Friday, September 12, 2014

Colorado Gold Conference 2014


Why was there no blog post last week? Because I was at the 2014 Colorado Gold Conference and didn’t pay the hotel for the use of the internet.

The Colorado Gold Conference is put on every year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This year, the conference was September 5th – 7th at The Westin in Westminster, Colorado. As always, the conference was amazing. The sessions were helpful, and the hotel was very nice.

Maybe I’ve been taking writing classes for too many years, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t find general craft sessions at conferences very interesting. I did go to sessions on dialogue, tension, and character development at Colorado Gold, but I liked some of the genre-specific sessions much better. This conference had genre-specific sessions about the Victorian era, science, the brain, witchcraft, sex, more sex, even more sex, violence, and more violence. It was awesome.  

Writing conferences are usually overwhelming for me. I’ve never been very good at taking notes, and I learn so much that everything jumbles up in my brain. This isn’t a bad thing. I remember what I learned when I need to remember it. But, it makes it a little difficult to write a review of the conference.

I learned one fact that clearly stands out in my mind: Murderers often bite their victims. It’s an animal instinct that takes over when people kill each other.

Out of all the sessions I attended, that fact is the only thing that I clearly remember. I learned it in a session called Dying to be Here: Techniques of Murder and Mayhem. The session was aimed at mystery, horror, and thriller authors. I have no idea when I’m going to use this information, but it sure is yucky.


If you go to a writing conference, try to attend some genre-specific sessions, even if you don’t write that genre. They’re pretty interesting. And, if you live near Colorado, check out the Colorado Gold Conference. It’s one of the better conferences that I’ve attended.    

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