Networking is just making friends, a how-to guide to conventioning for authors
Greetings, fellow kids SFFH writers.
If you’re reading this, you are probably wondering “How do I become a part of the larger community of writers and make social connections and nurture friendships?”
I’ve been fighting the urge to start this essay with a Lady Gaga riff: “No matter if you’re straight, gay, ace, or bi, trad-pub, indie, hybrid life—” and, well, obviously I lost that war. But as you may have noticed, the Disk Horse seems to have swung around to “writer cliques” as it does every few years. I sense a lot of pain and alienation and fear of rejection out there provoking this conversation.
So here’s the thing: ‘clique’ is another word for a group of friends, and yes, absolutely, there are multiple very tight groups of friends in this industry who have come up together, been through the wars together, gone on sub and gotten rejected together, seen each other through births, deaths, illnesses, divorces, getting dropped by publishers, and bestsellerdom. Often these friend groups (‘cliques’) persist for decades; in some cases for a half a century or more.
And then there are a lot of casual good friendships that have built up over years and often lie fallow until people run into each other at a convention, at which point those people fall to gossiping like they have never been parted—like when you run into your college roommate, no not that one, the good one who did the dishes.
And no, there’s no easy way for an outsider to come in to either of those systems once it’s established. You have to build your own.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t make friends across generations, make connections, and be a part of the community.
And here’s how you do it.
0) Join online groups that will welcome you as you qualify for membership. Dream Foundry has a very welcoming Discord that is open to everybody as long as they behave themselves. Hanging out on Bluesky and being genial and interesting without becoming A Reply Guy is a lovely way to stay in touch with the community and get book recommendations.
Many conventions these days have Discords and online spaces, some of which are active year-round.
For those a little further along the publication path, I am not a member of Codex but I understand it’s a helpful space for making connections. SFWA has a Discord and discussion boards for members.
If you are willing to pay the entrance fee (usually a Patreon subscription) a number of writers who focus on mentoring have online spaces focused on building writer community: Mary Robinette Kowal and C.L. Polk spring to mind, but there are many others.
The quick-start way to build a community is to attend a writer’s workshop: Futurescapes, Clarion, Clarion West, Viable Paradise, Odyssey, and others all will introduce you to a collection of other early-career writers. The Writing Excuses podcast offers cruises and retreats; Cat Rambo facilitates a rolling online workshop with classes by a number of writers on various topics.
The barriers to entry to these opportunities are at various heights, obviously—from a modest investment of money and time to a daunting one. I was not able to attend workshops when I was breaking in: I was poor and my family’s primary financial support was my shitty dayjob.
Workshops are not necessary for a publishing career. They can be a shortcut into the community.
You can apply for the SFWA mentoring initiative to meet people. Especially if you have skills in which you can mentor somebody—if you’re good at indie publication, lots of trad pub authors want to learn how!
I’m too old to actually know where the cool kids are hanging out online these days, so I am sure I missed a lot of places. Ask around! The connections you build over time will give you people to hang out with at conventions and talk to about things like “How the fuck do I get an agent?” while you continue to build a network of friends. I’m still besties with people I have known since the old Del Rey Online Writing Workshop in 2001. Those people have absolutely been my lifeline for a quarter-century now.
1) Do not assume that people’s value lies only in their immediately perceived importance in the publishing hierarchy or their ability to help your career right now. The people with whom you are coming in to the industry are going to be your colleagues for a very long time and many of them will continue to rise in influence, be fun at parties, or both of the above.
So many times, I have seen aspiring or debut writers dismiss their peers in order to pursue relationships with those they perceive as “more important.” But your peers are the people who are going to be there with you and—if you treat them well—for you for the next thirty, forty, fifty years. Now, as you progress in your career you are going to have more and more obligations and less and less time to hang: this is normal, but some of your friends won’t understand it.
If your long-term Con Spouse has a big debut and is suddenly spending conventions being rushed from meeting to mill-and-swill to award ceremony, you will miss them, and this is normal. Try to ride it out without saying things like “They’re too good for us now.” Your turn will likely come, if you keep working, and burning that bridge is not gonna make you happy.
If you are the Con Spouse who is having this sudden whirlwind experience, get on the text chain with your posse and try to find a quiet tapas place to hang out with them for an hour, even if it means getting up early. Maybe take your Con Spouse to an award ceremony as your plus-one if you do not have a partner or your partner does not come to conventions.
If you meet somebody at a party or consuite or in the bar and do not immediately recognize their name/clock their badge, do not assume you should dismiss them. (If they are acting like an asshole, go ahead and edge away on the group W bench, obviously.) If they are being nice, be nice back. They might be a publisher’s daughter and heir-apparent to the empire. They might be the assistant or spouse of the editor or agent you desperately want to impress. They might be the beloved elder statesbeing polymath and Friend To Everyone of the genre. They might be a fixer-type who can put anybody in touch with anybody, help anybody with anything, and who never asks for a favor back so everybody adores them. They might be a copyeditor or production manager.
They are almost certainly a human being who is deserving of a minimal standard of respect.
Treat everybody as politely and professionally as possible.
2) Don’t be a panel winner. By this I mean, recognize that the other people you are paneling with are your colleagues and your job is a collective and collaborative one: you are there to delight, entertain, and enlighten the audience, and that’s a team effort. Resist the urge to score points off your fellow panelists with gotchas or zingers. Resist the urge to build a little Bookhenge in front of yourself and start every sentence with “In my book…”
(If somebody on the panel or in the audience is being racist, sexist, ablist, fascist, queerphobic, etc, by all means shut that down, express your disagreement strongly, say “That language is offensive,” or whatever. You do not have to play nice with people who are behaving badly.)
If you do score points with zingers and begin every sentence with “In my book…” do not be surprised when the other panelists scurry off to the bar without you after the panel while you are still packing up Bookhenge.
You do not have to read all your copanelists’ work. This is not actually a sustainable practice. There are a lot of copanelists.
If you have read it and it is relevant, it is a nice thing to say “Well, in your short story ‘Gee Whiz, That’s a Frobnitz!’ you had a Frobnitz, didn’t you? Would you talk about that a little?”
3) When a more established writer reaches out to you, be nice but unassuming. If you were a good copanelist and they do not scurry off to the bar afterwards without you but instead say “Hey, have you had lunch?” by all means go to lunch. Hang out. Talk about the unspeakable horror of the literary life.
This will happen only uncommonly, but: Do not accept any invitations to go back to their room or believe them if they tell you they can “help your career.” Sadly, there are still creeps out there, and contrary to popular myth, not everybody knows who all of the creeps are. In fact I’m pretty sure nobody knows who all of them are. (If somebody warns you about a person, that may or may not be valid. There are as many petty grudges in publishing as there are in any given high school. The person you were warned against may be a creep of the first water or they may have beaten the warner out for an anthology slot in 1992. Check sources, decide what you think is going on here.)
“I can introduce you around” is often a valid and non-creepy offer; it should not come with any dependent clauses such as “if you do me a favor.” Established professionals should introduce newer professionals and aspiring professionals around when it is convenient. It is part of our duty of care.
4) If you see a publishing professional or a group of writers and/or editors hanging around in the bar or hotel lobby by all means go over and introduce yourself and ask if you can join them. If they are alone and staring at their phone, they may be busy or waiting for a meeting… or they may be bored and want company! If they are in a group, they may be having a private conversation or a business conversation, or they may be hanging around and welcome you. If they say no it is not a rejection!
If you see an editor or an agent and a writer (plus or minus spouses) sitting huddled around a small table in the hotel restaurant or bar, that is probably a business meeting and you should pretend you didn’t see them and keep walking, even if they are people you know very well. Look at the body language. Is it welcoming? You can always ask “May I join you or is this a business conversation?”
Do not be hurt if it’s a business conversation. Go find a panel or something.
It is fine to say “May I join you for lunch?” Please be aware that there are many acceptable answers to this question and one such answer is “No.” (Many people have, for example, filtering issues and cannot endure a lunch with more than four or five people, for example.)
Also remember that other people cannot read your mind. If you have not told them that you want a writing friend, they’re not going to magically divine it and do the work for you. As with any relationship, you have to ask for what you want—and you still might not get it.
Some folks work very hard to make sure everyone’s being included. If someone is facilitating in that manner, please note that they are doing a lot of unappreciated labor out of the goodness of their heart. They are doing everybody a favor. You should not count on them (or anyone) doing that every time.
If you want to be part of the group, you have to make a move. It is not their job to chase you. They are here at this convention doing about six other jobs that actually are there job, or are stuff they volunteer for.
One you have joined the hang: Take turns talking. Do not monopolize the conversation. Do not make everything about you no matter how excited you are to be there.
Do not start directing the conversation or managing when other people talk and what they talk about. Asking questions is fine, but you are not the moderator of the table no matter how anxious you are feeling or how bad your control issues are. (The rest of us also have control issues. Trust me on this.)
(Absolutely make some things about you. You get to exist and take up space! Just not all the space.)
5) Volunteer for stuff, especially onerous stuff like SFWA or HWA office or volunteer roles, organizing writer’s tracks for conventions, and reading for award juries. Apply to a magazine as a slush reader. Once you have volunteered for The Stuff, actually show up and DO the stuff. Make yourself a part of the community inasmuch as your time and energy levels permit.
Show up for meetings.
6) But how do I get invited to the Secrit Group Chat/Mailing List/Discord?
Make friends using the above techniques. Keep them long enough and treat them well enough that they trust you implicitly. Do not betray that trust. Honor the Seal of Barcon and keep your confidences. Don’t be a dick. Help out where you can.
Occasionally (very occasionally) say wistfully, “I wish I had more intimate craft-focused writer spaces in my life.”
Eventually somebody will be like “actually I know a pretty cool space, let me see if I can get you an invite.”
Or you could start your own.