Another great Pikes Peak Writers Conference is already over. From reading reports of other attendees, it sounds like I missed some terrific sessions, but I attended some terrific sessions too. The first was the Friday Read & Critique, with Liz Scheier offering her comments on our opening pages. I always learn something new at these sessions, and it’s always great to have a professional’s opinion on what’s working and what isn’t.

The Flash Fiction workshop with Bret Wright was a delight, and a great addition to the usual Friday offerings. I learned a lot, laughed a lot, and thought the time went far too quickly.

Then it was off for more laughter and some stunning visuals at the Graphic Novel workshop offered by Walt and Weezie Simonson. I am in awe of the talent we saw in that room. And the Simonsons were a great addition to the conference–as friendly and accessible as anyone who has ever been on the Pikes Peak faculty.

Friday evening’s keynote speech, by Carol Berg, was a highlight I’ll always cherish. It’s not every conference that one of the keynoters is a friend, and her talk brought back wonderful memories of that early conference when I met Carol and we sat around with several others, enjoying a glass of wine in our room, laying the foundations of friendships. It was also great to have a fantasy writer up there at the podium, representing the oldest of all the storytelling forms. Thanks, Carol!

Children’s writers have the best discussions at their parties–when I walked in, the topic was poisons. And yes, we got busted by the fun police again this year. We make each other laugh, a little too loudly, I guess. So we headed for the lobby, where we had the delight of chatting with agent Cherry Weiner, who besides being a force of nature is one of the funniest women on the planet.

Saturday morning brought more great conversations, with Steve Saffel (thanks for the Spiderman pin!) and Walt and Weezie and my usual buddies. I enjoyed my manuscript critique from Pat LoBrutto, who offered some key insights into making my work shine and encouraged me to find an agent. Thanks, Pat!

And then the pitch session. Though the woman in the waiting room tried to help us relax, in truth, I’ve been through so many pitches over the years that I didn’t feel nervous. Laurie McLean opened the conversation with great ease and made the ten minutes fly. Thanks, Laurie, for making it easy to explain my stories, even though I stumbled over some of the words–more tired or nervous than I thought I was!

David Liss’™s lunch talk had us all laughing–intentionally–”and reminded me of my long-gone days of grad school. As a historian, I’m picky about historical fiction, but David’s talk was a great pitch for his books.

By Saturday afternoon, I was so tired that I desperately needed a nap, which I didn’t get, and my knees were aching from the hours of sitting. Still, I enjoyed Kenny Golde’s workshop on Hollywood, and David Liss’s workshop on character. And then I had reached the end of my ability to absorb anything more and disappeared for a rest. Of course, I still had the Flash Fiction prompt, “They said it couldn’t be done,” knocking around in my head, bumping up against a story my dad had told me. So I took some time to write a story and make some edits, and read it to my roommate, Janet Fogg. Janet offered a gentle critique, which incited a few more edits, and then I copied it over to make sure I got it turned in before dinner.

The awards banquet was a blast, with my fellow fantasy advocate, Cheryl Reifsnyder, receiving first place in the Children’s category, and my critique group “cousin,” Karen Albright Lin, receiving second in Mainstream. It’s always a great thing to see friends going up there to the front.

The down side to it all was that a dear friend had taken ill Saturday afternoon, and missed half the conference, huddled in her hotel room. She’s recovering well, but we missed her company.

Sunday’s workshops started off with a bang, or a thunderstorm, or a soundtrack. I went to Laura Hayden’s talk on subliminal music, and enjoyed the opportunity to actually write at a writer’s conference. And then got even more of a chance at Walt and Weezie’s First Draft workshop. Thanks to all the great writers in that room who read their work. I always love seeing the different stories that come from the same prompt, and I’ll never forget the image of rings of people surrounding a bear and her cub.

Then the last workshop–Kim Reid’s on memoir. I’ve already started reading her new book, No Place Safe: A Family Memoir, and it drew me in immediately. Thanks, Kim, for sharing the wisdom you learned along the way.

I’d agreed to drive three of the faculty to the airport, which meant I’d miss the lunch speech and the announcement of the Flash Fiction contest winners. During the fifty minutes I was gone, my story was read aloud as the first place winner. Janet collected the prize for me, and I was reminded of my father-in-law’s words–No good deed goes unpunished. So, I was sorry to miss the fun of hearing my story read aloud to the crowd, but I’m looking forward to seeing it published in Apollo’s Lyre next winter. Thanks, Bret, for the great workshop on writing Flash Fiction. I’m sure I wouldn’t have done so well without it.

And many thanks to all the great folks who put the conference together and made sure it ran as smoothly as always. It’s such a fun weekend, with plenty of work and play, old friends and new. I always meet people I really enjoy, and hear delightful stories. No wonder the Pikes Peak Writers Conference has such a great reputation. No wonder I’ve been eleven times.

This has been a week of walking through memory. Lots of things have triggered it, including reading Natalie Goldberg’s book on writing memoir, Old Friend from Far Away. She writes that memoir is the exploration of memory, of how we remember.

The next trigger actually consists of several related triggers. I have a college reunion coming up in the fall, and a high school reunion in ‘09. Trying to decide whether to attend the college reunion, which is far enough away to involve air travel and hotels, I got back in touch with some friends from those days, to see whether they’re planning to attend. And I got back in touch with people I knew in high school in the same week. One offered, in his email, a brief paragraph of remembered lines from the plays we were in and commented how strange it is that memory shines such a bright light on certain scenes. Others recede into the mists.

Talking with old friends made me think about things like how we change and don’t change. Of course I’ve changed since I was on the verge of adulthood–every experience in the decades since those days has shaped my understanding of the world and of myself. But in some essentials, I haven’t changed. One friend offered a snapshot of how he remembers my personality, and those things are still true. As I see it, the underlying qualities of who I am don’t change, but how I act on those qualities and how I relate to others based on my level of understanding of my own motivations changes dramatically over the years.

Today brought two more triggers for memory. On campus today for a Conference on World Affairs talk, I walked into a building where I used to have an office, and where I once taught a large lecture class. The smell of old wood and new carpet greeted me as I faced the long flight of stairs leading up, a flight I climbed countless times years ago. I remembered professors, students, moments of being in front of the class. Good and bad memories rose up. On the way out, a young man held the door for me, and it occurred to me that he’s likely half my age. How did that happen?

But the deepest trigger is that today was Paul’s, my father-in-law’s, birthday. I think of him every day, seeing his art in my house, seeing his smile sometimes on my husband’s face. Paul died almost four years ago, and if I let myself experience it, the grief is just as fresh now as it was then. I miss the conversations we used to have, the way he’d get down on the floor and play with his grandkids, his sense of humor.

Riding home on the bus, I listened to a song that always reminds me of him, having heard it within a few weeks of his death. It’s by Bailey Jester, called “Voice Across the Water.” The line “I’d give anything right now to see you standing here” always touches my grief. But today, thinking of memory and times past, I also heard this line in a new way:  “Now I find myself a prisoner on this ancient shore.” The risk of plunging too deeply into memory is losing connection with the present. The past is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.