction applicants can use the same general form for submission. Application deadline March 5. (Put this on your calendar for next year)

Summer Camp in Illustration: Intensive Artistic Inspiration. July 10 -13, 2024: Boyds Mills, PA. At the Highlights Foundation, “summer camp” is different than s’mores by the fire and hiking in the woods. (Though we do that, too.) Get away for four days at our Summer Camp in Illustration for inspiration, guidance, support, community, fun, creativity, and growth. Waitlisted.

Southampton Writers Conference. July 10 - 14, 2024: Long Island, NY. The conference features workshops in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and publishing, as well as readings, lectures, and a master class series. Creative writing workshops are the heart and soul of the summer experience, meeting four afternoons or mornings throughout the session. Enrollment is limited to 13 lucky writers who have applied with writing samples. Those accepted have the privilege of sharing their work in an intimate, rigorous and friendly setting. 

Midwest Writers Workshop. July 11 - 13, 2024: Muncie, Indiana. Craft and business sessions, agent pitches, manuscript evaluations. MWW includes quality instruction by a faculty of authors, agents, editors, and specialists. Will be held online and in person.

Cascade Three-day Critique Workshop. July 12 – 14, 2024: Bremerton, WA. "Our Three-Day Critique Workshop is an opportunity for you to submit the first 4000 words of your novel, short story, or whatever project you are working on, for critique in a group of up to 8 peers led by an industry professional. This is a great way to polish up those first pages and first chapter. Submissions are due six weeks before the event via our Discord Channel. Registrants will receive login information a few weeks before submissions are due. There will also be one-hour workshops and panel presentations on craft, querying, the publishing industry, and more. Optional casual gatherings provide opportunities to get to know other writers as well as authors, editors, and agents." Proof of vaccination required.

Summer Camp in Writing: Create and Dream! July 14 -18, 2024: Boyds Mills, PA. Our Summer Camp in Writing is a time to find the kind of encouragement for your stories that only a generous mentor can provide. To find inspiration and support. To be with a community that understands the long process of turning dreams into books for children. To work 1:1 and fine-tune your words and pitches while you have some fun. Waitlisted.

Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. July 14 - 20, 2024: Port Townsend, Washington. workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as craft lectures, readings, open mics, and time to write. "The Port Townsend Writers’ Conference has been since 1974 at the wild heart of the thriving Pacific Northwest literary scene. With a focus on community and rigorous attention to craft, the Conference offers morning workshops, afternoon workshops, residencies, guided freewrites, and a vibrant readings and lectures series presented by vital, contemporary writers." 

Sewanee Writers’ Conference. July 16 -  28, 2024: Sewanee, TN. Faculty will give readings and provide instruction and criticism through workshops and craft lectures, as well as meet individually with participants to discuss their manuscripts. The Conference will offer five fiction workshops, four poetry workshops, and a playwriting workshop supported by two professional actors. In addition, a substantial number of literary agents will attend.

Writercon Retreat. July 17 - 21, 2024: Wagoner, OK. Join us for a five-day, small-group writing retreat at the 300-acre Canebrake Resort in Wagoner, OK, on Ft. Gibson lake. Our retreat group will have the resort to ourselves with paths to hike, a pool to enjoy, bikes to ride and much more! 

Saskatchewan Festival of Words. July 18 - 21, 2024: Moose Jaw, Canada. Workshops for all ages, reading sessions, concerts, film, panel discussions, interviews, music, theatre, a slam poetry competition as well as workshops and author readings.

Writing Heights Writers Conference. July 19 - 20, 2024: Fort Collins, CO. Workshops, seminars, speakers, entertainment, agent roundtables, pitch sessions, networking with authors and industry professionals. Will be held online and in person.

Northwestern University Summer Writers’ Conference. July 19 - 20, 2024: Chicago, Illinois. The conference is hosted by the Northwestern University School of Professional Studies MA in Writing and MFA in Prose and Poetry programs. Will be held online.

Imaginarium. July 19 - 21, 2024: Louisville KY. A three day annual event held in Louisville, Kentucky centered entirely around creative writing, including the worlds of books, movies, gaming, music, and comics/graphic novels. Imaginarium Convention features extensive programming content, with panels and workshops presented by over 150 professional guests covering everything from the craft of writing to various genres, industry-specific topics, publishing, and social media/publicity. The convention features a film festival with a full array of awards, a masquerade/costume contest, live music, gaming, an expo open to the general public, an awards banquet, a series of literary awards called the Imadjinns, and many more activities, creating a welcoming, inclusive atmosphere that is content-rich and ideal for networking, promotion and personal development. 

Mystery Writers Conference.  July 19 - 21, 2023: Corte Madera, CA. In this conference, mystery writers learn the clues to a successful writing career. Editors, agents, and publishers tell participants what they need to know to get published. Authors offer classes on setting, dialogue, suspense, point of view, and openings. They tell how to write about private eyes, amateur sleuths, and police protagonists, and how to create thrillers and historical mysteries. Panels of detectives, forensic experts, police, and other crime-fighting professionals provide information that allows crime fiction writers to put realism in their work. 

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer Writing Retreat. July 19 - 27, 2024: Budapest & Prague. The retreat offers participating writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors and editors. Participating writers will hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects. Tuition is $3,875, which includes lodging in central Paris, creative writing workshops and writing seminars with our supportive and award-winning faculty8of writers and editors, and daily breakfast. Register by June 1, 2024. (Put this on your calendar for next year)

Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. July 21 - 26, 2024: Napa, California. While conference lectures and readings are open to the public, the heart of the experience — the daily workshop, with the opportunity to give and receive feedback on work in progress — is available only to participants. It’s through this intense process that new and established writers interact most meaningfully and forge the bonds that give the conference community life beyond the annual conference week.

North Carolina Writers' Network Squire Summer Writing Workshops. July 25 - 23, 2024: Greenville, North Carolina. The 2024 Squire Summer Writing Workshops (SW24) are three intensive workshops with accomplished instructors, a chance to share your work with other dedicated writers, and a unique opportunity to bond with writers from across the state and beyond.

Taylor's Professional Writers Conference. July 26 - 27, 2024: Upland, Indiana. Sponsored by Taylor University's nationally recognized Professional Writing major, this conference stresses tools and tips for getting your writing into print. You'll learn from professional writers and network with agents and editors who can take you to the next level in your writing.

Confluence-SFF. July 26 - 28, 2024: Coraopolis, PA. Located at the birthplace of the Ohio River, Confluence is Pittsburgh’s longest-running literary conference with a strong focus on science fiction, fantasy and horror. Award-winning authors, editors, artists and song-writers gather for three full days.

The Creativity Workshop in New York. July 26 - 29, 2024: New York, New York. "The Creativity Workshops take away the fear of writing and open the way to new ideas. They are especially helpful for writers in fiction, poetry, memoir, theatre and film to get over writing blocks. In our Creativity Workshop Retreats you will generate both new work and ideas for the work you are in the midst of creating. We use many different techniques to help you find your way through the novel, essay, poem, memoir, or script you are writing or hope to write. In The Creativity Workshop you will be doing free writing, writing from guided visualizations, collaborative writing, journaling and memoir work and even some rudimentary drawing, collage and photography."

Willamette Writers Conference. July 31 - August 1, 2024: Portland, Oregon. Three full days of classes, workshops, keynotes, critiques, and events. There are also Master Classes with industry professionals in which you can learn from top instructors in a small group setting and many options for one on one critique, including On the Spot Critiques and Advance Manuscript Critique. As always, they will have a roster of agents, editors and film executives ready to hear about your project. Hybrid format.

Romance Writers of America. July 31 - August 3, 2024: Austin, TX. At the RWA Annual Conference, you’ll experience three days filled with education, career enhancement, and networking with your peers and industry professionals.

Whole Novel Workshop: An In-Person Retreat for Novelists (October). Apply by July 31. October 17 - 22, 2024: Boyds Mills, PA. This intensive, transformative Whole Novel Workshop offers writers the rare opportunity to have the entire draft (up to 80,000 words) of a novel read by faculty, with detailed written feedback and two private consultations provided. Attention in an intimate setting makes this program one that guarantees significant progress in preparation for submission.