The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, that annual revelry-fueled weekend of writer-talk and journalistic inspiration, will soon be upon us. For me, this usually means seeing friends I don’t see often, meeting some writer heroes, a few hours spent judging the writing competition with Zac and Bill Marvel (Tim was a judge this year, too), and a day in a workshop, talking about things like narrative arc and character development. Good times.
This year though, George Getschow, the conference director and a good friend (and former professor) of mine, asked me to write the introduction to “Ten Spurs,” the annual literary journal published by the Mayborn. He asked me to write about becoming a writer, something that sounded simple at first. What I ended up giving him was a short story about how I started in journalism–and how hard writing can be, especially writing about yourself writing. Then George wrote a foreword, also about the strange, stressful process of sitting and turning thoughts and events into printed words.
You can read both essays here. Mine includes: a drunk-driving mayor, a lunch with Gay Talese and Skip Hollandsworth, strippers, Klingons, and appearances by Brantley Hargrove, Paul Knight, and D Magazine‘s wonderful new bar columnist. And although registration for the conference is officially closed, individual tickets to the Friday and Saturday night dinners are still available.
