Friday, May 6, 2016

The Dream Team of Author Faculty

Do you remember when I went to the coast and I had to finish the writing to submit? Which I did.

I'm here now, in that place where I had to send the writing.

I'm here above Winthrop in Methow Valley, with mountains all around and landscape turning green with the recent rains and wildflowers popping out all over.

I'm here at the Writing By Writers conference, at the end of day two.

This is a beautiful setting. The Sun Mountain Lodge is incredible - the setting, the building, the rooms, the staff. And the beds. My bed is so comfortable that I didn't have any problems sleeping through the night yesterday. Which is not my norm. The food has been good, the coffee plentiful, and we have our own room for dining.

The participants are meeting with one of four authors over the four full days of the workshop: Ron Carlson, Pam Houston, Andre Dubus III, and Lidia Yuknavitch (I'm here). Today we had a whole group panel with the four of them speaking about how to keep going when it (writing) gets hard. This was followed by readings from the fellowship recipients.

After a break and time on our own (about 90 minutes, during which I wrote) and then after dinner, we were treated to readings by Pam and Andre. Delightful, of course. Tomorrow night we will get to listen to Ron and Lidia; which will also be delightful.

I am first up for critique in my writing group tomorrow and I should have been asleep two hours ago. Instead I've been writing and catching up on a few emails and reading over some notes I took earlier today. It's okay. I'll just have a little extra coffee with my breakfast. And I will probably take a nap in our three hours of on our own time on Friday.

Now I really must sleep. Breakfast comes early when the workshop starts at 9 AM, before that, the alarm.