I attended Colorado Gold, the 30th edition of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ conference this past weekend. Although I could get many other posts out of the conference, I’m going to start with grading my own experience.

Networking: (D- ) After the Crested Butte conference in June I had 500 business cards made. I handed out THREE. Although I chatted with a few people, I made no new contacts or even Facebook friends.

Hotel Location: (A ) Easily accessible from I-25 and N of the Denver metro area, which made the drive easy for those of us coming from the north. Not sure if people driving south felt the same way!

The hotel did have a spectacular view, although this is not it.

Hotel Reservations: (D- ) I never received a confirmation. When I called to check on this, I was assured by both the reservation service AND the hotel itself that I did NOT have a reservation. They offered to rebook me for $185 a night, seventy dollars over the conference rate! I made other plans. The only reason I’m not giving the hotel an F for this is they sent me a pre-arrival notice prior to the weekend so I was able to cancel the reservation I didn’t have before I was charged.

The Hotel Facilities: (C- to D) I’m not sure how a hotel in 2014 can get away without having Wifi in the conference rooms. Even worse, there was limited audio-visual ability. Most of the conference rooms were small. Many sessions held in those rooms required people to stand. Even after chairs were added, it was sometimes difficult to find a place to sit. The doors to the rooms opened at the front, making an early exit or late entrance noticeable and noisy.

Food: (C+) The rolls were good. Why there weren’t water pitchers on the table, I don’t know. The luncheon buffet tables were whisked away almost before everyone was served. The hotel restaurant had some interesting offerings, but my pinon-crusted French Toast featured nary a pinon.

Beverage Service: (B ) Four dollars for a club soda? Really? Last year I ordered club sodas and they gave them to me for free. Maybe it isn’t fair to compare last year’s hotel to this one. Water was offered in all sessions, which was fine, but again, the hotel last year gave us rootbeer  floats for free! Okay, no more comparing. On the plus side, this hotel did supply real glasses for serving the water.

Speakers and Banquet: (B ) I suppose if you’ve been to a conference of almost any sort, you’ve sat through the messages and speeches and jokes. Unless you’re part of the inner group, they aren’t really of much interest.

The Running of the Conference: ( A) This is run totally by volunteers, and they do an exemplary job. There were a few glitches, some foreseeable, others possibly due to the layout of the hotel. Some might have been due to the unreasonable expectation that everyone was staying at the hotel and attending all functions. Most were minor, and if not self-correcting, easily explained by asking questions.

Other stuff (No grade): I overheard complaints about the lack of a rating sheet for each workshop. The conference chair did specify everyone would receive an email to a survey monkey in the next few days. This seems sufficient since it saves paper, many people don’t fill out surveys anyway, and the results will be easier to compile.

The Important Part: the Workshops

Probably your perception of the workshop offerings depends on how many conferences you’ve attended in the past, your level of writing experience, and your interests, as well as the ability of the presenters. I do know one person who said she was attending as much or more for the networking as for the workshops, but to me that is an expensive way to make contacts! I consider a conference a success if I come away with a new friend or contact, but the actual content of the conference is still of utmost importance.

The Friday morning add-on sessions didn’t interest me this year, either due to the subject matter or the presenter. There were small group critique sessions with agents and editors. Normally I might have availed myself of these. If I attended one of these,  I would have wanted to have stayed overnight to make sure I didn’t get caught in rush hour traffic.That effectively would make the cost of the critique session more than $150 as I would have had to pay for the session, an extra night of lodging, dinner, and breakfast.

I was most looking forward to the Writing with Scrivener class. It was good, but I would have preferred to have spent all that extra money mentioned above in order to attend a longer session.

My other main objective during this conference was to acquire more social media knowledge. I was disappointed in the few offerings. A local writer commented that she felt there weren’t that many offerings, because most people already knew all they needed or weren’t interested. I attended Marketing for the Introverted Writer, which touched on social media, as well as the two dedicated classes, Websites and Social Media and How to Manage Your Author Social Media Platform in 30 Minutes a Day. Both classes offered a plethora of information on what to use. New, useful websites were mentioned and useful handouts provided. What I was looking for, and what I overheard many others say they needed, were the nuts and bolts of how to make these techniques work. This workshop was missing from the conference schedule. Again, I would have been willing to pay extra for an in-depth explanation.  Another option would have been a series of free sessions on each of the various social media outlets. In truth, this might have been very difficult with the limited audio visual and lack of Internet connectivity.

Up until late Saturday afternoon, I would have said the conference wasn’t really worth the cost, but finally the session on science fiction got me excited and smiling. Although I still might not have thought I’d gotten my money’s worth if I’d gone home at that point, at least I would have been happy.

Unfortunately, Sunday morning had the most enticing classes. Why unfortunately? Because most of them overlapped. I could have attended any of three of the 8 am sessions, but two of my critique group members had stories in the RMFW’s anthology, Crossing Colfax. I had agreed to attend the panel discussion on the formation of the anthology, which was concurrent with the other three sessions of interest. I did enjoy the panel and hearing the impetus behind the accepted stories.

The speaker for the New Golden Age of Short Fiction, Thea Hutcheson, was a dynamic presenter. Her enthusiasm was contagious and her insights and ideas useful. Literary Pulp: What it takes to Write Literary Genre Fiction was my last session of the conference. It might not have completely filled the premise of that title, but the speaker, John Blair, was interesting and entertaining. He engaged the audience and we left on a positive note.

At the 2013 conference I met Najah Lightfoot. This year she was presenting. I planned to attend her session, Show and Tell: Magic and Magick Tools of the Trade. I wanted to be a supportive friend and also thought I might glean some interesting tidbits I could use in a story. Instead of that small expectation being met, I thought the first half of Najah’s session had to be one of the most interesting and best presentations of the conference. As I was also looking forward to the session mentioned above, I only attended half of the magic session, but that half was moving and wonderfully presented. I hope that I can someday listen to the rest of her session. Thank you, Najah.

If I were to actually grade the sessions, I would say the Sunday sessions brought up the average. Since they were last, the impression I was left with was of success. I’d have to give the overall conference an A. Okay, to be true to my curmudgeonly self, I’d give the overall sessions an A-.

Were you there? What did YOU think? What was your favorite session?