"Our Focus is in Building Community." A Chat with Matt Daly, Executive Director of Jackson Hole Writers

"What makes for a satisfying writing life?"

Ahoy and Happy Hump Day, as the kids like to say. I come with our first May interview, freshly wrapped!

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Matt Daly, Executive Director of Jackson Hole Writers. This organization hosts a mix of live and virtual writing workshops and critique groups, throughout the year. They also host an annual writing conference.

For more than thirty years, diverse groups of passionate professional and novice writers have gathered at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. While attending workshops and keynote addresses at the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts, writers learn about the craft of writing, share ideas, and make new friends while networking with authors, editors and agents from myriad backgrounds.

In today’s conversation, Matt discussed the workshops on offer. These days they are trying to focus on workshops that guide writers in the submitting and business realm, as well as topic-specific craft classes. If you have a topic you might wish to teach, they are open to pitches.

We then spent a large portion of the discussion on the conference. People, this conference sounds lovely. It is three days at the end of October. They provide workshops for participants, open mics, a keynote address, two kinds of opportunities for manuscript feedback and an ongoing chance to meet and mingle with writers at all stages as well as editors and agents.

Regarding the manuscript feedback, writers can opt for the shorter version, which is 10 pages evaluated by three faculty members, or a longer version, which is 40 pages. The feedback providers are a writer, an editor and a literary agent of the writer’s choosing. Matt shared a success story of a writer who came to the conference, met with an agent, and whose memoir is out now.

I asked Matt how he would characterize the vibe of the conference. I’ve certainly heard stories about the hierarchical nature of Breadloaf, with sections cordoned off exclusively for writers of a certain status. Is Jackson Hole similar?

Matt said Jackson Hole Writers Conference is nothing like that. He described the vibe as friendly, open, collegial, with a spirit of “we’re all in it together.” He is frequently asking, “What makes for a satisfying writing life?” and hopes that writers come to the conference ready to “dive into the whole thing” and “find ways to reach out to people.”

The Jackson Hole Conference is open for registration now. There is no application process; one simply needs to register. Faculty includes authors in poetry, fiction and nonfiction; agents; and editors from university presses, small presses, and larger publishing houses.

To hear more from Matt about what writers can expect from this conference and to get inspiration to take your writing off to Wyoming this fall, go on and tune in!

Thanks to all of you who expressed interest in this organization. And thanks to Matt for taking the time to take us behind the scenes!

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