WriterMBA in New Orleans!
I have done them, and you, a disservice...
In a previous post I mentioned in passing that I am at an amazing mastermind/conference in New Orleans, called WriterMBA. I really should have been talking about this for the past few months!
One of the early sessions on the first day of the mastermind portion of WriterMBA broke my “if writer shaped, why not writer?” clinch with the bear of Resistance. (Special thanks to Heather Hildenbrand for being the catalyst for this!) There is so much more I want to say about WriterMBA, but I’ll save that for a future post. The writers’ conference portion is still in full swing, so I don’t have much time. But I just have to enthuse more specifically about WriterMBA.
First, this all began in February 2024 with the seminal New Orleans event “The Future of Publishing Mastermind” (now WriterMBA). Created by Russell Nohelty and Monica Leonelle, with the alarmingly competent help of Tawdra Kandle and Mel Jolly, it was a terrific shot in the arm for the drooping world of American writers’ conferences.1
At the opening session of the conference this morning, Monica said WriterMBA was meant to focus explicitly on a number of things that other writers’ conferences traditionally ignored, or at least didn’t seem to value much: centering entrepreneurial acumen for authors over the art and craft of writing, and valuing businesses as service providers that empower author success instead of, well, tolerating them as suspicious leeches trying to take authors’ money, for example. WriterMBA emphasizes authors’ responsibility and opportunity to think entrepreneurially and treat their writing as a business that can be profitable.
And this does not mean cutthroat competition, at least not for the authors involved or the startups that offer various services to authors. For years, Monica has seen publishing—the entire range of indie and traditional—as “an infinite table with infinite chairs. We can all succeed together if we support one another.”
Russell emphasized that WriterMBA’s mastermind and writers’ conference are packed with practical information and insight, but presentations and panel discussions play second fiddle to relationship-building and personal mentoring & collaboration. WriterMBA experiments with ways to bring the “breakthrough moments” and “transformative partnerships” that are common to the best mastermind groups (small mentoring/peer-mentoring groups) to a conference-sized event, to “find a way to clear [personal and career] blockages out of the way, at scale.”
Russell concluded the opening keynote by saying, “I don’t care how much you learn.2 I do care how much you unlock [your potential], and how much you unlock others.”
And on the very first day, I experienced a personal breakthrough I didn’t know I needed! The vast majority of other participants experienced something similar (usually not so dramatic). It was a topic of conversation at dinner3 last night, in fact: all five of us at the table felt like new potential or new opportunities had been “unlocked” already, and for them it was only the first day of the writers’ conference.
This is truly one of the best writers’ events I have ever experienced.
Check it out, and get on their email list if you aren’t already.
Okay, must get back to it, I don’t want to miss a thing!
No fewer than five Southern California writers’ conferences have ceased operations in the past year and a half (four WC2 conferences and one by MSG). The attempted revival of the old Mt. Hermon Christian Writers’ Conference seems on the verge of ceasing operations, and 20BooksTo50K was rebranded as AuthorNation, RWA conferences seem to have scaled back dramatically… there are other examples but I can’t think of them right now! There are exceptions too, of course, writers’ events like LTUE and possibly NINC that are going strong. But the field is thinning.
Learning is virtually guaranteed. Highly motivated authors, together with highly motivated vendors and service providers, plus highly motivated and skilled speakers and presenters, all interacting formally and informally over the course of several days… in such a situation, learning is inevitable even if the event programming were terrible (it is outstanding).
…at Drago’s! Have I mentioned how amazing the food has been? Even the catered breakfasts and lunches during the mastermind portion— the best “conference fare” I’ve ever experienced, by far. It’s like other writers’ conferences don’t even try to impress with the food and merely avoid poisoning attendees.