2016 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

In Celebration Of The 2016 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Owner: Monte Schulz

Conference Coordinator: Grace Rachow
Logistics Coordinator: Erin Munsch
"Write On!" Editor In Chief: Marianne Dougherty
Chief Of Operations: Jim Alexander
Marketing and Financial Coordinator: Margaux Hession
Ombudsman: Fred Klein
*And a whole team of devoted, long-time volunteers who help make this conference flow!

I've lost track of how many years I've been involved with the amazing Santa Barbara Writers Conference as both a writer and as a photographer....from my estimate it's been about 14-15 years now that I've dedicated a full week to immersing myself in the microverse that magically appears in the heart of Santa Barbara every June. It's a week that is packed with inspiration from fellow writers, publishing experts, literary agents, editors, publishers, and award-winning novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers. 

In short, it's a week to remind each of us that--as writers in what can be a very solitary pursuit--we are not alone and that we are stronger and become better when we surround ourselves with excellence and a community of our peers who are also striving for excellence. 

I have made lifelong friends from around the country through the conference, have found writing mentors who continue to inspire me, and built up a community of fellow writers with whom I can exchange inspiration and critiques throughout the year. 

Over the years my relationship with the conference has grown into becoming one of their main event photographers as well as running the Annual Talent Show with my co-host Margaux Hession and long-time friend and Mentor Matt Pallamary. The Talent Show continues to be a great way of just relaxing and celebrating a very long and exhausting week.


It's a month's worth of celebration, inspiration, interaction with mentors, fellow writers, editors, agents, and internationally renowned novelists and non-fiction authors.



Simply put: It's an incredible, magical, and mind-expanding week. Writers come for encouragement and feedback but end up coming again and again largely b/c of the "family" feel of the conference and for the friendships that we all make.

Sending out a BIG shout-out to Monte Schulz (the "Admiral"~ owner and our literary figure head for the conference), Grace Rachow (our heroic Conference Coordinator) and all of our hard-working fellow volunteers who have spent many years putting their love, sweat, and tears into helping to ensure that the conference runs so smoothly! Between us all, we have a wonderful team and SBWC "family!"

And now I'll put on my "photographer's hat" and let the photos speak for themselves. Looks fun, doesn't it?! ;-)

In Celebration Of The 2015 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

In Celebration Of The 2015 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Owner: Monte Schulz

Co-Directors: Nicole Starczack and Erin Dougherty Munsch

Director Of Volunteers: Grace Rachow

I've lost track of how many years I've been involved with the amazing Santa Barbara Writers Conference as both a writer and as a photographer....has it been 12? 13 or 14 years now that I dedicate a full week to immersing myself in the microverse that magically appears in the heart of Santa Barbara every June. It's a week that is packed with inspiration from fellow writers, publishing experts, literary agents, editors, publishers, and award-winning novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers. 

In short, it's a week to remind each of us that--as writers in what can be a very solitary pursuit--we are not alone and that we are stronger and become better when we surround ourselves with excellence and a community of our peers who are also striving for excellence. 

I have made lifelong friends from around the country through the conference, have found writing mentors who continue to inspire me, and built up a community of fellow writers with whom I can exchange inspiration and critiques throughout the year. 

Over the years my relationship with the conference has grown into becoming one of their main event photographers as well as running the Annual Talent Show with my co-host Margaux Hession and long-time friend and Mentor Matt Pallamary. The Talent Show continues to be a great way of just relaxing and celebrating a very long and exhausting week.

It's a month's worth of celebration, inspiration, interaction with mentors, fellow writers, editors, agents, and internationally renowned novelists and non-fiction authors.

Simply put: It's an incredible, magical, and mind-expanding week. Writers come for encouragement and feedback but end up coming again and again largely b/c of the "family" feel of the conference and for the friendships that we all make.

Big thanks to Grace Rachow, our heroic Director of Volunteers, and all of my hard-working fellow volunteers who have spent many years putting their love, sweat, and tears into helping Nicole, Erin and Monte run the conference so smoothly! Between us all, we have a wonderful team and SBWC "family!"

And now I'll put on my "photographer's hat" and let the photos speak for themselves. Looks fun, doesn't it?! ;-)

Enjoy the slideshow! Slideshow below may take a minute to load…but it's worth it! ;-) Once it's loaded, click on grey arrow in middle of window. If music doesn't come on within a second or two, just refresh your browser window and click on the "play" arrow button again. 

To watch with a full size screen, just click on the rectangular icon in lower right hand corner of screen. 

Feel free to leave "like" this post above, leave your comments below, and share this link with your friends. 

PLEASE NOTE: As I wasn't on official photography duty this year, all of the following photos below were taken with my point and shoot Lumix and a few were taken with my iPhone.

2014 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

For well over a decade, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (owned and directed by dear friends Monte Schulz and Nicole Starczak) has come to punctuate my year in a most wonderful way. It's a place where I can wear two hats….that of a writer and that of a photographer.

I have made lifelong friends from around the country through the conference, have found writing mentors who continue to inspire me, and built up a community of fellow writers with whom I can exchange inspiration and critiques throughout the year. 

Over the years my relationship with the conference has grown into becoming one of their main event photographers as well as running the Annual Talent Show with my co-host Margaux Hession and long-time friend and Mentor Matt Pallamary. The Talent Show continues to be a great way of just relaxing and celebrating a very long and exhausting week.

It's a month's worth of celebration, inspiration, interaction with mentors, fellow writers, editors, agents, and internationally renowned novelists and non-fiction authors.

Simply put: It's an incredible, magical, and mind-expanding week. Writers come for encouragement and feedback but end up coming again and again largely b/c of the "family" feel of the conference and for the friendships that we all make.

Big thanks to Grace Rachow, our heroic Director of Volunteers, and all of my hard-working fellow volunteers who have spent many years putting their love, sweat, and tears into helping Nicole & Monte run the conference so smoothly! Between us all, we have a wonderful team and SBWC "family!"

And now I'll put on my "photographer's hat" and let the photos speak for themselves. Looks fun, doesn't it?! ;-)

Enjoy the slideshow! Slideshow below may take a minute to load…but it's worth it! ;-) Once it's loaded, click on grey arrow in middle of window. If music doesn't come on within a second or two, just refresh your browser window and click on the "play" arrow button again. 

To watch with a full size screen, just click on the rectangular icon in lower right hand corner of screen. 

Feel free to leave "like" this post above, leave your comments below, and share this link with your friends. 

2013 Rockin' Santa Barbara Writers Conference

*Please feel free to leave your comments below the slideshow. Enjoy!

Owner: Monte Schulz
Director: Nicole Starczak
Director Of Volunteers: Grace Rachow
Rockin' Multi-Media Team: Rachel S. Thurston (r.s.thurston photography), Lisa Angle (Ninety Degrees Media), Ginger Swanson (video), and Jane St. Clair
Rockin' Volunteers: You all know who you are!!! Great volunteer pic in the slideshow below.

The third week of June has come to punctuate my year with the same special occasion that Summer Solstice, Halloween and my spring birthday all do. It's not summer or a complete turn around the sun without the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. I think I've lost count of the number of years I've been involved with the conference--at first as a fledgling student both bewildered and inspired and then over the years as a part of the staff and lead photographer for the conference).

It's difficult to explain exactly how special this week is or even why it has become such a magical part of the year. As writers, we all struggle with challenges of isolation, self-doubt, and self-criticism and during this gloriously full week we gather from around the country (and a few from abroad) to support and inspire each other. The six days of the conference are so gloriously filled that one could easily spend 17 hours immersed in all things literary...from 9 a.m. til 2 a.m. 
There are morning, afternoon, and evening workshops, afternoon panels, evening speakers, a wine and cheese event (one of my favorites even though tequila sadly hasn't yet been incorporated into the event), opening and closing night dinners, an annual Talent Show (which I've somehow inherited the leadership of ;-) and an agents and editors day in which writers can rub elbows with the pros and have the opportunity to actually pitch their manuscripts (Fannie Flagg of Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe credits the start of her literary career to SBWC!).

Stephen Chbosky, author and director  of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower pictured with
SBWC Owner Monte Schulz and Director Nicole Starczack.

But my favorite moments of the conference are actually those moments in between. When you stick a couple hundred brilliantly talented, company-starved literati together for a week and fill them with literary inspiration, deprive them of sleep and provide a daily happy hour, you never know what kinds of magic will ensue. I have met several lifelong friends at the Conference over the past 10 plus years...some of whom I only get to see during this one precious week of the year.


For this week, we all put our lives on hold to reflect on our lifelong dedication to the craft of writing and the precious connection we have with one another. The Conference has grown into an invaluable community of men and women of all ages, shapes, colors, and sizes who have found their "tribe" of fellow misfits and miscreants at long last!


This past year was also one of reflection and sadness as the Co-Founder and Beloved Figurehead of the SB Writers Conference, Barnaby Conrad, passed away. In addition, his dear friend and internationally renowned author Ray Bradbury (a dear friend of SBWC and a huge inspiration to many of us in the literary world) also passed away this past year (and is also as deserving of his own slideshow if I had the photos for it).

Best-Selling Author Sue Grafton photographed along with Journalist and
Presenter Susan Gulbransen and SBWC Owner Monte Schulz

Many of us attended a beautiful tribute dedicated to Barnaby during the conference week to share stories about his life and celebrate all of the ways that Barnaby impacted each of us over the years. Because I was able to take so many amazing photos this year and at the Tribute, I thought that Barnaby's Tribute deserved to be a slideshow of its own. I'm hoping that his family and friends can share these photos and stories and help Barnaby's legacy live on through each of us. 

I want to give a huge shout out to Monte Schulz and Nicole Starczak for putting on the Best Conference yet this year (it is like a fine tequila anejo and seems to only get better with every year!) A big thank you to Grace Rachow and to all of our incredibly, hardworking team of volunteers who do everything in their power to make the Conference go smoothly and stress-free. Mahalo Nui to all of the Workshop Leaders for the inspiration and passion you bring into each of your workshops every year. Big Thanks to each of the panelist and speakers who delighted us with insight and humor this year and found room in their heart to share some tips with writers like us who are still in the trenches... A big thank you to Lorenzo and the Staff at The Hyatt for making all of us at SBWC feel like we have a second home there during the week of the Conference. And Big Thanks to all of the Attendees for continuing to support the SB Writers Conference!

I have deep gratitude for the "family" and community I have found in many of you through the Writers Conference. I've been working my butt off to edit these photos and put together a slideshow which hopefully is testament to what a magical week the third week in June is for all of us!

Our Fearless Workshop Leaders!

*I hope you have fun reliving these very special days...if the music doesn't come on at first, just refresh your browser and click "play" again. Also feel free to leave your comments after each of the slideshows. If you'd like me or anyone else to see the comments, please make sure to "tag" me and anyone else you want. Feel free to share this link with your friends as well!

"SBWC 2013 Rocks!" Slideshow

"Tribute To Barnaby Conrad" Slideshow

The Writer Magazine Article on 2013 Santa Barbara Writer's Conference

Super happy to see that an article on the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (as well as one of my photos!) made it into The Writer Magazine in an article by Hillary Casavant in this month's issue (June 2013). This is one of my favorite shots from last year's animated "First Book Panel" featuring SB local and longtime SBWC volunteer and author Melinda Palacio (Ocotillo Dreams) along with Ramona Ausubel (No One Is Here Except All Of Us), Toni Margarita Plummer (The Bolero of Andi Rowe), and Amy Franklin-Willis (The Lost Saints of Tennessee).  I've been involved with the SBWC for the past ten years and have been one of the lead photographers of this national event for the last three.

SBWC has become a truly invaluable and supportive community in my journey as a writer. I am forever grateful to all those who have worked their butts off to keep SBWC going (Monte Schulz, Nicole Starczak, Grace Rachow, and our kick-butt staff!) the past several years. I feel blessed to be a part of this incredible team!

Santa Barbara Writers Conference 2012

*Please make sure to check out the slideshow at the end of this post and feel free to leave your comments and memories!

Monte Schulz, Owner
Nicole Starczak, Director
Grace Rachow, Director of Volunteers
Staffed by an intrepid group of workshop leaders and hard-working volunteers!

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

What can I say? This year’s S.B. Writers Conference was one of my very favorites by far. In the last thirty-five years, the conference has only seemed to get better and better. In the past ten years of my involvement I have made lifelong friends through the conference and every year come out of it a changed person.

Many friends often ask me, “What is it you guys do all day? Just write?!” To me this conference is about intellectual exhileration, socializing, celebrating our creative lives, supporting each other in our literary pursuits, and coming together once a year to remind ourselves that we—as writers—are not alone in the world.

Monte and Nicole with the intrepid Workshop Leaders

The Tireless Volunteers of SBWC 2012!

Owner Monte Schulz, Award-Winning Author Fannie Flagg, and Director Nicole Starczak

It’s a week so packed with delicious fuel for your muse that we each come out of it completely inspired and absolutely exhausted. I think that I slept something like thirteen hours the first night after the conference ended. Between nightly talks by award-winning authors like Dorothy Allison (Bastard Out Of Carolina) and Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes) are seven days filled with morning and 
afternoon writers workshops from every genre under the sun (historical fiction, literary fiction, screenwriting, nonfiction, women’s fiction, memoir, young adult fiction, humor and more). As well as book panels by new authors, screenwriters, literary agents, editors, and publishers. It’s no wonder that this conference has a national reputation: Men and women fly in from around the country (and often out of it)...hungry to work on their craft.

For me the most magical moments of the conference are those that come in the moments "stolen between"….random conversations over coffee breaks after you haven’t slept for eighteen hours with someone you might never have met if it weren’t for the conference. Or listening to one of your workshop leaders belt out a tune and play guitar at the Talent Show at the end of the week. Or sharing a laugh with Fannie Flagg about a Dating Show she appeared on in the 70s and is shocked somebody actually has a copy of! ;) See the photos below….

There’s a bond that is made between writers here at the conference. If you’ve been thinking of going but can’t muster up enough reasons to go here’s a good one: You will come out of it a changed person. And the conference—like any good intoxicant—is addicting. This was my 10^th year and I wouldn’t think of missing it. It’s come to punctuate the year for me in a way that only a few other events can do (Summer Solstice, my birthday, and Halloween!).

One of my favorite events, the Wine and Cheese Party!

Here’s to all of you who were here with us this year and to those who would have liked to be!

If you attended the conference and would like to get copies of some of these photos, feel free to just send me an email.

If the slideshow music doesn’t come on when you click “play” just refresh your browser and click “play” again.

Enjoy the slideshow and Viva La Muse!!! ;)

*There's a comment "feed" at the bottom of this post as well~ Feel free to leave your comments to share with me and others! Thanks again~ Rachel

Santa Barbara Writers Conference 2011

"The Exhilaration and the Exhaustion!"

Owner Monte Schulz and Director Nicole Starczak

Founders Barnaby and Mary Conrad

www.sbwriters.com

by rsthurston writing and photography

I’ve had many friends over the years ask me exactly what happens at a writers conference. Do we merely sit and listen to Harry Potter readings? Do we rate our favorite classics

or compare our wish lists for our dream publishers and book tour stops? I mean, what could we possibly find to fill a week’s worth of a conference?

Writing is after all, a solitary pursuit, isn’t it?

The conference takes place for five days every year but what happens between the Saturday opening night and the closing awards dinner on Thursday is a universe unto itself. Founder Barnaby Conrad once declared on an opening night “You will begin this conference as one person and end it as another.” And indeed the conference will change your life in many unexpected ways.

The nuts and bolts of the week are this: There are morning, afternoon, and evening workshops on everything from poetry to non-fiction magazine writing to screenwriting and literary fiction. There are panels of publishers, editors, and agents, meetings with manuscript consultants and mind-blowing readings by internationally renowned writers like Clive Cussler, T.C. Boyle and in years past Ray Bradbury, James Michener, and Fannie Flagg. There’s the annual Talent Show which once began as a renegade group of writers looking to let off some steam but which has now grown into a sanctioned smorgasbord of unexpected talent (the only rule being that no one read their work). Then there are all of the social events throughout the week: the wine and cheese party, the opening and closing dinners and roaming about in the conference bookstore.

But the most indelible moments of the conference are truly the moments stolen between….that chance meeting with another kindred spirit whose feedback you truly admire in one of your favorite workshops who just happens to live in your same town and who is looking to start a writers group. Or that amazing conversation with a new friend about the latest vampire craze over carne asada burritos and a horchata for lunch on Milpas. Or it’s that shared can of Pringles with that dry-witted fiction writer from Hawaii whom you adore but you only manage to see once a year.

We manage to steal hours of sleep when we can and we remember to eat only when our blood sugar reaches dangerously low levels and we realize that filled cups from Starbucks can’t sustain a human for longer than a day or two.

I’ve found over my past seven years with the conference that writers will only surprise you. I’ve seen a young guy from the Bronx recite children’s poetry, a grandmother read surprisingly titillating erotica, and a late 40-ish schoolteacher share her horror short story to a rapt class.

There are no rules among writers. You can be any shape, shape, size, or age. We are drawn together by our love of the craft and our friendships are forged based on these connections.

In fact, I met one of my best friends (who continues to travel here for the conference from Connecticut) during a lecture at the conference many years ago. (She happened to have sat beside me at one of the public lectures many years ago and I convinced her in true Rachel-Fashion that if she truly considered herself a writer that she needed to commit to coming to the conference the following year as an attendee. She came the next year and has only missed one year since then.)

I am also quite sure that many romances have come about because of the conference. A few break-ups and strained marriages as well. ;)

By mid-week the days have begun melting into each other and the microverse of SBWC has managed to consume us completely. Sure our pets still need to be fed, our partners are beginning to feel neglected (*see above) but our bills can wait and so can those inboxes that seem to be filling up without end.

We don’t know it right away but at some point towards the end of the week when we realize we have to leave and that our world is coming to a close that we have indeed changed. Sure the caffeine, the sleep deprivation, and the copious amounts of Cheetos and Cliff Bars have taken their toll on our reserves. But something else has shifted. We’ve spent one precious week dedicated to our craft. We’ve surrounded ourselves with an incredible group of men and women—many of whom would never have met without the conference--and reminded ourselves for that short, fluid moment in time that we’re not alone and that we do have a community.

But more importantly, we are reminded of something even more precious. That we are writers. And that we are all striving for perfection….One. Word. At. A.Time.

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Enjoy the Slideshow!!

*If the music doesn't come on when the slideshow begins, try "refreshing" your webpage and clicking "play" again.

If you'd like to download any of the pics for personal use follow these steps:

1) Click on "Play" for slideshow.

2) Click on upper banner of slideshow to "Visit Gallery."

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