1998 Dargon Writers' Summit

Visit our 1998 Summit Flickr page to see all the photos plus captions!

Continuing our tradition of ever-larger face-to-face meetings between our writers, in mid-May ten of our contributors gathered for a weekend of intense work. Hosted by Carlo Samson, this year's Summit took place in suburban Chicago.

This page shows thumbnail versions of some of the pictures we took at the Summit. Clicking on an image on this page will bring up the full-sized picture with a more detailed caption.

Our gatherings always operate at two levels. Of course, we have working sessions and discussions which are focused on the magazine and its direction, improving our writing, and building enthusiasm in what we do. This is primarily accomplished during formal (though not stuffy!) working sessions.

Our working time together centered around four broad topics: getting to know one another better, enhancing the magazine and making it slicker, ensuring the future growth of the magazine without detracting from our mission or getting commercial, and offsetting the production costs of the magazine. Specific attention was also given to formalizing our mentoring program for new writers, improving how we solicit feedback from our readers, and providing more information about our publication schedule. Expect to see a ton of improvements coming down the line!

Although much of our discussions take place in working sessions, we also kick around a lot of ideas outside those sessions, while we're out pursuing more social activities. A large portion of our time is simply devoted to going out and having fun together, building relationships between our writers that run deeper than can be cultivated solely via email. As you can see from the pictures at right, as well as those from our previous Summits, we manage to enjoy a variety of activities while still doing a lot of serious work on the magazine.

Despite the Summits' value for setting direction, making decisions, and generating enthusiasm, its greatest payback is really the network of relationships that it fosters between the participants. In light of that, we spend a lot of time outside our working sessions, getting out and having fun together. While we were in Chicago, we managed to play a lot of pool, chase down some rabbits and one huge rat, visit Genghis Khan's, hang out at Navy Pier and enjoy a boat tour on Lake Michigan, and play laser tag, mini golf, go-karts, and video games.

If you find these images interesting, check out our previous Summits: the 1997 Dargon Summit held in Washington DC, and the 1996 Dargon Summit held in Denver.