Gen Con Writers’ Symposium

This post announces our 2024 Special Guests and reveals the Program. May 19th is the official registration day, but attendees can wishlist their events now!

Gen Con is the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America. In 2023, they welcomed over 70,000 unique visitors and offered over 19,000 events. By its nature, Gen Con attracts a large number of attendees who enjoy speculative fiction across formats. Gen Con 2024 will be held August 1-4 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Gen Con Writers’ Symposium is a semi-independent event hosted by Gen Con. It’s focused on writers of games and speculative fiction of all experience levels, but with as much fun and interest for gamers, readers, and fans. All registration is handled through the Gen Con website.  In the past 28 years, the Writers’ Symposium has grown from a small set of panels over a day or two of the convention to one of the largest convention-hosted writing tracks in North America, offering hundreds of hours of programming from 70+ authors, editors, agents, and publishers to nearly 3000 unique visitors per year on average.  We’ll be on the second floor of the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott (i.e., not the adjacent JW Marriott ). Head to our event at 350 W Maryland St, Indianapolis, IN 46225. The Black Gate Convention report for last year’s symposium gives a good flavor of what to expect, and the planning committee’s website at genconwriters.org has all the details.

Thanks to Catalyst Game Labs for Sponsoring

We’re proud to announce that Catalyst Game Labs is sponsoring our event! This sponsorship will enable the symposium to support more writers to attend, creating a more representative and inclusive event.

“Catalyst Game Labs is proud to support the 2024 Gen Con Writer’s Symposium,” CGL’s Executive Editor John Helfers said.” Writing is a vital part of creating wonderful games and IPs, and the Symposium continues to do a terrific job of bringing in new authors and viewpoints to explore this constantly changing landscape.”

Writers’ Symposium 2024 Special Guests

There are ~70 presenters and we have two special guests:

Linda D. Addison is the author of five award-winning collections, including How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award and SFPA Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry. Her site: www.LindaAddisonWriter.com

Mikki Kendall is the author of bestselling Hood Feminism, and Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists, with A. D’Amico. She’s written for TIME, the New York Times, The Guardian, the Washington Post, Essence, Vogue, The Boston Globe, and NBC.

Writers’ Symposium 2024 Programming

If you have already purchased your ticket to Gen Con, you can now select which events you would like to attend. Our Gen Con Writers’ Symposium events are designed for writers, but everyone is welcome, and we hope you will consider our events. The opportunity to hear the perspective of writers of games, roleplaying, books, multimedia – we think is core fandom. We are offering over 170 events, including ~80 free panels, ~60 classes (workshops), >20 signings, and special and interactive Events (like an open mic poetry event, a D&D session, and Meet & Greet with the authors).

Download the Full Program in PDF here.

 Interested in a specific topic? Sign up for them all, as many will fill up quickly! Prefiltered GenCon-Registration Links for each track is below:

#gcws – All our events
#writing – Nuts and bolts of the craft
#editing – Perspectives on editing work, designed for writers
#worldbuilding – Crafting the space for your words
#writerlife – About being a writer, as a person
#genre – Discussion on specific genres
#career – Managing business elements of writing over time
#videogames – Topics related to digital games
#tabletop – Topics related to tabletop gaming
#poetry – Topics related to speculative poetry
#visual – Graphic writing
#tech – Technical tools related to writing
#publishing – Topics related to publishing
#nonfiction – Topics related to nonfiction
#marketing – Promoting your work
#classroom – Instructor-led, classroom-type events
#event – Featured GCWS events
#qna – Question & Answer (Q&A) events
#signing – Signing opportunities
#interaction – Interactive opportunities
#experience – An immersive experience with writers

 

Register Now!

 

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S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor for Black Gate online magazine, regularly reviewing books and interviewing authors on “Beauty & Art in Weird Fiction.” He also organizes the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (chairing it in 2023), leads moderation of the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group, and is a surviving intern for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine. As for crafting stories, he contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has entries in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies and West Mesa Press’ Witch Wizard Warlock anthology.  He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction short stories of which have appeared in Whetstone, Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades Vol I and Vol II, DMR’s Terra Incognita, and the 9th issue of Tales from the Magician’s Skull.