Higher Education.

Colorado Springs, Colorado is 6,035 feet above sea level. As cities in the United State go, it’s pretty high. (No jokes about the state’s marijuana laws, please.) Being invited there to teach workshops at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference should qualify as higher education.

I was there recently doing just that and enjoyed the visit and the conference.

It’s a big event, with somewhere near 400 writers attending to improve their craft. There are five sessions underway at any given time, with a total of 75 workshops over the course of two-and-a-half days of the conference, not counting preliminary events and other offerings.

At 6,035 feet, the air is pretty thin in Colorado Springs. But writers are thick during the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. It was good to be there and share ideas with some of them.

P.S. The photo above is Garden of the Gods, a beautiful park tucked between the city and the mountains. Well worth a visit.

Pikes Peak or Bust!

     

      Those immortal words won’t be painted on the side of my conveyance as they were daubed on wagons in days gone by. And pursuit of gold (at least not directly) isn’t my reason for traveling to the shadow of that tall mountain named for an explorer of questionable quality and uncertain motives. (A peak, I might add, fashioned by Rawhide Robinson as recounted in Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range.)
      My journey across the Rockies will take me to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, where I will present workshops on writing short stories and historical fiction, and “7 Ways to Write Prose like a Poet.” This writers conference is ranked among the top ten in the nation, and the faculty includes a wide variety of authors, editors, publishers, and others. Aspiring and accomplished writers alike can attend workshops, critique sessions, meet with agents and editors, and more.
      All in all, it looks to be a good time and I am looking forward to the trip. Why not load up your wagon, hitch up your oxen and come along? Conference and registration information is available at www.pikespeakwriters.com.

Augustus McRae, Philosopher.

As many of you know who read this stuff regularly, I will be presenting some workshops at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in April. The folks behind the conference asked me to respond to a series of questions for posting on their web site to help with promotion. While most of the questions were fairly straightforward and easily answered, one in particular required some thought. Here, for no special reason I can think of, is that question, along with my response.

7. Which fictional character do you relate to the most, and why?

It would probably be politic to say I relate to characters like Atticus Finch or Jean Valjean or someone else with lofty moral qualities. But I am drawn to Augustus McCrae in the Larry McMurtry novel Lonesome Dove. Gus has an approach to life I agree with, best summarized by his saying to his partner, Woodrow Call, “Well, I’m glad I ain’t scairt to be lazy.”

Laziness is an overlooked virtue, as evidenced by Gus’s follow-up statement: “Hell, Call, if I worked as hard as you, there’d be no thinking done at all around this outfit.”

Just sitting and thinking may look lazy to others, but, for me, it’s how things get written. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I am going to write. Then, when I get around to actually “doing something,” I tend to get it written fairly quickly—which leaves more time for laziness.

Road Work.

Last year my workshop schedule wrapped up with a couple of good ones—the Idaho Writers League annual conference and the Kanab Writers Conference. Both those places have had me on the roster more than once, and it has always been a pleasure to participate.

This year’s calendar is so fresh you wouldn’t want to step in it, but there are already a couple of entries. 

In March, I’ll be in southern Arizona for the Tucson Festival of Books. This extravaganza draws more than 100,000 book lovers and is supposed to be good fun. I am looking forward to being there and presenting a session titled “More than L’Amour: Writing the West in the 21st Century.”

A month later, it’s Colorado Springs for the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, where I’ve been asked to present three workshops to the writers who will assemble there. It, too, is a large gathering with a good reputation—rated among the top ten writers conferences by a leading magazine—so I hope I don’t spoil it.

More invitations may arrive, resulting in more workshops and other events on my calendar. I hope so. Going on the road and hanging out with writers and readers is always enjoyable.