Workshop...The End

This festival has been reassuring for so many reasons. The writers around this particular table, for the most part, are good, accomplished. I've read a few things that I will remember. That is encouraging. By this point, the jockeying is over since we all know who is what, and more importantly, where you are in the pecking order. Each of us are a strange hybrid of ego and humility. It is something I find in all writers...and at this point in my life I know quite a few really talented writers. It's also refreshing to sit around and talk about writers, books, and have the other person a) have read what you are referring to, b) offer you books or writers you may not have read.

The most important element in a workshop of this caliber is the knowledge that each person is a writer. And not someone who has decided to be a writer because he/she is a proficient letter writer. Someone I know once said she could write a book, if she wanted. I didn't quite know how to respond to such a ridiculous notion. See, she assumed the book she would/could write would be good. Her point was that she was so capable in all the other areas of her life the jump to writing a book didn't seem ludicrous. You can just imagine how the eyes would have rolled to the back of my head, if I weren't raised to be so polite. Oh yes, she's also someone who has said she doesn't read fiction and claims to read nonfiction, which means she doesn't read much of anything.

My teacher will become another mentor for me. I'm so grateful to have had such good writers guiding me. Now, I just have to make sure nothing I publish is an embarrassment. I also reconnected with an author, who is here as a teacher. We had dinner many years ago with her mentor from Grad school, who had become my mentor during my time. We've promised to stay in touch, which is nice. I had read her second book with curiosity since she had made such a splash with her first book.

I realize how much I like those who do this thing I do. They are all individual, funny, smart, and sensitive. And as I look around my circle, I see how many are writers.