The answer is yes…and no.
Have you heard this one before? A participant in a writers’ conference shoves her manuscript under the bathroom stall door where an editor happens to be. Is it true? Yep! I know, because I was at that conference. At the first Romance Writers Conference in 1981, an unnamed conference attendee shoved her full manuscript under the stall door of editor Vivian Stephens. I was on the conference committee, and when Vivian told us about it, we joked about what that person thought Vivian should do with it. . . Use it as a Sears Roebuck catalogue of long ago, or perhaps as reading material? Or maybe the conference attendee had had a bad critique and wanted Vivian to flush it? All I can say is . . . please, don’t be that person!
An editor only has so much space in her suitcase and cannot take your manuscript back with her. Publishing houses have specific ways of handling submissions. So, if an editor is interested in your manuscript, she or he will ask you to mail (or email) it.
If your manuscript is a picture book or a short story, you can bring the whole thing. Otherwise, bring only the first chapter and a synopsis. I encourage you to bring that! Don’t ask an editor to read it, but feel free to tell her about your story. If she is interested, she will ask to see it.
Do share your manuscript with other writers. If someone offers to read yours, then you should agree to read theirs. I’ve learned plenty from impromptu critiques from fellow writers at conferences. In fact, some of my fondest memories are of a group of us sitting around someone’s hotel room or down in the hotel lobby and sharing each others’ stories.
So, go ahead. Bring your partial manuscript to the conference and share it with other writers. It’s a great way to network and learn.