* * Attending the Roanoke Regional Writers' Conference

Early last week, I met with a woman named Lyndsay George who is a senior at Virginia Tech studying English.  She has offered as part of a student internship to do some work for me.  She left our meeting with homework.  She was to read my manuscripts and to become more familiar with my articles and other writing.  I hope she can help in several ways, including editing and research. I hope she can help me learn some new software.

Over the weekend, I attended the third annual Roanoke Regional Writers' Conference held at Hollins University.  Also in attendance were Mary Ann Johnson and Tracy Roberts who, along with Fred First, are in the small writers’ group I’ve formed. 

Mary Ann is retired from Virginia Tech where she worked in many aspects of writing and editing.  She has been a wonderful resource for me as an editor of my work as she has the time and expertise to evaluate my writing with a high level of experience and scrutiny.

Tracy has a Masters degree in creative writing and has taught in several states.  She is working to establish a higher presence for her writing.

I attended several sessions during the course of the day.  One that was particularly interesting for me was about social networking through the Internet.  The instructor was a woman who I thought of as being a total socialite, even before Internet-based media were available to her.  She discussed various ways for having a better presence on Facebook and LinkedIn.  It occurred to me that Lyndsay, with the experience that so many people have in their late teens and early 20s with social media would be a natural to help me figure out how to broaden my exposure on the Internet.

I attended a session taught by Janis Jaquith who is a Charlottesville-based essayist.  Janis was recently involved with critiquing a radio essay that I recorded for WVTF Public Radio.  Janis is interested in having our local radio station raise its bar with regard to the quality of essays that it produces.

Rex Bowman, a reporter for the Roanoke Times told us the secret of writing, which is to surprise the reader.  He said, “Say something new and surprising or say something old in a new and surprising way.”  He discussed at some length a series of rhetorical devices for surprising the reader.

Overall, I was struck by several different things.  In my third year of attendance, I have found this conference to have a nice mix of professional writers, aspiring professional writers, and hobbyists.  There always seems to be a surprising lack of superiority or pretentiousness.  Seemingly everyone feels that they have much to learn.  It seemed to me that while last year's session was hugely pessimistic, this year’s event was marked by, if not more optimism, certainly more resignation without the gloom.  Sixty years ago, America’s best writers were household names.  Today, rock stores and athletes have taken over that role.  Somehow, most of us who feel compelled to write are satisfied that although that era is dead, our craft still will have lasting value and significance.  I have made several friends at these events. I feel that my work is beginning to become more recognized.