The "American Christian Fiction Writers" group seems interesting, at least according to their web page. Anyone have insight into the reality?

ACFW has local groups, critique groups and mentoring and their conference of course. Here's a paraphrase of the things I've heard about ACFW from the Realm Makers group (I swear I don't work for RM - I just really, really like them):

ACFW conference has great teaching on craft generally, but very little for spec writers specifically. If you feel your craft is solid and you're ready to pitch agents and publishers, you're better off at Realm Makers. There aren't a lot of people there to pitch SF to, and the ones who are there will usually be at Realm Makers also.

Realm Makers is much better for every reason from cost to content to appointments. ACFW is good for the networking.

ACFW has superb general craft, but RM offers classes on world-building and craft as it relates to spec-fic. Both conferences are good from a business perspective, and from a writing perspective. ACFW has a very different feel from Realm Makers. At RM, you get a very laser-focused angle on speculative fiction, something you will not find at ACFW. They meet different needs and each have their own focus. The benefit of RM is that you'll be networking with your peers *and* your tribe. We are one another's readers, so the support system you'll find is unique. RM becomes your family. You don't get that anywhere else.

They used to have very little to offer to spec-fic writers. They have upped their help and involvement in the last couple years. While it used to be mainly romance writers, now it includes a variety of genres. They are finally recognizing a need to be more in tune with spec writers and are trying. But SpecFic is still outnumbered by all the other genres.

Involvement with ACFW is definitely the key. You get more from your conference budget from Realm Makers.

They have an expectation for "Christian" writing conform to the CBA double-standards. There is something artificial and forced about the CBA standards. Safe, sanitized fiction leaves little scope for investigating tough issues.

Thanks! I had heard of RM before but forgotten about them. They seem more conference oriented and we don't have credit cards, so some things are more difficult. Most hotels won't reserve without one and the last three times I've used a PayPal debit card they charged the entire bill twice.

Realm Makers has grown enough that last year they began offering memberships with access to critique groups, an exclusive online group, webinars, and a discount on the conference. Plus there's the facebook group which is open to anyone, member or not, though it's grown so much recently that the writing-focused-dynamic has diluted a bit due to the meme's and such that people like to share.

I do know that debit cards usually get charged twice (temporarily) because of the way credit cards work. The price of the room is reserved on the card - put on hold. Then when they charge the room, it goes through but it takes the bank a few days to release the hold so essentially you are charged twice for a few days until the hold is released. (I used to do the bookkeeping for a hotel.)

As for the room, I attended for the first time last year and had a roommate. She reserved the room on her card, and then I simply paid at the front desk for my half. That's one potential go-around.