I went to two conferences for the first time in July. One of them has been happening for years, the Confluence Sci-Fi and Fantasy Convention. The second just started this year, the Wildcat Lit Fest at the newly-renovated Wildcat Mansion in Franklin, PA.

I took part in workshops at both events, and between those and the panels I filled up a quarter of a notebook with awesome tips and ideas to improve my writing. Here are some of the highlights that especially resonated with me (and will hopefully be useful for other folks looking for writing tips!)

Submitting work to journals and presses can be frustrating for a variety of reasons, but for those of us who write longer fiction, just finding places willing to consider stories can be a challenge. Many journals max out at around the 5,000 mark for prose, while many presses aren’t interested in stand-alone manuscripts smaller than around 40,000 words. That leaves a pretty big gap where stories fall into a kind of publishing limbo.