Writing is a solitary occupation, which is why films about writers tend to be a bit of a snore. Most writers, though, do connect with a community at some point in their careers. Hemingway had Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Steinbeck had the real Cannery Row. And nowadays writers have academia.

"I spent a lot of time in writing workshops when I was younger and just starting out," said isle author Kaui Hart Hemmings, who will read from her latest novel, "The Possibilities," at Saturday’s New Oceania Literary Conference at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

"Community" is the conference buzzword. The free event, open to the public, offers workshops taught by local writers. As for the participants, "We are seeking an intergenerational mix of writers and readers, students and community members, published authors and beginners," said Craig Santos Perez, an assistant professor of English at UH and director of the creative writing program. He said the program sponsors the conference, now in its second year.

It’s called New Oceania to honor Hawaiian and Pacific literature, said Perez, a native Chamorro from Guam whose book, "from unincorporated territory [saina]," won the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry in 2011. The recipient of several poetry prizes and a Ford Foundation fellowship, he has edited several publications of Chamorro literature and has been recognized as a cultural ambassador by the Guam Legislature.

Perez’s family moved from Guam to California in 1995, and he came to Hawaii in 2010 because "I fell in love with a Hawaiian woman. And then this job came open." He also teaches at the UH Center for Pacific Island Studies.

"One of the blessings of the literary community in Hawaii is that it’s so diverse, and so we arranged a diverse lineup of writers, with different styles, for this event," he said.

Perez credits colleague Shawna Yang Ryan, assistant professor of English and author of the novel "Water Ghosts," as the muse of the conference, which she organized with the help of creative writing graduate students Rajiv Mohabir and David Scrivner. They have invited writer-teachers who are not on the UH-Manoa faculty. "We want to create that bridge, introduce our students to the broader community," Ryan said.

Eight classes over two sessions will explore topics from songwriting to getting published. On a recent sunny afternoon in the breezy, tree-ringed courtyard of Kuykendall Hall, a group of the teachers talked about how to make the one-off, 80-minute classes fun and inspiring.

Should neophytes really attend? Yes, if you’re open to expressing yourself. The teachers said they are expecting a range of experience and abilities.

"Everybody has a story," said Brenda Kwon, author of "The Sum of Breathing." Kwon will join Joe Tsujimoto, author of "Morningside Heights: New York Stories," in leading a class titled "Words Out Loud: Making Poetry Dance and Sing."

"Even people who say they can’t write poetry, I would encourage them to come. It’s designed to find out what you have to say and do on-site writing and hopefully read it aloud, no experience necessary."

Because "Joe’s more Beat poetry and I’m more hip-hop, we have a lot of fun," Kwon added.

Janine Oshiro, author of "Pier" and winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, said she is expecting both beginners and advanced writers in her poetry workshop and is planning accordingly. She’ll ask students to "draw with their eyes closed, with both hands, on big pieces of paper, then open their eyes and name this thing they made with the first word that comes to mind.

"It’s a way to pull something out that could be the beginning of a poem," she explained.

Landscape will be the inspiration for short stories in a workshop taught by Lisa Linn Kanae, a paddler and author of the collection "Islands Linked by Ocean." Her students will "choose a place that is significant and has great meaning to them and look at it three different ways, such as its physical, cultural and family significance," Kanae said. "We’ll see if we can use these perspectives to tell a story about the place in a deeper way, as opposed to just descriptions. And then they’ll read what they’ve written aloud."

In a more standard yet no less ambitious approach, Tyler McMahon, whose most recent novel is "Kilometer 99," will give writing exercises, teach narration and plot — "how you get readers to keep turning all those pages" — and discuss people’s ideas for novels.

"I’m really excited to teach the nuts and bolts of novel writing, because the novel doesn’t get talked about much in academic creative-writing classes," McMahon said.

UH law school graduate and freelance writer Sonny Ganaden’s creative nonfiction workshop will explore the writer’s role in bridging cultures and experiences. "That feeling of being the ‘other’ colors my writing," said Ganaden, who was raised in California by Fili­pino and Mexican parents.

The new Oceania Literary Conference is a refreshing concept. Like most writers’ convocations, it offers networking, ideas and feedback for professionals. But it also provides a rare chance for members of the public, who usually attend literary events as audience members, to get some hands-on experience as to how writers talk about and exercise their craft.

"I needed a workshop, needed to go to school and have time to read the kinds of things I wanted to write, to listen and be humble," said "The Possibilities" author Hemmings. "Those things help you to read and critique your own work."

Ideally, she added, "you’re learning how to eventually go out on your own."

Hemmings’ next book, "Juniors," a young-adult novel about a San Francisco girl who transfers to Punahou in her junior year, will be published in September.

"I love fiction as a way of getting into the heads of others. When I was younger I loved acting, and I’m still kind of acting when I write, doing monologues and dialogues and scenes," said the Colo­rado College graduate, who worked in a Breckenridge snowboard shop, "fitting people’s ski boots," like the narrator of "The Possibilities."

For many writers the community is also a classroom, hatching characters that keep them company when they’re sitting at their desks looking deceptively alone. The New Oceania Literary Conference pre­sents a dynamic opportunity for creative exchange as the community hears about the craft of writing, and writers hear the community talk back.