HippoCamp 2021 was a resounding success. Sure, we smiled behind masks and elbow-bumped instead of hugged, but this summer conference for creative nonfiction writers made a strong comeback with more than 150 attendees from 30+ states and four countries.
On this page, we provide a quick overview of some recaps and resources, as well as brief information about HippoCamp 2022.
Thank you to all of our speakers, volunteers, magazine staff members, and attendees!
Session Recaps
Session Slides & Handouts
The following sessions have slide decks and/or handouts available (downloads available on session pages linked here):
- Aurora Bonner - Kill Your Darlings, Marie Kondo & Other Revision Strategies
- Damon Brown - Using Journalism Skills to Master Your Manuscript
- Kathleen English Cadmus - Let's Talk About It: Writing About Mental Illness With Accuracy & Empathy
- Kelly Caldwell - If I Want Your Opinion, I'll Pay For it: Expressing Yourself Through Op-Eds
- Mathina Calliope - (workshop) Scene-Building Craft Intensive
- Karen Carnabucci - Break the Blocks, Find the Brilliance & Get Back to Writing
- Angie Chatman - How to Write What You Don't Know
- Jamie Beth Cohen - Be a Literary Citizen: How to Create Community and Why it Matters
- Lilly Dancyger - Three Ways to Use Research in Personal Narratives
- Athena Dixon - Write, Work, Live: Balancing a Day Job, Writing & Trying to Do What You Love
- Lisa Cooper Ellison - Creating a Birds-Eye View of Your Book: The Chapter Summary Project
- Stephanie Feuer - Using Your Fifth Sense for Scent-Sational Writing
- Amy Fish/Lara Lillibridge - Powering Through the Post-Publication Doldrums
- Lisa Kohn - It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint: How to Keep Your Book Going After the First Year
- Lara Lillibridge - Should I Self-Publish? If So, How?
- Vicki Mayk - Beyond Touchdowns, Homeruns & Heroes: Writing About Sports and Athletes
- Kate Meadows - Creative Mapping: A Tool to Help You Build a Solid First Draft
- Margaret Montet - (workshop) Speaking for Writers
- Jeannine Ouellette - Unleashing Your Hardest Truths & Most Striking Images Through Constraints, Juxtaposition & Play
- Kristen Paulson-Nguyen - Title, Found: How Memoirists Did it And You Can, Too (aka 10 Prescriptions for a Kick-A** Memoir Title)
- Dorothy Rice - If Memoir Is a Slice of Life, How Many Pieces Do You Get?
- John Teske - The Science of Memory in First-Person Storytelling
Recap Blog Posts
Thanks to our attendees for covering HippoCamp 2021 via these guest blog posts (view all posts here):
- Don't Get Lost: A Hippocamp 21 Recap (Leah Lederman on Brendan O'Meara's session)
- Embrace “Failare”: A HippoCamp 21 Recap (Leah Lederman on Amy Eaton's session)
- Meeting my block and No, I didn't steal a projector screen: A HippoCamp 21 Recap (Molly Bilinski on Karen Carnabucci's session)
- Matching Memories and Research Makes a Memoir of Depth – A HippoCamp 21 Recap (Karen Carnabucci or Lilly Dancyger's session)
- But is my story true? – A Recap of John Teske’s HippoCamp 21 Session (Carole Duff)
- The Golden Circle for Writers: Why, What, and How: A Recap of Leanne Sowul’s Presentation at HippoCamp 2021 (Viannah E. Duncan)
- Work/Writing/Life Balance: A Recap of Athena Dixon’s Presentation at HippoCamp 2021 (Viannah E. Duncan)
Attendee & Speaker Content - Blog Posts, Podcasts & More
- Brendan O’Meara of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast not only blogged about his session, he turned it into a CNF Pod episode.
- “My Creative Leap into HippoCamp” by Elisa Heisman
The Backchannel: Social Media Mentions & Convos
- The #HippoCamp21 Twitter feed - link goes to a live search for the hashtag
- (and there was also some hashtag action using #HippoCamp2021)
- The #HippoCamp21 Instagram feed
Get HippoCamp Merch: Shirts Still Available
We partnered with Threadless Artist Shops to offer a range of styles, fabrics, and colors of HippoCamp apparel, including tees and tanks. These shirts aren't dated, but instead are evergreen with the year we were founded – and they're print-on-demand, made JUST for you.
Looking Ahead: HippoCamp 2022 Information
Save the dates: Aug. 12-14, 2022; our call for session proposals opens Oct. 1, 2022. The conference website will go live in early 2022. (The Conference page of the main Hippocampus Magazine website will house links to the most up-to-date conference details.)