DFWCon 2026

It’s one of the highlights of DFWCon. What do agents really think about your query letter?

Host Russell C. Connor will be joined by George Goldthwaite, who will read letters at random in his velvety voice. Author names will be withheld, so the whole ballroom isn't staring at you. A panel of agents will listen, and they’ll bang a gong when they've had enough. Three gongs and the letter is out. Agents will explain what problems caught their attention.
 
We've seen agents like a query letter so much — even if it doesn’t make it all the way through — they ask the author to send in the manuscript.

However, beware! if you need a fan and a fainting couch, this might not be for you. Your letter could get shredded in front of a few hundred people. Bring your A-game, but remember, few escape gong-free!

Signups will be available at the conference.

DFWCon Director Rebecca Seifert will host a Q&A with internationally bestselling author Natalie Sue.

Natalie's debut novel, I Hope This Finds You Well, was the winner of the 2025 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and the Alberta Literary Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Her latest book, You’ll Love It Here, was released August 11, 2026.

When she’s not writing, she enjoys bingeing great and terrible TV, attempting pottery, and procuring houseplants. She lives in Calgary with her husband, daughter, and dog.

(capped: 10 submissions, viewers welcome)
Is your work ready to be submitted? Have you crossed your T’s and dotted your I’s? Come join Helen Dent and Brooke Fossey to find out. Submit up to three double-spaced pages of your best (or most troublesome) work and watch as they do a fast and furious line-level edit. Beyond writing convention, you’ll get a fly-on-the-wall opportunity to see how your work is received, and learn through other’s mistakes and victories. Each submission is guaranteed a five-minute velocity edit. Work must be submitted beforehand at (x). Please include genre and target audience, and redact your name.

Whoo, it's been a long, exciting weekend at DFWCon 2026! So let's celebrate and debrief. This class is a community open forum discussion of what attendees learned at DFWCon, what marketing and craft tactics they plan on implementing, and overall the biggest take-aways and celebrations of the art of writing. Consider it a nice wrap-up catch all, where you can ask Dana Swift any last questions about querying, submission, book deals, marketing after release, etc. All the while she'll be celebrating attendees and the lessons you learned. This might just be the best way to learn about a class or two you missed so have your notebooks ready.