This one was on Thursday night sometime during the participant reading. Friend Laurie Sleeper is in red and I'm in the blue and we're readers #1 and #2. Note the liquid courage in my hand.
Doni-Marie taking a photo of Mimi and Diane. This was our back yard.
And this was our yard. The dead trees are the result of a pine beetle infestation that we're battling here in Colorado.
Faculty panel discussion on the last day featuring authors Mike Henry, the Executive Director of Lighthouse and author of the upcoming book (poetry) No Stranger Than My Own, novelist William Haywood Henderson, author of Native, The Rest of the Earth and Augusta Locke and Shari Caudron, author of Who Are You People? (winner of the Colorado Book Award and chosen for Entertainment Weekly’s MUST List), and a collection of personal essays, What Really Happened, (named a humor finalist in the Book of the Year Awards). Shari has published more than 500 articles and essays in magazines and literary journals.
Chris Ransick, Denver’s Poet Laureate, won a Colorado Book Award for poetry in 2003 for his first book, Never Summer. His subsequent collection of short stories, A Return To Emptiness, won the 2005 Colorado Authors’ League Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2005 Colorado Book Award in Fiction. Lost Songs & Last Chances, published by Denver-based Ghost Road Press in 2006, is his most recent book. Teague Bohlen co-edits the literary and arts journal Copper Nickel and advises the campus newsmagazine The Advocate. Currently, he serves as a reader on the national flash-fiction journal Quick Fiction and is a regular feature contributor to Westword and L.A. Weekly. His first novel, The Pull of the Earth, was released by Ghost Road Press in 2006, and won the Colorado Book Award for fiction.
After the reading on Thursday night...
After the reading...
A big ass moose
Big ass moose head on
Diane, Shari and Mimi
Mike Henry
Mike (I think)
Bill Henderson and Lynne
Bambi
Martha and Andrea Dupree (Lighthouse Program Director)
Bill Henderson and Andrea Dupree
Everybody
24 comments:
What a beautiful setting for a bunch of smiling writers! I'm sure you were inspired. Thanks for sharing!
susan@spinning
There is something truly magical about that place and about these people. It amazes me that such a large, diverse group can spend so much time together and it's completely harmonious and nurturing. I have no idea why because normally I can never spend that much time in any other group without wanting to strangle someone :)
Woah. I've been here almost a year, and still haven't seen head nor tail of a moose. The pine beetles are worrying me. Will no-one do anything?
Looks like a terrific experience!
you cut your hair! and that IS one big-ass moose.
Orchid Hunter, I saw one moose last year up at Grand Lake and there were definitely more around this year. I've never seen them anywhere else in Colorado. Apparently they were introduced to Rocky Mountain National Park in the late 70's or early 80's (just a small herd) and they are thriving.
I can't talk intelligently about the mountain pine beetles and the lodgepole pine, but my rudimentary understanding is that as drastic as this is, it's more or less a natural phenomenon that's been blown up and magnified because the lodgepole pines in this region are exceptionally old (due to forest fire prevention) -- therefore, the natural turnover of forest hasn't occurred here and the older trees are more vulnerable to infestation -- and the warmer winters (can anyone say global warming) have not killed the beetles off the way they have in the past. You are a scientist so maybe you can find out what the deal is and explain it to me. I do get the impression that there's not much that can be done except now all the areas full of dead trees are extremely vulnerable to fire and the loss of the trees will also affect water supply.
Patti, I did indeed. That's my Meg Ryan haircut ;)
That looks like so much fun. I want to do one of these. Gorgeous setting for it.
Charles, Oh you should! I think the setting is a big part of why it's such a great experience. Not only is it beautiful, but since we our food, lodging and workshop space is here, since there are hiking trails everywhere and since Grand Lake Village is a very short hike down the hill, you don't have to drive anywhere at all. This would be a whole different ball game if it were just in some Marriott in the middle of a city.
What an awesome site! Looks like y'all had a great time. :)
Have you ever eaten moose? It's surprisingly delicious. I even preferred it to venison.
What Lana said. Also, Alaska is *so* totally beeyooful!
We have to settle for writer's retreats in boring old Fiji...
Lana, We really did have a great time. As for moose, I haven't had it. The moose here aren't indigenous so there aren't many and they're not hunted. We tend to eat a lot more elk here than any other game meat and I definitely prefer it to venison. Not a huge venison or antelope fan.
Steve, OH MY GOD, THE HUMANITY! Can't we do something? Take up a collection? Blog friends, what has it come to in this world when I writer has to settle for going on a retreat to Fiji. In the name of all that is decent, we must do something to help!
I'll pony up some dollars to send Steve to Beavercreek, Ohio. It won't be anything like Fiji, I promise.
The "backyard" of the retreat is so beautiful that I would have been tempted to play hooky and just wander about taking pictures. Glad you had a great time.
The pix are great. Sounds like a wonderful experience, set in soul-nourishing environment, with kindred spirits. What a fabulous opportunity to feed your creative well.
I love the environment, it looks just great and inspirational! Being with such a great bunch of people who are all interested in writing sounds ideal. Has it given you lots of ideas?
Sigh. Looks heavenly.
Shauna, See? Now you exemplify what this blogging community is all about. Anything to help out a fellow writer :)
Plenty of people do duck out to do just that. Typically, it's during one of the book discussions. I confess to bailing on the poetry discussion -- only because I didn't manage to get the reading material beforehand.
Sphinx, You've captured the experience perfectly.
Seachanges, It really has given me lots of ideas. There were a couple of sessions where the writing prompts seemed to open up the floodgates in all kinds of ways. If I hope to share more on them soon.
Carleen, Maybe next summer you'll be up there too. I probably sound like a walking billboard for this retreat, but I honestly don't have a single negative thing to say about it. It was just great.
These sure look like a nice group of people to spend time with.
Patti, You know what? They really are and awfully nice group.
Lisa, will you let us all know when the application process starts? Now that I'm on the West Coast and flights to Denver are cheap, maybe I'll consider it for next year. Do you think a fantasy and sf writer would get much out of it?
Shauna, I definitely will. I know it's going to be July 12th through 19th next year. They've already picked the dates. And I definitely think a fantasy and sf writer would benefit. We had one (at least) this year. The workshops on structure, characterization, description, setting -- it seems to me that everything translates, even though it's geared toward literary fiction and I'd say that at least half, if not more of the participants are not writing literary fiction. There are lots of genre writers too.
How cool was that!!! You know that's what I call a real retreat! What an incredible place! I'm jealous.
Ello, It is a real retreat. As much as writer's conferences have their time and place, it is much much different and only about the writing. Don't be jealous -- come to one!
Wow! Wonderful pictures! Thank you for sharing them.
No doubt you had an amazing time. :-)
Vesper, it was truly amazing.
Ok, so I want to come hehe. I've been looking, half heartedly, for a place to escape and write and stuff and this looks amazing. And, I have a thing for Colorado of course. I'm a bit partial. Anyway-I've never done anything like it, I'm not good at reading my work and aside from this Dickens Challenge thing I don't really have a writing portfolio as it were. I have some minute fictions that I've written but they are all from college..so, would i be allowed hehe?
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