Every year, those dedicated writers in Colorado Springs pull together one of the very best, friendliest conferences in the country. This year, my twelfth as an attendee, was no exception. Where else can you meet a neuroscientist studying math anxiety, fugitives from oppressive regimes around the world, and people who talk with the dead all in the same weekend?

The conference offered a new opportunity this year, which was the optional Thursday session. I attended Linda Rohrbough’s workshop on Tools the Pros Use. She provided such a wealth of ideas, tools, and websites that I expect it to take weeks to explore all the resources in her handout. I loved the instruction to talk about our work to people we didn’t know. It was great practice for the pitches that came later in the weekend. My friend Janet Fogg attended the marketing track, where certain volunteers agreed to be videotaped discussing their work. You can see a delightfully humorous example on YouTube.

Friday brought the usual Read and Critique sessions. This year, I went to the R&C 123 style session for the first time. A panel consisting of an agent, an editor, and a professional author offer their first takes on the first pages submitted by members of the audience. I like this style better than the old style, because the pages are anonymous and are read by a volunteer other than the author. It takes a lot of the pressure off. So I turned in the first page of a work still in the early stages, and did get valuable feedback from Ginger Clark, Jeffrey Deaver, and Rose Hilliard.

The Flash Fiction workshop was fun, of course. With Bret Wright and Deb Courtney leading it, how could it be anything else? I wrote a couple of pieces in the workshop, but wasn’t inspired by the prompt for the on-site contest this year, so didn’t enter. I did love the winning entry, announced on Sunday, and the fact that the winner usually writes non-fiction! It just goes to show how flexible our minds can be if we don’t box them up.

Friday night’s dinner speech by James N. Frey offered a lot of food for thought about the power of words. It was an excellent reminder for those of us wielding words as a daily practice, which would be anyone who talks or writes. Take good care with those weapons, folks.

The children’s writers gathered again but the fun police didn’t bust us this year, probably because the party ended pretty early. We’re all getting older, maybe, or maybe it was because we didn’t have some of the usual suspects at the conference this year to get us really rollicking. But we still had great fun.

It was probably just as well we ended early, because my pitch started at 9:00 the next morning. I talked with Ginger Clark and even did a bit of impromptu dream work with her. You just never know where you’ll find some connection with a person. Thanks, Ginger, for your graciousness and your time.

Having a pitch right in the middle of the first session meant that I missed the whole thing, though I did enjoy talking with Jodi Anderson, Christian Marcus Lyons, Margaret Yang, Frank Dorchak, and Ceil Boyles just before and after the pitch.

For the second and third sessions I attended Deborah LeBlanc’s paranormal panels. She’s a magnificent speaker, so if you ever get the chance to hear her talk about her work or read from her books, you should certainly do it. Since I’ve had my own experiences with poltergeists and strange phenomena, I enjoyed her stories of ghost encounters in her work. I’m still not persuaded by the demonstration of the Ghost Box, though. One of my friends who also attended the session, called it a Rorschach test of sorts, where the human mind, predisposed to find meaning in randomness, searches for patterns. Still, it was very interesting and led to some fascinating discussions later in the weekend.

I took a break from workshops on Saturday afternoon, when my family arrived. They came to cheer for me at the awards banquet that evening. As one of the contest finalists, I had the fun of gathering before dinner to have photos taken with Jodi Anderson, the emcee for the weekend, as well as a group photo with all the other winners. Then we snuck in the side entrance to reserve seats at the designated tables, so that we’d all be close to the front when called up to receive our awards. I was particularly honored to hold an entire table for the people who wanted to sit there–members of my family and critique groups. Of course, we had friends at other tables too, so had lots of chances to clap and cheer. I offer congratulations to all the winners, but especially those I know–Ceil Boyles, Sherrie Peterson, Christian Marcus Lyons, and Yat-Yee Chong. The dinner speech by Jeffrey Deaver kept us all laughing, even my kids. Brilliant.

By Sunday, I wondered if I could possibly absorb any more fun or information. Still, I sat outside Deborah LeBlanc’s session on creating unforgettable characters because her audience overflowed the tiny room she was in. I love listening to her. I also attended Linda Seger’s session on Expressing the Theme. She’s such a knowledgeable presenter that I bought recordings of the sessions she’d offered that I had missed.

Lunch provided the chance to discuss everything from paranormal experience to “octo-mom”. Of course, getting pregnant with eight babies at once is kind of paranormal, so maybe that was all the same discussion. I had to leave before the luncheon speaker, though I’ve heard Barbara Samuel before so I’m certain I missed a wonderful talk.

Instead, I left with my family to go up to Who Else! Books in Denver. Nina and Ron Else were charming hosts for my first signing. We had six authors, the cover artist, and the publisher of Space Sirens there. I had the chance to read an excerpt from “The Silver Snake,” and to sign my story for friends and strangers. Thanks to everyone who was there. It capped the weekend perfectly. It’s been a long, long road from the first time I submitted a manuscript to a publisher back in 1985 to my first book-signing yesterday. As Laura Resnick put it at the luncheon on Saturday at Pikes Peak, fiction writers are the “endurance athletes of the imagination.”

It’s April, and a writer’s fancy turns to poetry, and the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. Poetry first, since that started today. If you loved Nanowrimo (which I did), you may also want to take on the Poem a Day challenge at Robert Lee Brewer’s blog at the Writer’s Digest site: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/CategoryView,category,Poetry%20Challenge%202009.aspx
Robert provides a prompt each day, and poets can post their poems in the comments area. Since one of my friends has recently adopted a poem-a-day practice with wonderful results, I thought this would be a great way to try it for a month. I always love writing to prompts, and the incentives offered through the PAD challenge make it even more fun.

But when I’m not thinking about poems, I’m thinking about Pikes Peak. This will be my twelfth time attending the conference, which makes me one of the old-timers. Every year I get something new out of the conference. Last year, I had the enormous fun of learning about flash fiction from Bret Wright, and then of winning the on-site flash fiction contest with this story, for which the prompt was “They said it couldn’t be done”:

Mona’s First Thanksgiving

Fifteen people invited for Thanksgiving. Mona’s white apron, perfectly pressed. Pies finished yesterday, bread baked. Turkey in the oven.
Mona gloats. They said it couldn’t be done, but Mona is confident in her housewifely skills.
The house is clean, the Wedgwood china sparkling.
Guests arrive, find their seats. Mona brings the food to the table. Father lifts the knife to carve the turkey.
The knife stops on ice.
Mona forgot to defrost.

This year, I’ll get to celebrate making the finals in the YA category of the Pikes Peak Writing Contest, with my story Drift Bones. (It’s the sequel to Bone Temple.) Plus there’s a new Thursday session, so I can enjoy the conference for a whole extra day. And the usual line-up of fantastic writers, editors, and agents coming to share their knowledge. And the parties. We’ll see if we can party quietly enough this year not to get busted by the fun police. Hah.

I hope to see you there.
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