Events Events Events
I was brought on by Jericho in early 2020 to take over from the wonderful Annie in organising the York Festival of Writing. My experience was in much smaller-scale events but I relished the opportunity to be involved with such a well-respected festival. Then, alas, Covid hit, and it became clear that a physical event was absolutely not an option. The Powers That Be decided to bring the festival online. Instead of three days at the beginning of September, we pulled the Festival forward, stretched it out and named it The Summer Festival of Writing.
We ran 75 events in total from June to early September, finishing with the final of Friday Night Live on the evening the festival in York would have started. It was a challenge but a pleasure, and the feedback and response has been utterly wonderful.
Then the Summer Festival ended and there was a webinar-shaped gap in all our lives. Taking into account that people may well have less time than they did when restrictions were tighter, be back at work and have square eyes from all the screen time, I put together a reduced three-month programme for our wonderful members, informed by the feedback from the Festival. If you’ve missed any so far, don’t worry, they’re available to watch on replay.
September:
14 – Ask Jericho Anything with Harry Bingham, Sarah Juckes, Holly Seddon and Anna Burtt
18 – Scriviner: Everything You Need To Know with Oliver Evensen
22 – Slushpile Live with Sam Copeland
26 – The Writer, The Plotter, The Editor and You Part 1 with Holly Dawson
29 – Writing for Children with Catherine Johnson
October:
5 – Social Media 101 with Katie Sadler
9 – Ask The Agent Anything with Mark Gottlieb and Amanda Annis from Trident Media, NYC
19 – In conversation with Alice Oseman (chaired by Sarah Juckes)
24 – The Writer, The Plotter, The Editor and You Part 2 with Holly Dawson
28 – Self-Editing – with Eels with Harry Bingham
November:
2 – Ask An Editor Anything with Tanya Byrne
10 – Writing Displacement with Elaine Chiew
14 – The Writer, The Plotter, The Editor and You Part 3 with Holly Dawson
17 – Show, Don’t Tell LIVE with Rebecca Horsfall
27 – In conversation with Ruth Ware (chaired by Harry Bingham)
December:
2 – Flash Fiction Workshop with Kevin Power
5 – Book Doctor Surgery with Debi Alper
9 – Slushpile Live with Laura Williams
12 – The Writer, The Plotter, The Editor and You Part 4 with Holly Dawson
14 – Pitch Perfect LIVE with Sarah Juckes, Anna Burtt and two top literary agents
I’ll be launching the full 2021 events programme in January, and am SO excited to share it with you all. In the meantime, you can download your events calendar for 2020 here: https://members.jerichowriters.com/content/webinars/
Happy writing!
Anna xxx
Thank you so much for all your hard work Anna!
Your hard work does not go unnoticed, thank you Anna! Stay blessed!❤
Looks great! Where do we find more information about pitch perfect. What is it for a start?
Your hard work and list of organised events is great, Anna, and as others have said, it does not go unappreciated!
One request for your consideration, though… The timings of live events/webinars is typically around 7pm UK time. This translates into some pretty extreme ‘graveyard shifts’ for any of your members located outside of the UK, though… do you have many? (For me, for example, I’m 7hrs ahead of you over here in Malaysia).
Is it possible, therefore, to vary the timings a bit: start some at 8am/9am in the morning, for example, or midday, or whatever, just to give a wider audience an opportunity to log in and take part? How much demand for that would you anticipate?
What does anyone else think?
Emma
Yes, yes and yes. Especially the Slushpile Live type of event. In NZ I get up at 5.30am, wait while everyone on the panel chats about nothing for ten minutes, and then they don’t read my extract. Or sometimes they do! By then it seems wrong to go back to bed. Just saying.