Back for its 8th year! The annual conference of Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media & the Arts (LDSPMA) is the best networking, learning, and professional development opportunity for all Latter-day Saint creatives. In this podcast bonus episode, our host, Connie Sokol, and her guests, Rachelle J. Christensen and Jen Brewer, share fun and life-changing conference experiences that have propelled their careers forward. Registration for the October 20 - 22 conference is open now! Choose virtual, in-person, or both! Early bird registration ends Saturday, April 30th.
Rachelle's writing tips plus 7-Point Story Structure videos featuring Dan Wells
Back for its 8th year! The annual conference of Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media & the Arts (LDSPMA) is the best networking, learning, and professional development opportunity for all Latter-day Saint creatives. In this podcast bonus episode, our host, Connie Sokol, and her guests, Rachelle J. Christensen and Jen Brewer, share fun and life-changing conference experiences that have propelled their careers forward. Registration for the October 20 - 22 conference is open now! Choose virtual, in-person, or both! Early bird registration ends Saturday, April 30th.
Rachelle's writing tips plus 7-Point Story Structure videos featuring Dan Wells
Conference Promo Bonus Episode
Connie: 00:00 Welcome back to “Called to Create.” I'm Connie Sokol, your host, and I am so thrilled to have two fabulous friends on today. We are colleagues, we're friends, we've been partners in crime, and we are here today to talk about the power of the LDSPMA conferences and how it can help you on your creative journey.
Connie: 00:21 Yes, it's true. It really does work. So let's just jump into it. So glad to have with me, Jen Brewer and Rachelle Christensen Hepworth. So nice to have you here today, ladies.
Jen: 00:30 Thank you so much for having us come here, Connie.
Rachelle: 00:34 I’m so excited to be here.
Connie: 00:36 We're so excited and we’re so blessed to have such stellar people. These guys know what they are doing.
Connie: 00:40 So let's jump into their awesomeness right now. Rachelle J. Christensen, which is her author name, is the award-winning author of over 20 books. And yes, she has many children as well, people. She's a mother of five and an organizer of 75+ chickens raised annually by her family.
Connie: 00:57 She carves out time with her writing in between homeschooling kids and her work as a book mom, as a writing and marketing coach for authors. And she is boss. She graduated cum laude from Utah State University with a degree in psychology and a minor in music and just finished up being part of a production of Beauty and the Beast.
Connie: 01:14 Let's just put that little nod in. Now we have Jen Brewer. Jennifer also is her official name, but she is the nourisher of bodies and souls. And she literally does that with food, with joy, with spiritual. She's amazing when she's not caring for her seven children or planning date nights with her husband, you'll find her writing, speaking, or building up forgotten communities around the world through digging gardens, goal-setting, and nutrition education.
Connie: 01:39 Born and raised in Burley, Idaho, she now claims Minnesota as her home, but has instilled within her children a love of all things potato, and misses her western mountains terribly. You two get along great because you're both in Idaho. Some of her books include The Bench, Stop Dieting and Start Losing Weight for Good. And she also engages in global malnutrition research and has several research publications in various peer-reviewed journals of North and South America.
Connie: 02:02 And she is currently working for a humanitarian organization and is incredible in the things that she is moving forward around the world. Feeling intimidated? What? No, because these women are so down to earth and they're going to share with you how they were able to do this creative journey through some of the things that they learned at these conferences.
Connie: 02:21 So let's jump in to the awesomeness of the conferences. Tell me an experience that you had that was maybe a memorable one. When you went to a writing conference, particularly, maybe LDSPMA, or even any writing conference that really did affect you and impact some way you're writing or speaking or something of that nature.
Rachelle: 02:39 I would say for me, the very first one that I went to, it was way back in 2006, and I'd done a lot of study on my own. And I thought that I knew a lot about writing, and I had written my first book and entered it in a contest. And I went, it was actually the second year of LDS Storymakers. That's the conference that I went to. And I took my baby, like, had to nurse her in between.
Rachelle: 03:02 And anyway, when I got there, and I was thinking I knew something about writing, I found out I didn't know anything. But I wasn't, I wasn't discouraged. I was actually just in awe of the possibilities and the people that were there. Rachel [Ann] Nunez, she was one of my idols. She still is. I love her books.
Rachelle: 03:20 And so I looked at all of that potential, and I just got really excited because I knew that I'd found something that could help me reach my goals.
Connie: 03:29 Oh, my goodness. In fact, I remember my first Storymakers conference. And I looked around and everyone's talking about characters like they're real people. And they were having all these wider conversations that I went, Ah, my people! And, I’m like, I'm a writer! Like, you know, dissolve kind of a view, like. I was like, Oh, wow!
Connie: 03:46 Jen, what about you?
Jen: 03:47 Mine, absolutely is the same. It's, I thought I was in my own bubble with my writing and kind of weird that I liked all these different genres: nonfiction, in the gospel, outside of the gospel, and I wanted to dabble into fiction. I thought it was weird and I went to a writers conference and, like you, Connie, I realized there's a whole tribe of us.
Jen: 04:08 And they speak my language, and we can have these weird conversations that make even my husband kind of pat me and be like, okay, that's sweet. But that's the biggest thing is finding the people who are just, in my mind, these idols and enigmas. And you go talk at a conference and they're normal people. And they actually want to help.
Jen: 04:33 It's not this: people who’ve made it, people who haven't. It's everybody's there, everybody's helping everybody else. It's such a synergy that you cannot compare anywhere else.
Connie: 04:44 Oh, my gosh, I've got goosebumps up and down my arms. And I feel like, you know, the music segue from High School Musical, We're all in this together, right?
Connie: 04:50 I really do. That is such a beautiful thing. And I love that you make that point that sometimes we can feel intimidated wherever we are on our journey. And we look at…they've made it and I just don't wanna…and we want to be respectful too because really they do have a lot of people crowding around them all the time.
Connie: 05:05 Got it. But I still remember being at a Storymakers, I had this burning question and I knew that Josi Kilpack could answer it. And I saw her at one of the rounds. And I was like, Do I? Do I? I don't want one of those fans, right? But I just felt good about going up. And I was very respectful and I said, I have just a quick question, but I can wait and we can talk another time.
Connie: 05:23 And she was like, No, what do you need? And answered my question just like that. And she has become a dear friend. We just interviewed her also for LDPMA for the podcast. So you never know when those kinds of connections will happen. And that's with editors too. Lisa Mangum, I think, is a poster child for being able to be open and connecting and come on up and ask questions, and you don't need to feel intimidated. Let's get you on your path and let's get you sharing your story.
Connie: 05:47 Can you share a specific tool or skill that you learned at one of these conferences that really helped you move forward, that maybe you were struggling with something, or maybe it gave you an idea that you hadn't planned on, or maybe an experience that you were able to springboard off of. Was there a specific thing that helped you jumpstart a specific part of your journey?
Rachelle: 06:10 Well, I'm just thinking I went to a class that Dan Wells taught, and I loved it. He taught about a series structure and kind of how to outline. And he's the one who introduced me to the seven point plot outline that I've used in dozens of novels.
Rachelle: 06:30 And he just showed, like. how you have these arcs throughout each book and connecting in a series and how then the series has an entire arc throughout it. And the way that he explained it just made it really, I guess, doable. And, and for me, I'm all about time economy. I can't be okay with cutting 50,000 words.
Rachelle: 06:53 I have some friends that write, you know, from the seat of their pants. And then they're like, oh, I made it. It didn't work, so I had to go back and cut 20,000 words. I can't do that. I got to write lean and then fill in the blanks. And so that method really helped me. And just, yeah, I think going to these conferences and these classes that I took helped me become the writer that I am today.
Connie: 07:14 I love that. And in fact, if you're okay with it, would you mind the show notes showing that seven point outline? Would that work?
Rachelle: 07:20 Yeah. It's well-known. They use it in screenwriting all the time. So, yeah, I'll share it with you.
Connie: 07:27 I think that's fantastic because I know listeners are gonna be like, Ooh, give me some of that, right? Jen, what about you?
Jen: 07:33 Mine was…oh, I've had so many sitting in classes. One of those was similar. It was the hero's journey. I had known about the hero's journey, but actually putting it…and this is when I jumped from non-fiction to fiction.
Jen: 07:44 So, it was like drinking from a fire hydrant. Just what do I need to learn? How do I do this? And applying the hero's journey into fiction for me was huge. And realizing, oh, I have a whole lot of plot holes. I had my whole manuscript done.
Jen: 08:00 I thought it was the bee's knees. I thought it was amazing. Well, not only that, but a lot of conferences will allow you to send part of your manuscript in to professionals to critique. And this sweet professional, her name is Robin, she was so kind and dear, because she could have hashed it and said, Honey, go try again.
Jen: 08:23 Instead, she probably had more notes on that writing critique than my snippet that I sent her. But it was all teaching. She was like, Let me teach you why this is important. Let me teach you how to do a proper introduction. Let me teach you why you don't need three pages of backstory. You let me teach you.
Jen: 08:44 And I learned more from that, that was associated, it was part of the writer's conference. I could send it in ahead. I learned more from that than I would have from probably reading 20 books of somebody else's work, because she took my personal work and said, Here's how to make it better. It was beautiful and it totally pivoted my entire manuscript.
Connie: 09:05 Oh my goodness. And I love that you bring up that point of these other pieces that are available in the conferences. It's not just the classes you go, you sit, you learn, you leave, right? It is these pitches and these query sessions and it's the mix and mingle. And then it's the connections you make at the tables.
Connie: 09:23 I know Rachelle and I had a cool experience. I'll go ahead and let you share it, but a cool experience at a writing conference that was pivotal to a work that we decided to engage in.
Rachelle: 09:31 Yes. And I can’t remember when I met you, but I know it was at a writing conference, I just can't remember when. We've known each other so long.
Rachelle: 09:41 And we went to a different writing conference. And I was sitting there, and I had this idea and I really wanted to do an anthology. And I had a story written that I thought would be good. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have it set in this little town and our characters bump into each other.
Rachelle: 09:59 And so then I started talking to you, and I was like, Do you think we could do this? And you're like, Yes, we should totally do it in Upstate New York. And then we looked around the room and we're like, Well, maybe we could ask her and maybe we can ask her. And basically at the writing conference, we put together what is the best-selling Echo Ridge Anthology, the group of us authors.
Rachelle: 10:19 And we wrote stories in this little, small town and clean romance, and it turned out to be so much fun. And, really, weren't we, like, writing on a little notepad, the hotel notepad?
Connie: 10:31 It was the Marriott. And I remember we were at the VIP table, cause we were speaking, some of us were speaking there and we're like getting ideas, and like, oh my gosh, let's call it, yeah, oh, Echo Ridge.
Connie: 10:40 That sounds great. Okay, well let's have it be like this and we'll be, like, a store that's going out. And it says, back in the old day and they want to revive. I mean, we were going to town and we were in our own little zone. And then three different anthology series’ later, like, oh my goodness! It was such a joy to work on.
Connie: 10:58 And to have those other women, we still have a picture of it. Maybe I'll find it for the show notes. I still have that picture of us sitting at the table all smiley at the beginning of the journey. So it's the connections that you make there that if you will open up, introduce yourself, talk to the person next to you.
Connie: 11:12 You'll end up with a partnership or a group, a critique group, or maybe you'll end up with someone that you can just exchange emails and just be inspired by or motivated when we all hit the trough level of the rollercoaster ride when you go down to the down. We all hit that.
Connie: 11:29 And a conference provides just what you ladies are saying. It's learning, but then it's connection and then it's springboarding. And it's this motivational boost of, You have a story to tell, so let's get in there and figure out what you need in order to better tell it.
Jen: 11:44 I just wanted to jump in a second, and I feel like I'm telling on myself because I'm now working with the conference. I love it so much that I'm helping with the quality control of the speakers. And believe me, there is so much that goes into getting the perfect speakers and getting fantastic subjects and really helping in all arenas.
Jen: 12:09 Okay, that's the plug, amazing, amazing sessions. But the conference for me is all about the people I meet outside of the classes and the people that I sit and talk with. I had just, please don't fire me, people of the conference, but at this last conference, I went and I was sitting with a friend. We kinda knew each other.
Jen: 12:28 We started sitting at lunch and talking. We ended up skipping the entire afternoon session cause we were sitting there talking, talking, talking, talking, and she is one of my best friends to this day. We started from that, talking every day on the phone and helping each other on our journey. Just leapfrogging from that one lunch conversation has taken me personally to a whole new realm.
Jen: 12:51 So yes, subject matter, conference classes, phenomenal. Even more, all of this stuff that you don't get from reading a book or from watching a YouTube. It's that before and after, it’s that networking. The pitch sessions, aul, that is really how I've gotten some of my books published is sitting face to face. You have this connection and then you can send an email and say, Hey, you asked for my manuscript, boom, here it is.
Connie: 13:19 And that is gold, right there, that is gold. And I think like you said, those opportunities are before you. I know I had just been asked to be the LDSPMA host, and I was at that conference and I was shameless.
Connie: 13:30 I'm going up to Susan Easton Black and Alex Boyé. I'm like, Hey, so wanna be on…? I just, you know, interviewed Susan, sweet Susan, who was amazing. It was a fabulous podcast. She is hysterical. But all of those opportunities are all just waiting, and it's waiting for you to come there. Now I do want you to give a little plug for the upcoming one.
Connie: 13:50 This may be a little bit evergreen, so just know the next upcoming LDSPMA conference is the one you need to attend. But the one that's upcoming, can you give us any, you know, we're giving you license to give us a little plug on what's coming up and what’s ahead.
Rachelle: 14:02 Ooo, I'm so excited. I'm part of the marketing track. So, I've been getting those classes together, and it ended up being more complicated than I thought because we're working so hard to have it be for all types of creators. So I'm a writer, but I was scheduling classes for all types, artists, musicians, you know, the works. And I have people that are experts in social media.
Rachelle: 14:25 I have this expert, her name's Connie, she's going to speak on speaking. And I have everything from a publicist to social media expert to someone who's been in publishing for like 30 years, incredible lineup of people.
Connie: 14:44 So fantastic. And the keynote…I heard rumors that we may, is it okay to say who it's possibly going to be or are you waiting for a big reveal?
Connie: 14:53 Shall we wait for the big reveal? We’ll wait for the big reveal. If it's this person that the rumors are floating about, Oh my goodness. You do not want to miss this. So love! Any other plug that you want to offer, Jen? We are shameless about this.
Jen: 15:08 I don't want to get in hot water with any reveals, but I will tell you from the last one, there was a seminar with Brendan Mull. And I brought my 14-year-old son who loves, loves, loves him.
Jen: 15:22 And I said, Hey, do you want to go to a writer's conference? Again, there's really no age discrepancy. You can be a teenager. You can be in the twilight years, and you will find something there for everybody. My son came and loved it. He was in heaven.
Jen: 15:38 And I thought, man, to think if I would have found this 30 years ago. Whoa! It's just one that… From last time, with all of the big guns that we had, if you can go back and look at the program, it's that, and more, are coming.
Connie: 15:56 And every conference just gets more and more juicy and just up-leveled and up-leveled, so good.
Connie: 16:02 I hope those listening are already off their chairs and going to the website. If people are listening, they're, like, man, I'm chomping at the bit. Where do I go to get my ticket? Where's the best way for them to go and purchase the ticket?
Jen: 16:13 ldspma.org would have all of the latest and greatest information and you can register directly from there. They will send out links. We do a lot of social media. You'll probably find it floating around social media, but you can always go straight to the source.
Connie: 16:30 I love. Okay, we just have time for you both to share one final tip. If you have one thing that someone listening, if they're still kind of on the fence about it, is there one thing that you would say to them or one thought that comes to mind that's been a blessing to you from this conference? Any last thought?
Rachelle: 16:50 I would definitely say when you go to the conference, you know, like Jen mentioned, we go for the classes, but look around and a lot of writers are a little bit introverted or maybe a lot. And so we tend to kind of stay in our own little world. But look around and get to know people and don't be afraid to reach outside of your comfort zone just a little.
Rachelle: 17:13 Because my first critique group, I found at a writer's conference. The impact in my writing career, I can't even tell you cause it's still continuing on. But one thing that was really neat is, I had written a book and it didn't fit, I don't know, exactly the same style as a lot of the other stuff that I had written.
Rachelle: 17:33 And I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't quite published yet, but I think I maybe had stuff in the works. Anyway, I entered the first chapter contest at LDS Storymakers with this book. And I ended up winning first place, and I was blown away. And I had only written the first chapter because it was, you know, it was just an idea.
Rachelle: 17:55 But what was really neat is Julie Coulter Bellon, she was the, I think she was the chair, yeah, she was, of the first chapter contest at the time. And afterwards, she found me and she's like, Your story, I just want you to know, it was so close to the grand prize. Like it was just like a couple votes away.
Rachelle: 18:15 She's like, I know I shouldn't tell you, but I just want to tell you that. And I was like, What? And so I was even more excited, but here's what was crazy: I had a brand new baby at the time. I was like, in that stage, I always had a brand new baby. But the next year, at the conference, Julie found me and she's like, Have you written the rest of that book?
Rachelle: 18:39 And so, I was like, I've written a little bit more, but I haven't finished it. She's like, you need to write the rest of it. So I did. And, long story short, that book is The Soldier's Bride, which won the Kindle Scout Award. It's an Amazon bestseller, Amazon Kindle Press published it.
Rachelle: 18:58 And I just really credit Julie. I credit going to the conferences. People like her, they're all over. I have so many good friends, so many supporters like that. We cheer each other on. We are all, like, when somebody wins, we all win. And that's how I feel like the community is. So that's something that maybe you wouldn't expect to get from a conference, but it's there.
Connie: 19:23 I love that. And I love your boldness and being able to do that bold step of saying, I'm going to go ahead and submit it, right? Not worrying about, Oh, it's too dumb or other people will, whatever, but being able to submit it and be bold. I was just thinking, as you were speaking, when you said your first critique group, when I walked in, you know, you all feel like you're back in seventh grade in the lunchroom, looking for a place with your tray, trying to act like you belong.
Connie: 19:46 And like, you have tons of cool people you could sit with, but, yeah, you don't. And you walk into that conference, and I remember feeling that way, right? And I was speaking at Education Week, and I had books published and all those things, but I felt that way. It was my first writer's conference and I sat down at the first table just quick. I saw a chair and I was like, can I sit here?
Connie: 20:01 Then, all of a sudden I hear someone go, are you Connie Sokol? And I'm like, ahh! Like, I wanted to look like I’m cool, like I know what I'm doing and I don't, I'm gonna be found out. And we ended up talking, and those four ladies had all come together, and we ended up, that was my critique group. They said, We have a good critique group.
Connie: 20:17 And I was like, Wow, that sounds really cool. And they're like, Well, do you want to be a part of it? I'm, like, uhh, pick me, pick me, pick me! Anyway, it was just the best. So you're so right. Take those bold steps, whatever it is, submit something, talk to someone, whatever. Jen, what's your thoughts?
Jen: 20:32 Mine goes right along with that. I'm going to quote the We Bought a Zoo.
Jen: 20:36 All it takes is “twenty seconds of insane courage” that you don't even know you had. I have two worlds. I have my humanitarian and my writing world, and they kind of mesh at times. And I was going to a nutrition conference for years, and all I would do was show up, go to the classes, go back, you know.
Jen: 20:52 A lot of times I had babies, so I'm feeding the baby, not mingling. And one year, I went and I got invited to an after-conference session and I thought, Ooo, I have to go up to people.
Jen: 21:05 And I sat in my car, in that rental car, thinking I really want to go back to my hotel room and I really just want to pump, you know, I had a newborn at home.
Jen: 21:13 I wanted to just pump and sleep and have control of the remote. But I sat in that car and I thought, I am only going to be here for two more days. These people will never see me again. If I make a fool out of myself, who cares? I don't know them. They don't know me. I can just put on my bold self, which was non-existent. I'll put on my bold self. I'll walk into this after-meeting.
Jen: 21:37 Whoa, that was 15 years ago. And I walked into that after-meeting and I can point where the rest of my life has gone from that meeting. It was a pivot moment for my entire life. I got pulled into this, a committee group, where I didn't even know there were committees that existed in these conferences. Pulled into a group.
Jen: 21:58 Suddenly I was on the back end. Suddenly I was having friends. We were doing offsite retreats. It leveled me up in that heartbeat, just by that 20 seconds of Who cares? If I make a fool, nobody will know me. If you go home and don't know anybody, nothing's changed. So what do you have to lose?
Jen: 22:17 Go 20 seconds of utter, pure courage. Walk up to somebody. Be bold. Say, Hi, can I sit by you? That's all it takes. And your life will pivot. I guarantee.
Connie: 22:30 Oh, I love it. I got goosebumps. I'm like, I can't wait for this conference to come. Go to ldspma.org and go and get your ticket, and don't come alone. That Sister Cordon thing, we're kind of like taking it and applying it to this, of don't come alone. Just grab somebody and say, I know that you love writing. I know that you love doing your music. I know that you love these things.
Connie: 22:49 Just come and see, right? Just come and see and see what happens and have 20 seconds of insane courage and take your bold step and see what happens. I love that quote that Dan Clark quotes from somebody else, Our stories are ours, but they're not ours to keep.
Connie: 23:04 And I think that's so key that all we need to do whatever that music is, whatever that artistic expression is, it is ours, but it's not ours to keep. And we have been charged by the Divine to be able to learn what we need to learn, to get it out there and take our five talents and make it into ten. And this is a beautiful, one-stop-shop, joyful, delicious way for you to be able to make that happen.
Connie: 23:27 Thank you so much, Jen and Rachelle, this has been pure joy. I wish we had all the other half an hour and we were in pajamas. We could go to town on all the stories, but totally thrilled to have you here today, ladies.
Rachelle: 23:39 Thank you so much. This has been fun.
Jen: 23:42 Thank you so much for having us.
Connie: 23:43 You're welcome. And very quickly, just in case you want to get to know more about Jen Brewer and Rachelle Christensen Hepworth. Can you let the listeners know where they can reach you both?
Jen: 23:53 Yeah, mine is just jenbrewer.com.
Rachelle: 23:57 And my website is rachellechristensen.com, and I have writing resources and all the news about my books there.
Connie: 24:04 Awesome. And that’s ‘sen.’ Fantastic. And as always, if you love these interviews, we love doing ‘em. You can go below rate, review, and subscribe, and you can also check out some of the other people we've interviewed: Al Caraway, Lisa Valentine Clark, as I said, Josi Kilpack, all the biggies! They're just amazing and have so much to share to help you on your creative journey. So remember, today, choose one thing you can do so that you can fulfill being Called to Create.