Joy

A brief report from Lighthouse Litfest in Denver

I liked those Lyft scooters in Denver. Photo by Rowan Ricardo Phillips.

I have just returned from teaching a five-day craft workshop at the Lighthouse Literature Festival in Denver. We started each day with some stretching exercises followed by the briefest discussion of any particular writer’s rules of writing. For instance, Denis Johnson’s three rules: “1. Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. 2. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can’t waste it. 3. Write in exile, as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail.” Then, we did free writing for ten minutes. Prompts like: “Describe your writing desk.” The hour that followed was for the discussion of the day’s assigned readings: Annie Ernaux, Svetlana Alexievich, Janet Malcolm, Zadie Smith, Sheila Heti, Claire Messud, Aleksandar Hemon, Lydia Davis, Carolyn Forché, Claudia Rankine, and others. Another hour for going through the writing samples of two of the participants. We had an invigorating time; I felt alert as a reader and as a teacher. But, but, but… will there be a litfest where I can be teaching with Joy Williams? My workshop read a remarkable essay by Williams titled “Hawk” and then the following morning we also discussed her rules of writing:

If I buy a book and the author is present, I’ll often have a request: what advice will you give a young writer? Rowan Ricardo Phillips was at Lighthouse too, teaching a poetry workshop. He had unimpeachable advice for writers: “Watch more cricket. Play more tennis.”

Each afternoon there were craft lectures (I gave one on “nature writing”) and each evening there were author readings by the participating faculty. My thanks to Andrea Dupree for bringing me back for my third stint at Lighthouse. My students were a lovely bunch—a group with real stories to tell and the courage to take the risks necessary to tell them. Today, our final day, Maria, the writer who had been leading us with our stretching exercises, introduced us to a more elaborate pilates routine. (She also sent me a link to a pilates routine for desk workers.) Other students had brought pastries and quiche and croissants (thank you, Pete and Rainey). I like the idea of such festivals serving as sites that foster and build literary communities. Here’s to more reading and writing! And to staying fit enough to be able to do the required work!

P.S. I so enjoyed using the scooter in Denver to travel between my hotel and my workshop. Only once, trying to make a video, I took a tumble: I was driving one-handed, recording my friends Beth Nguyen and Dean Bakopoulos taking their first ride on the scooter.