Preliminary Schedule

At the Stockholm Writers Festival, we offer craft and business breakouts, events, intensives, inspirational panels and so much more! All aimed at helping writers up their game regardless of genre or experience level. And find their path to published, whether indie, self or traditional.

This is a preliminary schedule. The full version will be released when ticketing opens March 25.

Friday August 29, Intensives

2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Shoring up the saggy middle with Tiffany Yates Martin: Is there anything more thrilling for the creative soul than starting a shiny new story? That sexy little minx seduces you effortlessly, promising you a dazzling future, and in the heady flush of new love it feels as if this perfect communion between you will never end. And then comes the middle of the book. When a manuscript loses its momentum, there can be several culprits including lost cohesion, lack of character arc and other issues. But when things get tough, that doesn’t mean the story isn’t worth fighting for. Figuring out the problem and propping up the sag can often add even more depth and dimension. Let Tiffany Yates Martin show you how to diagnose what’s stalling out your story–and give you practical, actionable tools to get it back on the road!

Getting started or finishing that novel with Mike Gayle: In this interactive session, discover how to generate and develop ideas like a professional writer. Start from the beginning: Learn how to create log lines that capture the essence of your story and build from there. Understand the steps for constructing a solid narrative structure and avoid the common pitfalls that derail too many stories. This workshop is for writers struggling to transform ideas into a novel or for complete beginners looking to start a project from scratch. (Limit 25 writers)

Festival opens: 5:00

First 5 Pages Prize presentation and a surprise community-oriented happening.

Saturday and Sunday, August 30 and 31

Breakouts

Romantasy and beyond with Tasha Suri: Romantic fantasy, fantasy romance and fantasy with romantic elements are a perennially popular subgenre. In this session, we will discuss how to write compelling romances wrapped up in fantasy worlds. Together, we will learn how to use elements of fantasy to heighten our written romances and discuss how to use romance to sharpen the majesty and peril of our fantasy tales.

Seamlessly Weaving in Backstory (Without Stalling Out Your Story) with Tiffany Yates Martin: Believable characters and the world they live in don’t just spring to life fully formed at the beginning of your story. Ideally, if you’ve developed them fully, they are “real,” three-dimensional people with complex backstories and experiences living in vividly relatable worlds that have shaped who they are at your story’s “point A,” and inform the journey they take in your manuscript. Yet how can you fluidly weave all that depth and complexity into your story without stalling pace and story momentum by getting bogged down in info dumps, flashbacks, or just too much exposition? In detailed, example-filled lessons, this course offers clear, practical guidelines for lacing in backstory to develop and reveal who your characters have been without slowing down the story of where they’re going.

Using setting to build character with Sophie Austin: Plot. Character. Setting. All of these are important when crafting an engaging story. Question: But how can you make these elements work overtime? Answer: By super charging your settings. In this session, we're going to look at how you can turn your settings into characters in and of themselves, and explore how they can work with your characterization, your conflict, and your plot to elevate your story. Making it unputdownable to readers.

Literary strip tease - secrets, twists, and reveals with Tiffany Yates Martin: Pulling off a successful reveal is a tricky tightrope act between giving readers enough information to feel invested and holding back enough to keep them hooked. It's the striptease of literature: show too much and you lose all the excitement and buildup. Too little and nobody cares. Balancing these considerations often relies on three key elements: knowing what and how much to keep as a reveal, when to reveal it, and how to unspool the hidden information for maximum suspense and impact. Learn how to determine what to conceal and what to reveal, and when, and how to do it most effectively.

What causes writer's block (and most importantly) how to fix it with Sophie Austin:
"Writer's Block" is often used as a catch-all term to mean "anything that stops us from writing". But we believe there's something very specific that causes writers block – and there's a way to fix it. It starts from understanding that writers aren't just writers. We're editors, too. And when both these "sides" of our brain compete, we get stuck. Come along to this session for tips on how to unlock your creativity.

Building and engaging your community - crafting newsletters that get opened with Lisa Ferland: Unlike social media, where algorithm changes can affect visibility, newsletters reach subscribers' inboxes directly, ensuring that content is seen by those who are most interested. In this session, authors will learn how to authentically build and engage with their community by leveraging newsletters and consistent reader engagement. This session will highlight key strategies for crafting compelling newsletters, driving reader interaction, and the tools they can use to foster long-term relationships with their audience.

Events

Literary Idol: At SWF18—our very first year—we debuted this event. Now we’ve made it a regular feature. What is it? A fun (yet respectful) gameshow-style happening where the first page of an anonymous manuscript is read to our expert panel of agents and editors. Judges indicate when they would stop reading and give constructive critique.

Buttonhole the Expert: One of the highlights of SWF, this is an event that gives every guest the opportunity to talk to faculty in small group formats. When the (world famous) SWF cowbell rings, everyone rises and heads to another expert’s table and we begin again for a total of three rounds. Kinda like speed dating, but not at all romantic, and for writers.

Agent one-on-one meetings

For those ready for feedback, these meetings can be purchased with our agents. You’ll get ten minutes to present your idea and get constructive comments back.

Panels

So many paths to published: Librarian. Epidemiologist. Advice columnist for girls. Our faculty have come from a diverse set of experiences to travel the path to published. In this conversation moderated by Paul Rapacioli, learn the turns each of our faculty members have taken to arrive where they are today.

What it really takes to land and keep your agent with Sophie Austin: For many writers, landing an agent is their ultimate goal. But what does it really take to attract and sustain a writer-agent relationship? In this conversation, we delve into one first-time authors experience. Spoiler alert: the manuscript she pitched to obtain the agent wasn’t the one that ultimately landed her a two-book deal with Machete. Moderator: Paul Rapacioli

Contest

Each year we announce the rules of a micro fiction contest. The winner is announced on the final day of SWF and can take home the bragging rights and a prize from the festival.