Back from the European Writers’ Salon Madrid 2026

At the end of September, I attended the European Writers’ Salon in Madrid, Spain.

I’ve been to a few writers’ conferences, and I always enjoy them, but this was my first time with the European Writers’ Salon. They have several pop-up salons throughout the year, but their main salon is held each September, in a different European city.

This year, I would have set time aside in September for the UK Historical Novel Society Conference, but they held it in August (prime Italy vacation time) this year and I could not attend, so this made a nice substitute to get my literary fix at summer’s end.

I decided to give the European Writers’ Salon a try this year, knowing even if I didn’t enjoy it, a trip to Madrid was hardly a hardship!

I tacked on an extra day to my trip and squeeze in trips to Segovia and Toledo, and a fabulous opera evening in Madrid.

Visiting lovely Toledo!

In addition to the wonderful travel and culture escape, the Salon itself was also a lot of fun. I met lots of interesting European writers, and writers from all over living in Europe.

Meeting writers and talking all things books and writing is always a highlight of these gatherings.

I attended some interesting sessions: Submitting to literary magazines; Editing short stories; Writing a sense of place, with Madrid as our guide; A Walk of literary Madrid; and Implications of AI in publishing. All very interesting. There were a lot of political and identity-themed sessions on offer that I gladly skipped, so I was glad the sessions I attended were useful and more concentrated on writing and craft.

Madrid Literary Walk

Our Saturday evening gala was held in the stunning Ateneo de Madrid, a literary members-only club where the annual Spanish literary awards are also celebrated.

It was a pleasure to be in this beautiful environment for an authors’ talk/reading (a bit heavy on the political/identity politics side for my tastes, but otherwise enjoyable), dinner and cocktails. It was fun to speak to fellow author and to enjoy an evening in this elegant atmosphere.

A highly enjoyable time at the European Writers’ Salon in Madrid!

Federico García Lorca (1898 – 1936) statue in Madrid