News

Registration for Ch21Con 2021 is Open!

Hello friends! It’s that time of year again. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to figure out the best and safest ways to put on our conference this year, and we’re so grateful for your patience and enthusiasm as we waited to see what 2021 had in store.

We are pleased to announce that Chapter Twenty One Conference will be held this July 31st as a hybrid event with both online-only and in-person options for attendance!

We are aware of the ongoing risks that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to those who are not yet or cannot be vaccinated for a number of reasons. We also learned throughout our experience last year how to best expand the conference to be accessible to those who can’t leave home or travel to Chicago, and moving forward we’re committed to making a virtual attendance option available for all our future events. All this being said, we are still very eager to create safe, in-person opportunities for young writers to meet, network, and collaborate. 

Ch21Con was created as a way to bring a vibrant online community of 20-something writers out into the IRL space for a weekend of togetherness, eye-contact, and awkward geekery. Ch1Con and Ch21Con themselves have in the past been a chance for our team, which is scattered all across the country, to hug each other after a whole year of long-distance friendship. For this reason, we’re doing our best to bring an in-person component back to the event for those who are vaccinated or willing to mask and social-distance. 

Here are some details about how this will work. 

The in-person component of the conference will be held at our regular venue, the Hilton Garden Inn of Chicago/Tinley Park. In addition to following hotel guidelines, attendees will be asked to show proof of vaccination before entering our event space without a mask. Masks will be required for all attendees who are not fully vaccinated for whatever reason. If you register for in-person Ch21Con 2021 attendance but cannot attend in person for whatever reason, you will have the option to transition your admission to online by contacting us at chapter21conference@gmail.com.

As for online attendees, we will also be opening a forum (through our Discord) that will allow attendees to chat, share their work, and collaborate on writing exercises. Our speakers will take questions and encourage participation from those online and off, and we will all do our best to make you feel as if everyone’s physically together. We are looking to have a combination of both online and in-person speakers (veteran Ch1Events attendees have lots of experience with remote speakers at our in-person events) but we are allowing speakers the same flexibility to shift to remote attendance as needed.

Speaking of speakers…we are SO excited to announce that our Keynote speaker for 2021 is none other than young author and future feature filmmaker, Camryn Garrett!

Camryn has been a friend of the conference for some time now and we are so excited to finally be able to have her join us for a keynote address, as well as our Ask Us Anything panel. For those of you who might not know, Camryn Garrett is a longstanding member of the young writers community on social media, and is the author of two novels published by Random House Children’s. Full Disclosure, which was released in 2019, and Off the Record, which was released in 2021, are both incredible stories and we encourage you to check them out if you haven’t already. 

We are so thrilled to be able to share this news and open registration for you all today! 

Attendance is available to any young writers who will be between the ages of 21 and 29 as of July 25th, 2020. (If you’ll be between the ages of 11 and 20, check out the Chapter One Young Writers Conference!)

Register now at our New Attendee Online rate of $50* (lunch not included)! 

Ch1Con Youth Registration Link

Ch1Con 18-20 Registration Link

Ch21Con Registration Link

You can also register at our New Attendee In- Person Rate of $70*

Ch1Con Youth In-Person Link

Ch1Con 18-20 In-Person Link

Ch21Con In-Person Link

*if you are a past attendee of Ch1Con or Ch21Con you are eligible for a discounted rate. You should have received an email to this effect, but if you did not, please contact us at chapter21conference@gmail.com.

Finally, to address some of our common FAQs…

Interested in who this year’s other speakers will be? Keep an eye on the blog, because we’ll be announcing the speakers very soon! (And, as usual, registered attendees will get a sneak peek via e-mail!)

Curious what’s going on with Ch1Camp this year? Once again, updates on that are soon to come over at chapteroneconference.org. We have some very exciting plans for free online events in the works. 

We’d also like to introduce our Patreon! If you can’t make it to the conference but still want to support us, becoming a patron is a great option.

As usual, spots are limited to attend the conference, so make sure to register before they’re gone!

We’re so excited for the 2021 conference (and hope you are too)! See you (virtually or in person) in July!

— The Ch1Events Team

March Online Events

Hey, everyone!

This month we’re going to be having, as always, two online events. Keep an eye on our social media for any other potential news and happenings!

On Thursday, March 11, at 8 PM ET/7 PM CT, we’ll be having an hour-long Twitter chat on the topic of balancing writing and work. Join us on our Twitter @ch21con and tweet using #Ch21Con to join the conversation!

On Saturday, March 27, from 7-10 PM ET/6-9 PM CT, we’ll be hosting a virtual write-in on our awesome Discord channel. Join us at that time (or pop in whenever you feel like it) for word sprints, procrastination, and book talk! The link is here, and you don’t need an account to join: https://discord.gg/dApav75

Hope to see you all at our events!

January Online Events

Hello everyone and happy 2021! We’re thrilled for 2020 to be over, and hopeful that 2021 will bring some joy. One nice thing about 2021 is our Ch21Con online events are still on!

For January, we’re starting with a Twitter chat on the topic of world-building. Join us on Thursday, January 14th from 8-9 PM ET (7-8 PM CT) using the hashtag #Ch21Con. All writers are welcome to participate!

Then, on Saturday, January 30th from 7-10 PM ET (6-9 PM CT) we’ll be hosting a virtual write-in on our Discord. Join us at this link: https://discord.gg/dApav75 . You don’t need an account to join, just type in your name and you can chat with us, procrastinate, or participate in word sprints!

Keep an eye on our website and social media for any special events that might pop up this month or next!

Hope to see you all at our monthly events!

December Online Events

Hey everyone!

It’s already December- wow! This month, we have a line-up of exciting online events.

First of all, we’re excited to introduce the first in a series of online writing workshops: Bare Bones- An Intro to Outlining, led by Haley Crosby. Haley’s been part of the Chapter One Events community for a long time and we are thrilled to see what she has to present! The event will be streaming this Friday, December 4 at 7 PM ET on our YouTube channel, so get ready to come and watch it! (This first event will be free, but in the future, you may have to pay a small fee to access our online workshops).

Next, we as always have our monthly online events! Our Twitter chat this month will be on Thursday, December 10 from 8 to 9 pm ET (7 to 8 pm CT). The topic will be writers on Twitter. As always, all writers of any age or experience are free to join- share your thoughts using the hashtag #Ch21Con!

And our virtual write-in will take place on our Discord on Saturday, December 26 from 7-10 PM ET (6-9 PM CT) and is a place to chat, sprint, procrastinate, and more. Our Discord is here: https://discord.gg/dApav75 and is open to all writers- no account necessary.

Can’t wait to see you all at our December events!

November Online Events

Hello, Ch21Con community! Welcome to November, and happy NaNoWriMo to those of you participating! As usual, we’ve got our November online events for you this month.

On Thursday, November 12, from 8-9 PM ET (7-8 PM CT), we’ll be hosting our Twitter chat on the topic of #OwnVoices. Join us at our Twitter account @ch21con, and use the hashtag #Ch21Con to participate! As always, writers from any age group or level of experience are welcome.

And on Saturday, November 28, from 7-10 PM ET (6-9 PM CT), we’ll be hosting our virtual write-in, a space for you to write, chat, procrastinate, discuss your book, and more! We’ll have several word sprints throughout- a great place for you to catch up on word count in your WIP. Join us at our Discord here: https://discord.com/invite/dApav75 . You don’t need a Discord account to join; just type in your name to start chatting with us. You can also pop into our Discord throughout the month to share writing ideas or start up sprints!

Keep an eye on our social media for any other impromptu events that we may have throughout the month! See you soon!

October Events

We’re so excited! Are you excited? For what, you ask? For the return of Ch21Con monthly online events!

COVID and conference planning may have derailed our online events for a while, but we are back to business! This year, expect our usual monthly events (Twitter chats and virtual write-ins) as well as some surprises coming your way! Keep an eye on our social media (@ch21con on Twitter, @ch1con on Instagram, and the Chapter Twenty One Conference Facebook page) for updates. We’re also hoping to do some NaNoWriMo events next month for all you NaNo writers!

This month:

Our Twitter chat will be Thursday, October 8 at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT. This month’s topic will just be about checking in with all of you, essentially about being a young writer in the time of COVID-19. (You’ll have a chance to vote on next month’s topic at the end of the chat). Join us using the hashtag #ch21con and share your thoughts! Any writer is free to join!

Our virtual write-in will be Saturday, October 31 from 7-10 pm ET, 6-9 pm CT. Since we can’t go out for Halloween this year, why not stay in and join us online? It’ll be hosted on our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/dApav75. As always, anyone is free to join, and you don’t need a Discord account- you can just type in your name and join the chat. (Feel free to hang around our Discord for writing sprints and advice any time!) We’ll be doing word sprints, talking over our writing, and just procrastinating and chatting!

Can’t wait to talk to everyone! See you soon.

2020 Registration Is Open!

How exciting! Despite quarantine, we are going to have Ch21Con, and it is going to be online, naturally. Registration is open for July 25, and the information is all right here. You can also register for Ch1Con, of course, if you’re under age 21.

We are pleased to announce that Chapter Twenty-One (and One) Conference will be held this July 25th as a 100% online event.

We are obviously sad that we cannot have our conference this year in person. Ch21Con was created as a way to bring a vibrant online community of young writers out into the real world for a weekend of togetherness, eye-contact, and awkward geekery. It has been absolutely devastating for us to cancel this IRL event for the first time since 2012. The team is scattered all across the country, and we miss each other just as much as we miss all of you. However, more than anything, we want to keep our community healthy and safe. And, no matter what, the show will go on…perhaps with a few more technical difficulties than usual.

At this digital Ch21Con, speakers will give presentations via video conferencing (details on platform coming soon). Giveaway items will be mailed to your listed address, along with a care package of swag and other writerly goodies.

We will also be opening a forum that will allow attendees to chat, share their work, and collaborate on writing exercises. Our speakers will take questions and encourage participation from those online, and we will all do our best to make you feel as if we’re physically together.

Attendance is open to any writers who will be between the ages of 21 and 29 by this July 25th. (For those who are younger, be sure to register for Ch1Con- links below)!

Register now at our New Attendee rate of $50* (lunch not included)!

Ch1Con Youth Registration Link

Ch1Con 18-20 Registration Link

Ch21Con Registration Link

*if you are a past attendee of the conferences, you are eligible for a discounted rate. You should have received an e-mail to this effect, but if you did not please contact us here.

Now, for the more typical, ~precedented~ FAQs…

Interested in who this year’s speakers are? Keep an eye on the blog, because we’ll be announcing the speakers very soon! (And, as usual, registered attendees will get a sneak peek via e-mail!)

Curious what’s going on with Ch1Camp this year? Once again, updates on that are soon to come. We have some very exciting plans for free online events in the works.

As usual, spots are limited to attend the conference, so make sure to register before they’re gone!

If you can’t make it to the conference but still want to support us, we have a patreon now!

We’re so excited for the 2020 conference (and hope you are too)! See you (virtually) in July!

Love,

The Ch21Con team

March Online Events

Hello all! We’re excited to start March. This month, we’ll be opening registration, so keep an eye out on our website and social media for that, as well as speaker announcements coming soon!

We’ll be holding our usual monthly events this month:

Our Twitter chat will be on Thursday, March 12 at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT, and it will be on the topic of writing friendships. Any writer is welcome, no matter age or experience level- just use #Ch21Con to contribute your thoughts (and feel free to respond to questions even after the chat’s over).

Our virtual write-in will be on Saturday, March 28 from 7-10 pm ET/6-9 pm CT, and as always it will be hosted on our team Discord. Join us for three hours of word sprints, writing discussion, and general procrastination. You can always go into our Discord the rest of the month to start sprints or hash through a plot problem with our team members or fellow young writers: https://discord.gg/dApav75

We look forward to seeing you all at our March events!

February Online Events

Hey, everyone! After taking January off, we’re back in full swing for a month of events in February.

On Thursday, February 13 from 8-9 pm ET (7-8 pm CT) we’ll be hosting our monthly Twitter chat on the topic of reading as a writer. Join us on our Twitter at @ch21con and use the hashtag #Ch21Con to join! Writers of all ages/experience levels are welcome.

On Saturday, February 29 from 7-10 pm ET (6-9 pm CT) we’ll hold our monthly virtual write-in on our Discord. We’ll be holding sprints and chatting about plot problems or procrastination. Join us on our Discord channel here: https://discordapp.com/invite/dApav75 (Remember, you don’t need a Discord account- just write your name and click out of any pop-up boxes and you’ll be chatting with us right away!)

Keep your eyes on our social media to check out anything else we might be up to! Hope to see you all at our events!

November Online Events

Hey, everyone! November is starting and that means NaNoWriMo for a lot of us. We’ll be having our usual online events, which we hope will help you get in the mood for writing. And if you’re not doing NaNo, join us anyway!

Our Twitter chat will be on November 14 from 8-9 pm ET (7-8 pm CT) on the topic of endings. Join us on our Twitter at @ch21con and use the hashtag #Ch21Con to join! Writers of all ages/experience levels are welcome.

Our virtual write-in will be on November 30 from 7-10 pm ET (6-9 pm CT). We’ll be holding sprints and chatting about plot problems or procrastination. Join us on our Discord channel here: https://discordapp.com/invite/dApav75 (Remember, you don’t need a Discord account- just write your name and click out of any pop-up boxes and you’ll be chatting with us right away!)

Keep your eyes on our social media accounts to find out about any more online events we may be hosting! Thanks for joining us!