A couple of weeks ago my wife and I drove to Crosby, a small city about 100 miles west of Duluth. This year is the 30th Anniversary for the Hallett Memorial Library, and Peggi, the lady who runs things with great energy, skill and good humor, had invited me as part of the celebration. On Thursday evening I spoke about James Wright, and on Friday I conducted a workshop on fiction for the Quill Masters.

The QMs are an enthusiastic group of local writers, and we had a lot of fun bouncing ideas around. I talked about how to tweak dialogue to suggest the things that characters won’t say outright, and how to shape plots so that what is unsaid at the outset rises to the surface as things heat up.

Then we discussed the first chapter of Bev’s mystery novel, which promises to be a good one. And after the group broke up, I met with Sharon about her wonderful manuscript for a children’s book (about an apple who falls to the ground while gazing at the stars) and with Linda about her newest poem. As we were about to leave, Candace invited my wife and me to join a group of regional poets who have chartered a bus to a poetry event in the East this fall. We are considering it.

An added bonus was the chance I had to spend an evening with an old high-school friend and his wife. Bob’s work in wood turning is superb, and Amy is a writer who publishes a magazine called Homespun. They live with their dog, Otter, in a lovely home out by a pond where they operate Ripple River Gallery.

Talent lives in unexpected places . . . like, say, Crosby Minnesota. I hope to keep in touch with my old friend, and my new ones too, over in that neck of the woods.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Book Event, Writing Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.