The Sanibel Island Writers Conference is making its big return to the island for the first time since 2018.
The conference, taking place Nov. 5-7 at BIG ARTS on Sanibel Island, will feature workshops in a variety of writing genres, such as fiction, poetry, songwriting, storytelling, memoir, and creative nonfiction, along with discussion panels on publishing and editing.
“This year we’re back at full steam and we’re back on the island for the three days of the full immersive experience,” conference director Thomas DeMarchi said.
The conference was held at BIG ARTS on Sanibel Island from 2006 to 2018. FGCU hosted the conference when the event center underwent renovation in 2019. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ian kept the conference off the island for additional time.
“A lot of people who came to the conference for many many years are absolutely thrilled that we’re back,” DeMarchi said.
John Dufresne is one of 14 presenters at the conference. His workshop, “Flash! Writing the Very Short Story,” invites participants to read short stories and attempt to write their own. Outside of the conference, he is an author and professor in the MFA Creative Writing program at FIU.
Dufresne has been involved with the Sanibel Island Writers Conference from the beginning in 2006.
“We need conferences like this, and it heartens me that so many people are still interested in doing creative writing,” he said. “I’m excited to get back to the islet, it’s so beautiful.”
DeMarchi says the hope is that the writing workshops have participants leave the conference feeling more creative and inspired to write.
“I want them to walk away feeling more energized than when they showed up,” he added. “I want them to have a head full of ideas, and I want them to feel as if that they have something important to say and that they know a little bit better, if not a lot better, about how to say it on the page.”
For Terry Malik, the conference did just that. He was a participant at the 2014 conference, attending as a means to get himself out of the house with zero intention of writing a novel.
Unserious about writing, Malik signed up for a workshop, wanting to come up with “something that was in your face to the intellectually over-serious attendees.”
“I thought that I would insult them a little bit with writing something that was very edgy, in the vein of Stephen King,” Malik said.
The reaction he received from his five-paragraph manuscript sparked an unexpected career as a published author.
“First there was silence, and I thought, ‘no, they just don’t know what to make of this,’ and then the applause,” he shared. “I was really shocked … I was surprised, and I thought maybe I can really do this.”
Those five paragraphs became the prologue, word for word, to his award-winning debut novel, “The Bricklayer of Albany Park,” published in 2017.
“It’s the power of positive reinforcement,” Malik said. “If I had not gone to the conference, if they had not applauded -- I never would have written a book. As testimony to the conference, it was only the conference that took me down the path to start writing.”
In addition to daytime writing workshops, participants can enjoy discussions and performances from the conference’s featured guests in the evening.
New York Times bestselling author Tara Westover will speak Thursday night. In 2018, she published her memoir, “Educated,” where she writes about her struggle to reconcile her desire for education and autonomy with her desire to be loyal to her family.
On Friday, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Tift Merritt will perform at the venue. In addition, she is also teaching a songwriting workshop. Then on Saturday, physician and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Michael Greger will deliver the conference’s keynote address.
“To hear [stories like that of Malik] is incredibly gratifying,” DeMarchi said. “It just tells me that we are meeting a need and helping people out along their journey and their apprenticeship of becoming writers. It makes me want to keep just doing this as long as I can and keep the conference going so people can continue to publish the work that they want to get out there and have their voices heard.”
The conference is open to writers of all levels and genres. Paid registration is required for the daytime events, but the evening events are free and open to the public.
To learn more and register for the conference, visit here.
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