Registration includes access to the recording for 30 days.
Some conferences call these fast-paced events lightning round talks. In honor of the short CNF subgenre, we call them flash sessions! These have always been a popular and fun part of our in-person HippoCamp conference and, this year, we’re once again bringing their magic online.
In our Saturday HippoCamp Minis sessions, you’ll hear from five speakers who will share bite-sized wisdom with practical takeaways on a topic they’re passionate about, all related to writing creative nonfiction.
This is ONE OF FOUR events we’re hosting the weekend of the 16-17th! Read about all of them here.
This webinar session will feature:
Don't Panic: How to Give Sensitive and Effective Written Feedback (Justin Ancheta)
Has this ever happened to you? You exchanged pieces in a writing group or workshop, only to discover that the feedback you’re giving isn’t landing very well with others in your group. Or maybe you’re finding the process of giving feedback really hard, and you don’t know what to say about a piece you’ve received?
From their experience as a volunteer essay reader with Hippocampus Magazine, Justin Ancheta shares an approach to giving feedback that makes the process more satisfying and ultimately more useful for everyone involved.
This session will:
- share tips for how you can give more actionable feedback that other writers can use
- covers how you can provide more feedback specificity for writers, to help others move forward
- explore how you can give feedback that honours the lived experience of other writers
About the speaker: Justin Ancheta (He/They) lives in Treaty 13 territory and is a stuttering Filipino-Canadian passionate about the tarot, science, spirituality and queerness. Their hybrid CNF draws from their experience as a racialized bi+ ace person with a speech disorder. Their work has been published in AZE Journal, Queer Toronto, carte blanche, The Tahoma Literary Review, and The Ex-Puritan. He is working on a memoir-in-pieces as a collection of lyrical creative nonfiction, and an examination of the tarot from an asexual perspective. He is @rampancy on Instagram and @jancheta25 on Bluesky.
Not Just a Backdrop: Writing Place as a Lived Experience (Aurora Bonner)
Place is often thought of as scenery—there, but not integral. Yet place does more than set the scene: it evokes emotion, reveals identity, and anchors narrative in lived experience. When we treat place as a passive backdrop, we miss the chance to deepen meaning and bring our stories to life.
In this flash session, writer and teacher Aurora Bonner shares insights on writing place as personal, dynamic, and embodied. We’ll consider how our experiences shape the way we see and describe the landscapes we inhabit and explore how place can function as more than just setting—it can be emotional terrain.
This talk will:
- unpack what it means to write place as a “lived experience” and why that matters in CNF
- explore how identity, emotion, and perspective shape our perception of landscape
- offer practical tools and revision tips for making place more specific, personal, and alive on the page
Attendees will leave with strategies to energize their work with richer, more intentional depictions of place—and prompts to help them return to familiar settings with fresh perspective.
About the speaker: Aurora Bonner is a place-based writer of creative nonfiction and fiction who explores the relationship between identity and environment. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys and DINE, as well as in HerStry, Impost, Under the Gum Tree, and other literary journals. She regularly reviews books for Colorado Review and Hippocampus Magazine. Aurora is a writing professor at McDaniel College in Maryland and leads workshops and retreats focused on nature, creativity, and personal narrative. She holds an MFA from Wilkes University.
First, Second, Third: Experimenting with POV in CNF (Jackie Domenus)
Oftentimes, CNF writers naturally gravitate toward the first person singular point of view in the past tense to tell our stories. But what literary magic can we unlock when we change the “I” to “you,” or when we refer to our child-selves in the third person, or when we speak directly to a loved one in our writing? How can we refresh our own craft and processes when we shift away from the “traditional”? In this craft mini-session, we will:
- Consider the function and impact of different POVs in CNF when they are used with intentionality
- Explore examples of experimental POV by acclaimed CNF writers
- Consider ways to experiment with POV in our own writing
About the speaker: Jackie Domenus (they/she) is a queer, gender nonconforming writer from South Jersey. Their first book, No Offense: A Memoir in Essays, was published with ELJ Editions in 2025. A former Sundress Academy for the Arts resident and Tin House Workshop graduate, Jackie’s work has appeared in HuffPost, The Normal School, Foglifter Journal, and elsewhere.
Um, Gimme a Sec Here: Six Interview Tips for CNF Writers (Amy Fish)
Interviewing can be a challenge for memoirists and narrative nonfiction writers alike. Maybe you have too many questions and aren’t sure where to start. Maybe you are asking questions but aren’t getting the answers you are looking for. Join us for this session where we will discuss six interview techniques that you can put into action immediately, including:
- How to develop a list of questions that will get you the answers you need;
- How to build rapport with interviewees you’ve never met
- How to know when to stop the interview
About the speaker: Amy Fish is a born storyteller with a tendency to over research. Her latest book, “One in Six Million” went into a second printing after only 7 weeks. She is a staff book reviewer and interviewer here at Hippocampus Magazine.
Mind Your C’s: Contrast, Conflict and Change (Lillie Gardner)
Before you submit, don’t forget! Contrast, conflict and change are crucial for keeping our stories compelling for the reader. Contrast helps build memorable characters and surprising moments. Conflict includes clearer stakes and tension, which brings momentum to the reading experience. And change is what we’re reading for: what happens and why is everything different because of it? In this flash session, we’ll dive into these essential components of story and identify strategies to strengthen them. Participants will leave with a checklist of questions to use when preparing their work for submission.
About the speaker: Lillie Gardner is a writer of screenplays and prose in Minnesota. As a screenwriter, she’s been a Winner at Austin Film Festival and Catalyst Festival, featured in MovieMaker Magazine as a “Screenwriter to Watch,” and she’s currently a Fellow in the Hollywood Radio & TV Society Foundation Fellowship Program. Since minoring in creative writing at NYU alongside her music studies, Lillie’s been published in Quail Bell Magazine, the Delmarva Review, PANK Magazine and more. She teaches at The Loft Literary Center, writes screenplay and novel coverage, and serves as an essays reader for Hippocampus.
TICKET OPTIONS
You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($25) or register for the entire weekend ($75); choose your option below:
