Upcoming Events for Food Bloggers

Have questions about the care and feeding of your brand new or growing food blog?  Are you wondering how to improve your writing skills, take better pictures, make more money - and fewer mistakes - with your food blog?  The following five events are tailored to help you with exactly that and more.

Oct. 20-21 (Th. & Fr.), 2011

Hilton New York

New York, NY

Registration & fee: $204.97

BlogHer Writers ‘11

Penguin Publishing partners with BlogHer to bring you an advanced social media workshop.  Enter the doors as a writer, emerge as an author. 

Throughout the welcome reception, networking, keynote, and breakout sessions on writing and publishing, you’ll be hobnobbing with publishers, editors, agents and authors.  Attendance is limited to 200.  Total registration is $204.97 per person, and is open through the welcome reception.

Nov. 4-6 (Fr.-Sun.), 2011

Grand Hyatt Hotel

San Francisco, CA

3^rd Annual Blogger Festival (FoodBuzz)

Pack your evening gown and heels for BuzzFest.  It’s a bigger event, with programs in the morning, Taste Pavilion in the afternoon, and Gala Dinner and Blogger Awards Ceremony in the evening.  And that’s just Saturday!  You also get dinner Friday and brunch Sunday, of course. 

Be forewarned: the registration button is an email link, and last year’s program is a little over 8MB.  Just download it, if only to read more about last year’s Taste Pavilion and Gala Dinner Menu.  - Get your tongue off that screen, young lady/man!

Nov. 11-13, 2011

Doubletree Guest Suites

Santa Monica, CA

Registration: $350

2011 International Food Blogger Conference (Foodista & Zephyr Adventures)

If you rate blogging conferences by food and wine, IFBC, the original blogger con, may be tops on your list.  The event is geared toward “grassroots bloggers, cookbook authors, and restaurant marketers,” among others.  Sessions and networking focus on “food, writing and technology,” according to the site. In the past, session leaders have included “bloggers, chefs and authors” in the forefront of the field.  Right now, there’s a blogroll of attendees for Santa Monica, so you get publicity for your blog just for registering!  Seriously, check this out!

January 2012

Birmingham, AL

Registration: $150 (Oct. 28 Early bird discount: -$25)

Food Blog South 2012

From the second you see the okra, you know you’re among GRITS (Girls/Guys Raised in the South).  FBS is loaded like a baked potato, covering photography, trends, blog makeovers, branding, raking in the spinach (money, honey), and media skills.  The first 15 registrants get a chance for a blog makeover.  These folks treat y’all like family, too!  They’ve got a special room rate at the Hyatt Place downtown.  And have y’all ever heard of doing a food blogger conference as a benefit?  Of all things!  FBS will be helping out the Desert Island Supply Company.  Learn more about Food Blog South at their website, email list, Twitter and Facebook.  And yes, they’ve got a blogroll, too.  Oh, by the way, you’ve gotta check out their speaker list to believe it!

May 4-6, 2012

Southern CA

Registration: $325 (Opens January 2012, incl. meals, lodging & workshops)

Camp Blogaway

While you pack this summer away, tag your bags for the 4^th Annual Camp Blogaway, a nonstop, fun-filled, food blogger weekend in the San Bernardino Mountains.  “Food bloggers of all levels” are welcome here.  If cooking’s important to you, come on!  According to the site, activities include “breakouts, round tables, hiking, wine tasting and substantial good eats.”  The site also features a blog, lists of topics, sponsors, speakers and attendees.  More exposure for your blog!  This year covers: photography, food writing, burnout, blog makeovers, dealing with success, pitfalls and life change via food blog.  Some kick-butt presenters are gonna be in those woods next summer.  Stay posted with Camp Blogaway via their site, email, Twitter and Facebook.  

Make your plans now for these awesome food blogger opportunities.  Doctors, nurses and teachers take continuing education to bring you and your children the best, most current knowledge and wisdom their professions have to offer, through networking and workshops.  Shouldn’t you do the same for yourself, your blog and readers? 

Useful Food News

From improving web sites for parents to community fundraisers to free food for schoolchildren, these bloggers are very busy making a difference.  You can help, too.  Read on.

New Site Functions and Interactivity

Busy foodie parents, your life just got easier and more fun.  Nicole at A Family That Eats Together has reoriented her site to your family’s needs.  Her new theme is kid-friendly recipes that are time and energy efficient, packed with flavor, and anything but the same old thing.  To this end, she has added features including “Weekly Meal Planner,” which will be her own meal plan for the week.  Recipes now have links above them, including “Add to Plan,” which allows readers to create their own meal plan, and “Add to List,” which will create their shopping list.  This particular feature is very exciting, because it also prepares the list by readers’ stores of choice, and conveniently sends the list to their smart phones.  Visit her site for more features, to share your recipes, and join in the foodie family dialogue.

For those who love a good cooking show, Clare at Calm Mind Busy Body offers YouTube videos on her site.  Just click the button in the right margin for demos of Stovetop Pineapple Broccoli Mini Pizzas, Portobello Mushroom Burgers, Zucchini Fritters, Lowfat Blueberry Pancakes, Smoothies and Shakes, Homemade Chewy Apple Dog Treats, and more.

Oct. 1, 2011: Texas Wildfire Recovery Fundraiser

Ren at Edible Aria shares the link and info on Austin Bakes for Bastrop, including photo and video of the 2011 Texas wildfire catastrophe.  The Oct. 1st one-day bake sale with seven locations is a grassroots effort by the Austin Community Foundation to help those organizations directly impacting those affected by the the worst wildfire in the state’s history.  For donors too distant to attend, there is an online giving link.

Oct. 1-2, 2011: California Childhood Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Fundraiser

To prevent childhood obesity and its running buddy, Type 2 diabetes, Susan at Food Blogga encourages everyone to support Heart of the Harvest, an Oct. 1-2 fundraiser for Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center in National City, outside of San Diego, CA.  Olivewood provides low-income families, especially children, with opportunities to raise healthy foods, and training to prepare them in tasty, beneficial ways.  The fun includes dinner by A-list San Diego chefs, music and art under the stars one day, and fun, games and food demos the next.  Tickets are only $15 if you’re over 12yo, and you can buy them online.

US: Starting Sept. 26, 2011 (weekly for 6 weeks): Teacher Monday: Cash for Classrooms

Dina at Just Another New Blog and Del Monte are also teaming up via “Teacher Monday: Cash for Classrooms” to improve children’s access to, and education about, fresh, healthy foods.  Every Monday, beginning today and for six weeks more, parents can vote for all the K-12 teachers (who register with the program) of their choice.  The top ten teachers get $1,000 cash for their classrooms, plus fresh fruit for snacks.  In addition, weekly winners will receive a Del Monte Field Fresh Day for their entire school!  And three readers (anyone who enters) will win $25 gift certificates to be awarded at Just Another New Blog.  So go call your teachers!

You can make a difference.  Whether you vote for teachers, or support a fundraiser to improve the nutrition of underprivileged children, or to re-build a torched Texas community.  If you haven’t enough money to spare, you can spread the word about these worthy activities.  Give back to yourself and your family by taking advantage of the organization tools and fun offered by thoughtful food bloggers.

Have a great week!