Leaving Fort Worden & writers' conference

This is one of the views I was privileged to live with twenty steps from my dorm (an old barracks next to a drill field, used in filming An Officer and a Gentleman) at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference the past week. On some days, both Mount Ranier and Mount Baker were visible. Poor me.

The conference was stimulating, exhausting, and sometimes amazing. I think I will remember Denise Chavez acting out the borderlands characters in her fiction for the rest of my life. She is a national treasure. Chris Abani and Martin Espada also left indelible marks. But most of all I will remember Erin Belieu, faculty for the workshop I and 14 others participated in. She was an excellent choice for me, though I had no clue of this when I signed up. She "gets" my poetry, and I "get" hers. If she weren't in Tallahassee, Florida, I'd try to go study with her. Friday night, I had read my old standby poems at an open mike and got exuberant responses from the audience. Then Saturday I met with Erin one-on-one, when she helped identify needed changes to make the poems' on-paper quality live up to their audience appeal. She also made some suggestions and gave me some contacts for finding a low-res MFA program that would be likely to suit me. I feel validated, encouraged, and motivated. She told me (staring hard as though trying to physically force me to "get" it) that I'm ready to submit and to aim high, which obviously made my day (i.e. sent me into a manic state which I harnessed by staying in my room to read a novel last night instead of going to the reception).

Now I'm in Port Angeles, at a comfy motel, after driving all of fifty miles today and checking in at noon. I had the best, juiciest, freshest-tasting grilled oysters at The Bushwhacker (google maps thinks it's "Bushwacker") restaurant, with a glass of Castle Rock pinot noir, and lemon lavender ice cream for dessert. Tomorrow I head for the Makah reservation, Flattery Beach, Neah Bay, etc., on the farthest northwest tongue-tip of Washington state. Maybe I'll finally pitch that tent I've been hauling around.