The Neurodivergent Publishing Conference (NPC) happened this past weekend, and I could not be happier at how it went, honestly. While I haven’t talked a lot about it here (and I should have) I have been working very hard at this project for essentially a year straight.
So what is it?
As the name implies, it’s a virtual writing/editing/publishing conference for neurodivergent people. If you’re not sure what that means, it reflects a range of interrelated conditions and learning difficulties such as autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and other neurological differences. While the definition of the term is evolving, that’s how we are using it as per the conference.
The conference was put together by four of us: Lisa Hislop, Leslie E. Heath, Melanie Stormm, and myself. All of us are various flavors of neurodivergent (I’m autistic and have ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, for example).
The idea for the conference came out of the Facebook groups we run for neurodivergent folks in the writing/publishing space. The groups came to be after a discussion in an editing group started by someone looking for other neurodivergent editors to connect with so they felt less alone. Seeing a need for such a thing, I pounced and created the Neurodivergent Editors’ Lounge on Facebook. We have seen strong membership numbers and a wonderful, vibrant community of people.
There will be links at the bottom of the message for a few different things you can access relating to the NPC. And no, we didn’t take an arrow to the knee. 😉
From the editors’ group came the Neurodivergent Writers’ Lounge on Facebook, which has seen equally wonderful activity, membership, and community. Seeing all the conversations and the talk and the comradery has been a delight, to be honest. It’s a space where we can talk about our unique difficulties while also celebrating our successes and sharing useful insights, coping skills, and techniques to help us focus when our brains are just having none of it.
Seeing all of that loveliness put the idea in my brain to host a conference. I’ve not been to conferences much in my life (read: at all) but one thing I do know about large gatherings is that they tend to be inherently not neurodivergent-friendly by their nature. They’re loud, overstimulating, exhausting, and stressful. Not to mention expensive. And many neurodivergent folks don’t have much for income. And virtual conferences I’ve heard of are often the dreaded Zoom wall of faces which is an awful lot to handle for any length of time.
After cooking up this idea at 2am (because of course I did), I mentioned it to Leslie (co-admin of the writers group) who loved the idea. I also roped in Lisa (who is my co-admin of the editing group) and Melanie. The four of us had many meetings about how to make the conference work, how to plan it, what we wanted to include, and how to make it work. Over the course of the year we met every week for many months as the conference took shape.
All four worked hard and contributed a great deal to the conference’s success, and I am so incredibly proud of everything we made happen. We had an amazing keynote speaker in NYT Bestseller Malorie Cooper (M.D. Cooper), editorial legend Dick Margulis, and two incredible sessions by the phenomenal Quinn Ward discussing the nuts and bolts of Amazon ads and read-through rate. As well as multiple panels, talks about productivity, and more.
All of these sessions were recorded and will be made available to the public on March 6th, 2023 over on the NPC’s YouTube channel.
This week I am putting the videos together and working on getting everything straightened out and working with our amazing volunteers who are helping edit captions. And the council (leadership of the conference) is already planning next year’s conference using everything we learned from this year.
Next year, we do more marketing. But this year we had just over 120 attendees between speakers, volunteers, and ticket holders. The platform we chose (Gather) was perfect. The pixel art, confetti fights, and having a little avatar to walk around the conference was ideal. Everything about it was perfect. And next year we aim to make it even better.
Links:
NPC YouTube:
Neurodivergent Editors’ Lounge
Neurodivergent Writers’ Lounge
Neurodivergent Publishing Lounge Centered Group
