(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

When I decided to make the trip out to Chicago for Fountain Pen Day, I had no idea that, at the same time, the Chicago Planner Conference was also taking place. I knew about the conference, but since it was long sold out (I think it was sold out in a day!), I hadn’t really given it much thought. At the FPD event at Atlas Stationers, I ran into Francisco Lopez from Hinze Pens who asked if I would be interested in helping him teach a Fountain Pens 101 or 201 class at the Chicago Planner Conference (CPC), and of course, I jumped at the opportunity!

Hello, Chicago Planner Conference!

The lobby was a popular gathering spot.

Unlike a pen show, planner conferences (or “plannercons”) are less about selling products (though there was a marketplace for shopping too) and more about the planning community coming together to meet each other, listen to speakers, attend workshops and even exercise their creative muscles at “Make & Take” events. All of those events and workshops are included in the $375 CPC ticket price, which is quite a bit more than for a pen show, where an average weekend pass runs $40-$60. I had a bit of sticker shock initially, but once I saw the list of classes that were available, it totally made sense. Pen show classes typically cost around $75 per class and if you were to fill your weekend with multiple classes, it could definitely approach or surpass that number. Some of the conference’s topics included “Inbox/Outbox: Organizational Planning”, “Rock your digital planner”, Surviving the Hustle: Entrepreneurial Panel” and of course, “Fountain Pens 101”, and this is where I come in 🙂

Francisco and I spent an hour talking about fountain pens with a group of 50 attendees. Most of them weren’t fountain pen users; in fact, some had never touched one before, while others may have used one when they were kids, or were told that they couldn’t use them either because they were lefties or had a weird grip - that made me sad and angry because that can’t be further from the truth!

Francisco kicking off the class with a brief history of fountain pens.

Without boring everyone with too many details, we covered why fountain pens are great (no need to dip, writes without added pressure, ink options galore), parts of the FP/nib/feed, what is a converter and how to use it, how to write with a FP (which side is up, both tines should touch the paper, etc.) and then we inked up the fountain pens provided by Retro 51 and put pen to paper! It was great to have Francisco there because we could both walk around the room to answer questions and demonstrate things at the tables.

Francisco walked around and did demos for half the class, while I taught and demo’d for the other half.

Someone asked “So what do you do if you want to have more than one color to write with?” and this was my response: “ink up more than one pen!” 😃 60 minutes flew by and I wish we had at least another 30 minutes because we barely had time to answer questions. Everyone seemed to be excited to have learned and tried something new and had a new writing tool to play with.

All smiles with their new Retro 51 fountain pens!

After the class, one of the attendees gave me this awesome cookie!

Unlike pen shows which are open during show hours, CPC closes down the marketplace during the various sessions/workshops. Vendors get to take a break as well as attending or leading sessions too. I had maybe 10 minutes in the marketplace before the class,, but I made sure to take some pictures!

Jenny Galfi (IG:extrafinepennerd) watched the Hinze Pens table while Francisco Lopez was teaching the classes. Their table was in the hallway right outside the ballroom.

There were a few other vendors in the hallways. There were also some cute picture booth setups with props too. None of my hallway pictures turned out well, oops.

This is the entry to the ballroom.

View of the right side.

View of the rest of the ballroom.

As you can see from the pictures above, it is not a particularly large ballroom and there are wide aisles and lots of space. I would guess that there were roughly 30 vendors. I was in the marketplace very briefly before the class and I think that many of the attendees had already made their way to the second floor to head to their classes, which was why the aisles weren’t jam packed.

Cheryl Ball was representing Rickshaw Bagworks at CPC. They made special pouches and pen sleeves for the event. (PC:Marty Henderson.)

Marty and Kimberly Henderson (and their 3 daughters) were showcasing Retro 51 pens. It was great to see some familiar faces!

Coralie (right) with one of her helpers at the CoraCreaCrafts table.

OMG, look at all these awesome cat stickers from An Actor Plans. They are based on Mabel, the cat!

The actor behind “An Actor Plans” is Melissa M. Crabtree (not pictured, but her helper is!) makes Broadway-themed stickers, washi and other goodies.

JoJo of JoJo’s Pretty Paper Shop sells stickers, cards and notebooks - all made from her own original art.

Raspberyl Designs had all sorts of fun sticker sheets for decorating your Hobonichis, journals and planners.

I want to thank Francisco Lopez for giving me the opportunity to share my love of fountain pens with 50 enthusiastic planner folks. I had an absolute blast and wished I could have spent more time talking with folks, getting to know how they use their planners and answering any FP questions they may have. And of course, to do some shopping too, lol.