16 July 2008

Writing Below Sea Level


The St. Augustine Project. Hosted by Writing Below Sea Level , gorgeous writer Connie May Fowler's love/dream child, this venture was incredibly important and impactful and exhausting and wonderful. 8 days of morning manuscript critiques, afternoon lunches with writing community pros, and soul-baring studio sessions of reading our work aloud--raw, soul bearing, filled with tears, with laughter, with inspiration. I can't believe it really happened. Connie May is so generous, kind, open, and solid. She is delightful. Dorothy Allison is wonderfully powerful, and funny, and kind. She says "honey," a lot, which is endlessly charming. These women both wrote novels, incredible works of art that live inside me still. And I learned, by spending time with them, that art is not really a choice. You stifle it. Or you let it flow. Only then are you free. I've been woefully out of touch with all the women I experienced this conference with. It's like resting up after an intense, short-lived love affair. So much was there. So much remains. I hold the love these women hold for their art and for themselves close to mine, like a bluebird singing.

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