Robert Boswell's Novel Workshop

I signed up for Robert Boswell's session, and want to be prepared to get the most out of it. I write YA novels, and heard a rumor that he's written one as well. I couldn't find it at Amazon, nor on his website. Can anyone enlighten me? I have read Century's Son, and recommend it. A number of Robert Boswell's novels are available at the Taos Public Library. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone in my session!
Lauren

Computer Pod Announcement

The conference will be setting up a computer pod with several laptop computers and a printer for the use of our participants and faculty. However, we will unfortunately only be able to supply PC's this year, so Mac aficionados who anticipate needing computer access are recommended to bring their own laptops if at all possible.

I Want to See the Pictures!

I just finished reading the essays written by the other writers who will be in Rob Wilder's class and I have two things to say -- maybe three. I feel like I know y'all already. That's what good writing does I think. (Of course I do already know one of you...in fact I think we were separated at birth.) Next - PLEASE bring pictures of the the people and places you talk about in your writing. I want to see you Uncle, you as a baby with a stuffed turtle, the Serengeti, hubby, that sweet husband that likes to hold babies! Looking forward to getting to know you all better.

Brenda from Falls Church, VA

Hello to All

Another complete newbie to blogging here, bidding my fellow conference attendees a warm hello. I'm driving from Tacoma to Taos via Salt Lake City in a couple of weeks, as soon as I finish a stint of jury duty (my daughter lives in SL, a student at the U of U). Having just completed the school year, I am thrilled to have the entire summer to immerse myself in reading, writing, learning, and frolicking. The week in Taos with all of you looms as the jewel of the summer.

Now, the shift is on from reading my students' essays on Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Hamlet to a second reading of the manuscripts of my fellow memoirists in Greg's class. And I just finished Vivian Gornick's memoir in the jury waiting area at Pierce County Municipal Courthouse this morning. I closed the book, closed my eyes, and listened with ears that had become attuned to the voices resounding through all I've been reading of late -- listened to prospective jurors from across the spectrum: grandparents, single moms and dads, mechanics, employees of Boeing, all weaving themselves together with stories.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled, especially to meet Susan, Caroline, Jennifer, Marc, and Cynthia, whose voices I've come to know as dear old friends. What a trip to encounter you all in embodied space in a few weeks! (I hope you've all received my manuscript, such as it is. I apologize for it going out so late. There's a story, of course.)

All the Best,

Creighton

Robert Wilder E-mail - Unused no more (hopefully)

Sorry about the frustration with the email! If you're in Rob Wilder's class and are trying to send your assigned writing piece in, please use the following email:

robert at robertwilder dot com

Naturally convert the at and the dot; we're trying to protect Rob from spam programs that might track him down by the email format!

Hope that solves the problem. If you have any other questions of course you can post here, or you can email us at the taosconf email account and we'll be happy to help.

More unused!

Hey, I have had the same response when I tried to send Rob Wilder a missive. Do we have a better e-mail address for him? The address listed at the end of our letter is Rwilder@sfprep.org. My e-mail contained no attachements or anything else that would have caused it to be returned.

Help?! :-)

and now what?

I managed to cobble together from all my various and asundry essays and stories a "whole draft" albeit with a few holes. I even got it printed out, (167 pages) copied-- double sided and three hole punched-- and mailed out to the participants for the Memoir Master Class at the Taos Writers Conference this July.

I made the deadline.... and as I stood there at Kinkos watching the copy machine spit out pages of my manuscript I cried. I don't know why. Happy tears, sad tears, woulda shoulda coulda tears, if only I had another day tears, am I ready to move into the revision stage tears.... how will my manuscript stack up next to everyone else's tears.... And now what am I gonna do tears.

Well, I have 5 manuscripts to read, several essays and two books. And lord knows what else Greg will have in store for us when we get there.

Truth be told I'm very excited, and looking forward to the critique and the opportunity to continue to work on my craft.... and offer to others insight and critique that is helpful. Although writing is a solitary task, we thrive in community.

34 more days! I better get reading!

Unused

I'm was so excited. Robert gave us homework. We are to send an essay - no more than 20 pages - that we want to workshop during our week in Taos.

Tried to email essay and received this message in return:

The message that you sent was undeliverable to the following: Rwilder (UNUSED)

That was the fastest I've ever had a piece of writing rejected.

Did any one else have this problem?