The Writing Excuses Retreat Goes Virtual!
For a number of reasons (most prominently “we don’t want to run you through two airports and then lock you on a cruise ship in the middle of a global pandemic”), we have canceled our cruise and are taking it online! This is really good news for a lot of you, because it is way easier to get to and waaaay cheaper. The details are as follows:
WXR goes virtual (aka WXR – NOT on a boat!)
Though we can’t promise round-the-clock snacks, fruity beverages, and frozen yogurt on the pool deck, we ARE going to bring you all the rest of the stuff you love best about WXR in virtual form: writing dates, Q&As, and LOTS of learning.
To do this, we’re partnering up with the Surrey International Writers’ Conference for SiWC at Home, which runs October 23-25, with master classes on the 21st and 22nd and extra WXR pre-conference events in the days leading up to the conference. Many of you are already familiar with SiWC, and know that it’s Mary Robinette’s favorite conference (including ones she organizes). And if you’ve been to WXR before, you know Kathy Chung, the SiWC conference coordinator. Everything going virtual this year gave us an awesome opportunity to join forces.
Here’s what that means to you: WXR will offer pre-conference Writing Excuses social events, writing dates and Q&As before SiWC. At SiWC, some WXR faculty will be offering master classes on the Wednesday and Thursday. Then Friday to Sunday, it’s full-on conference time: multiple workshops a day, social opportunities, keynotes, and social events, including with WXR faculty.
How do you attend? Register for SiWC. Your registration includes the full Friday-Sunday conference plus all the WXR social stuff, writing dates and more, and you can add on master classes when you register. SiWC registration opens this coming Wednesday, June 24, at noon Pacific time. In a typical year, SiWC sells out in hours, so don’t leave it too long to register. www.siwc.ca/registration
We’ll have more info on the WXR events as we get them all in place, but most of the SiWC programming is up on their site – www.siwc.ca – with more to come as we get details in the coming days of the master classes and workshops WXR will be adding.
What will it cost? SiWC is offering a sliding scale for registration (except master classes) this year to help people whose finances have been affected by Covid to be able to attend. Note that SiWC is not-for-profit, so please pay what you comfortably can. Full-priced registration for the conference, which includes 40+ workshops (10 you can attend in real time, and some that will be recorded and available to attendees for a couple of weeks following the conference), keynotes, and all the WXR and SiWC social events, is $279CDN (currently about $205USD). Master classes are $79CDN for conference attendees (about $58USD) except for one super-sized, 6-hour class with Mary Robinette that’s $119CDN (about $88USD).