“Come to a place where the skylines move like creek-beds, where people understand craft as a way of life. One weekend the best women artists from around the world venture to this place to exchange ideas, process, performance—calling us to newly imagine what it means to be a writer.”
– This invitation comes directly from the website for the 29th Kentucky Women Writers Conference, which was September 11-13, 2008, in Lexington, Kentucky. Joyce Carol Oates and Laura Benedict were keynote speakers. Aimee Zaring and I attended part of the conference, which is largely structured around workshops in creative nonfiction, travel memoir, poetry, and genre fiction. There are also readings and lectures. Take a look at www.uky.edu/WWK/ for this year’s schedule, prices, information about events and featured authors and speakers. I paid $120 (no workshopping included in that fee) and felt that was a fair deal.
A downtown hotel is within walking distance of most events, and handy to restaurants. Some readings and lectures require a car—Transylvania University, and the University of Kentucky campus—though they are (I’m guessing) about a mile from downtown. I’m not too good with geography or reading a map, but hey, I did make it to Lexington from my Indiana hayfield all by myself!
Aimee and I attended a panel discussion, “The New Environmental Writing and the Politics of Feminism.” Debra Marquart, Jennifer Sahn, and Ginger Strand talked about the meaning and context of the word environment, and the thought that environmental writing in fiction can be more powerful than nonfiction or news stories in relating information about issues that face us today. Specific writers that were mentioned as being known for writing in terms of the environment: Wendell Berry, Rick Bass, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver.
The panelists argued that environmental, or nature, writing, should not be considered as a separate category of writing, because they feel that all writing comes out of an environment specific to the writer. Place as character, urban and rural environments, and alternative environments were discussed. One panelist highly recommended Michael Cunningham’s Specimen Days, saying that it is a radical environmental novel. As for the politics of feminism and how it is connected to environmental writing, that portion of the discussion was not addressed in a straightforward manner, but rather, seemed to be overlooked.
Laura Benedict, one of the conference presenters, introduced Joyce Carol Oates at the keynote reading, “Mentorship and Collaboration in Women Writers’ Lives.” The reading was open not only to conference participants, but to the public. Aimee and I saw Pam Sexton (alum) and Kathleen Driskell (MFA staff/faculty) at Memorial Theater, which is on the campus of the University of Kentucky at Lexington. Aimee and I agreed that Laura took too much time to introduce Oates, rambling quite a bit, but I think this was in part due to Benedict’s great regard for her friend and mentor. Next, Benedict read a chapter of her own novel, which was good, but overly long to read, so that Oates, a delightful and exuberant reader (her big gestures added to the reading), seemed rushed. By the way, when Aimee and I called for a cab to get back to our hotel, we learned that apparently, in Lexington at least, a cab driver cannot pick up a fare at a street corner. In order to be legal and above-board, we had to stand in front of a rather rundown looking Pizza Hut to wait for the cab. I felt safer on the street corner.
Crystal Wilkinson was informed, considerate and professional as moderator of Saturday morning’s panel with Joyce Carol Oates and Lisa Williams, another one of the conference presenters. The topic was “Poem or Short Story? Finding Your Subject’s Form.” I enjoyed listening to Oates so much, I admit that my notes are few and those are illegible. Consequently, I really can’t be responsible for anything I claim to quote. You may read on at your own risk.
Oates, whose lively sense of humor set the tone for the panel, observed wryly that there are more poets than readers of poetry. Items mentioned: Virginia Woolf’s prose is more like poetic passages, little plot. Hemingway’s prose is not poetic. The Canterbury Tales is poetry. Oates said that the job of a teacher is to be a friend to the text, not to the writer. Words such as interesting, and promising, then, are useful to teachers, she advised with a chuckle. She also said that writers are allowed the use of only three exclamation marks in their writing careers. And that there is no virtue in a work about unattractive characters. It was mentioned that Oates liked to run, and she said that running for 20, 40, or 60 minutes gives a person time to get some mental writing done. I could have listened to her talk all afternoon. (I almost used an exclamation mark there.)
Aimee attended two lectures Saturday afternoon, and came away with some advice for us. How many authors take the time (or have the time) to read several issues of the publications to which we submit? The editor from Orion magazine, Jennifer Sahn, has a name for this practice: disrespectful. She said that editors should not be expected to read something we send to them, if we have not read something of theirs. [I admit that I rarely study journals before I submit, and my reason/excuse is that there are not enough hours in the day for me to do so. Does anyone out there have a comment on this?]
Another thought that Aimee wants to share is that she was reminded yet again of the perseverance and patience required to do this work we do. Author Debra Marquart took fourteen years to write her memoir, The Horizontal World. Laura Benedict took eight years to write her first novel and four to write her second, neither of which was published. She gave herself one year to write her third book, and the third time was the charm, as they say. Just reading over this paragraph discourages me terribly, but I’m stuck on this writing life, so what can I do? Keep on. That’s what attending these conferences helps me do—keep on. (No exclamation point.)
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