Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers Conference
What a delight it was to reunite with all the gifted writers who attended this year’s VCFA Writers Conference in Montpelier. And what a treat it was to be in Steve Almond’s short story workshop and to hear him read from All the Secrets of the World, his latest novel. Almond alone would have made the trip up north worthwhile, but the conference also featured a trove of accomplished authors reading from their work and offering presentations on craft, including William Giraldi, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Ellen Lesser, Tomas Q. Morin, Sue William Silverman, Rosa Tshuma, and David Wojahn.
Pictured here with me are Jan Elman Stout, a senior editor at SmokeLong Quarterly , whose powerful short fiction has appeared in Pure Slush, Literary Orphans, and many other journals; and Jolene McIlwain, an associate flash fiction editor at jmww, whose short story collection will be published soon by Melville House. (The fellow in between was a quiet soul. I never got his name.) Six days of strenuous feasting on craft and creativity left me a little weak in the knees—but totally inspired. https://vcfa.edu/postgraduate-writers-conference/