This Writer’s Life

I recently attended the twelfth annual Southwest Washington Writers Conference. I’m proud to be one of the original founders of the event, and I’ve presented or volunteered at nearly every conference since it began. This year, Jaimee Walls and I gave a presentation on the value of critique groups.

The conference has grown tremendously over the years—despite taking a break during COVID—and, for the first time, it was completely sold out!

Books changed my life. In 1966, I was a bored eleven-year-old who never read anything unless I was under duress. That was the year my parents bought acreage just outside Shaffers Crossing, Colorado, at that time a remote mountain village of about thirty people.

No television and few radio stations reached Shaffers Crossing. Satellite TV belonged to the realm of science fiction, and cable television was still rare. No one had heard of the Internet. Our telephone line consisted of a single wire shared by eight neighbors.