By Debb Hackett @debb_hackett

Blue Ridge 2024 is rapidly approaching. This might be your first or fifteenth time attending, and as always, it’ll be a different experience for several reasons:

• Different faculty – but all preparing to make a difference in your writing journey
• Different attendees – who knows who you might meet this year
• Different you – it’s been quite the season, and most of us are a little changed

But – different doesn’t mean bad, even though many of us are a little (or a lot) change averse.

So, as you prepare to go forth and conquer, here are my best tips (in no particular order of importance) for making the most out of this year’s Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference.

1. The bananas are in the wooden baskets on the left, before the silverware, on the way into breakfast. No, I’m not kidding and yes, this is golden intel. I made two (now very dear) friends by sharing this information in 2019.
2. Be early for lunch and dinner. This is when you can pick which faculty member to sit with, if their table isn’t full. More than that though, you meet the most unexpectedly marvelous people in the line for food.
3. Know who the faculty are. Don’t be like me and almost hug a very well-known author because you recognized her and thought she was a friend, only to realize you knew her from her head shot.
4. Bring flat shoes. Ridgecrest is hilly and there are steps.
5. Understand Clouds coffee is a fantastic place, go there frequently.
6. Pace yourself. Conferences are like drinking from a fire hose. Don’t burn your candle at both ends. Be a night owl or an early bird. Not both.
7. Be prepared. If you’re pitching, practice until it becomes natural.
8. Pray and honestly assess (maybe with a writing friend or mentor) what you need to do to take your writing to the next level, and then plan the classes you’ll take, accordingly.
9. Pray for divine appointments. These are the encounters in a line, sitting next to someone at dinner, over Zoom or in class, that might just change your writing journey. Be expectant. The Lord hasn’t made a way for you to attend for no reason.

And finally, attend unselfishly. Yes, you are there to get something – a contact, some education, amazing fellowship with other like-minded creatives. But you can also contribute. Maybe you can clear someone else’s meal tray, buy a stranger (a hard working faculty member) a beverage, pray with someone waiting for an appointment or offer an encouraging word to a fellow attendee.

You won’t regret a moment.

Writer, broadcaster and speaker Debb Hackett has been a radio journalist for more than twenty years. Married to a Royal Air Force test pilot, Debb has written a Bible study for military wives.

A regular contributor to the Advanced Writers and Speakers Devotional Arise Daily, she’s also been privileged to writer chapters for Write Well Sell Well. For now, based near London, England she’s having lots of fun working on a contemporary romance series and was an ACFW Genesis award semi-finalist in 2020.

When she’s not writing, Debb can be found leading worship, playing bass or skiing. If you can swing by her house while she’s making scones, that would also be a win.