By Lindsey Brackett, @LindsBrac

Four years ago I attended my first ever writer’s conference. Truthfully, I’d never even realized these existed. A place filled with people who thought like me and wanted to talk about imaginary characters as if they were real and used jargon like “action tag” and “comma splice” in everyday conversation?

Heaven on earth for this girl who’d always been a little shy to whisper that title Writer over her words.

Then, while I sat in a big ballroom and listened to big words (I think it was Brian Bird speaking actually) a message popped up on my phone. My friend Jennifer, who I’d met at another conference for bloggers, telling me to go meet her friend Bethany. You’re both there! she wrote.

Later, when everyone milled around making connections, I wove through the group looking for the girl who had immediately messaged me when Jennifer sent her the same charge. I’m in the back with Splickety, she’d said. And I almost choked. She knew the faculty?

That’s how I met Bethany Jett. She introduced me to Ben Wolf. Who founded the Splickety Publishing Group. Which gave me my first publishing credit a month later for my first ever flash fiction story. Then Bethany hired me to be her Associate Editor for Splickety’s Lightning Blog, and when she moved on, I moved up. And for almost three years, Splickety’s talented staff of writers and editors answered all my questions as I navigated this new career.

A new career that includes a book with Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, because when I sat with Eva Marie Everson at the folding table in the room with all the people who know, she told me I had talent.

Then she showed me how to improve that talent. Eighteen months later she acquired my book.

Connections. Be open. Smile. Say hello. Follow up.

Because the divine connections of this writer’s conference might just change your life.

Lover of all things literary and Southern, Lindsey’s favorite days are spent on the back porch, sweet tea in hand, writing stories, reading books, and mentoring authors. Still Waters, her southern fiction debut, released in 2017. Connect with her at lindseypbrackett.com, on Facebook as Lindsey P. Brackett, or Instagram @lindseypbrackett.