We are officially seeking panelists for our virtual conference, Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing, happening on May 30th!
This will be a full day of FREE Zoom panels discussing various aspects of effectively writing disabled characters, building accessible worlds, and writing while disabled. We have five topics selected by our members (all times are in EST):
11AM – 12PM Avoiding Cure Narratives and Other Harmful Disability Tropes
12:30 – 1:30PM Accurately Depicting Chronic Pain: What We Wish Writers Knew
2 – 3PM Prosthetics, Glasses, and Other Disability Aids in SFF
3:30 – 4:30PM Romance While Disabled: What To Consider When Writing a Disabled Love Interest
5 – 6PM Accommodate Yourself: How To Build a Writing Space and Process That Works For You
Want to chat with our community about one of these topics? Apply for a panelist spot today – or keep reading to find out more about how the event works.
Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing will focus on highlighting disabled authors sharing lessons from their real, lived experiences as well as their writing careers. If you’re a disabled author, we want to hear from you! If you’re not, there will be other opportunities to participate in Weeknight Writers events; make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to hear about those opportunities (and get our handy dandy Writer’s Block Buster workbook).
Storycrafting Sessions FAQ
What is a Storycrafting Session?
A Storycrafting Session is a free one-day virtual conference where we dive deep into one part of the writing or publishing process. We’ve covered numerous topics in the past few years, including:
We used to host three of these per year. This year we’ll only be running one, Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing, as we work on building other types of events.
How do Storycrafting Session panels work?
Storycrafting Session panels are one-hour Zoom conversations. The first half is devoted to questions from the moderator and our Sustaining Members. The second half is devoted to live questions from the audience.
Moderator + community questions are always sent a few days ahead of the panel. We obviously can’t predict live questions, but our moderators make an effort to filter out questions that are distracting from the panel topic or harmful in any way.
All Storycrafting Sessions panels are recorded for eventual publication to our YouTube channel.
What is expected of panelists?
Panelists are expected to attend their panel and answer questions to the best of their ability. There are no other expectations, though we also run a conference Discord and encourage panelists to join the server for extended conversations about their panel topics (and other writing conversations).
Panelists are encouraged to take steps to make themselves comfortable. If you need to wear a mask or sunglasses and/or use an avatar to protect your privacy, we understand.
What steps do we take to protect panelists?
In order to protect our panelists, we remove audience permissions to stream video or audio to the Zoom. We will also remove anyone who is posting harassment, bigotry, or other inappropriate content in the Zoom chat or Discord server.
How do we choose panelists?
There are a few things we consider when choosing panelists:
- Experience levels. We attempt to include writers with a variety of experience levels, from newbies to writers with decades of experience, on every panel.
- Representation. We aim to include people from a variety of communities and emphasize the inclusion of marginalized people.
- Reputation. While we can’t always guarantee everyone at our events is a fantastic human being, we do some basic vetting for each panelist to avoid platforming people who are known bigots or abusers.
- Community participation. We attempt to have a mix of people who have been active in the Weeknight Writers community and people we’ve never heard of.
We choose 4-5 panelists for each panel, as we find that having a higher number of panelists means we don’t have space for everyone’s perspective.
Are panelists paid?
Storycrafting Sessions are primarily free events (with Supporter tickets for people who want to compensate us for the time spent organizing them). As such, we do not offer payment for panelists who participate in these events.
How can I get involved?
If you want to be a panelist, please apply for a panelist spot at Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing by 11:59:59PM EST on March 25th.
If you’re not interested in a panelist spot but would like to help us moderate the Zoom or Discord chats, please email us at weeknightwriters@gmail.com. Volunteers will be compensated with a membership to the Weeknight Writers Pro Discord.