Sandra Beasley, the poet who writes this blog, is at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and blogging about it over at this blog. It’s a interesting rundown of what it is like to go to one of these conferences. Sounds hectic:

A typical day’s schedule is: 8-9 AM breakfast, 9 and 10 AM readings and panels, an 11 AM craft talk, lunch at 12:30, 1:45 PM workshops (each meets every other day, so there is theoretically “open” time embedded here), 4:15 faculty reading, 5:30 reception (sometimes a lavish spread, sometimes BYOB), dinner at 6:45, another big faculty reading at 8:15, receptions or open mics or socializing at the French House afterwards. This schedule rolls right through the weekend. Sometimes there are hikes at 7 AM. Whew, right?

She also has some thoughts about the formalist bend (the use of metrical and rhymed verse) the conference is taking:

But it has taken some getting used to. I can’t remember my last workshop with so much discussion of spondees and quatrain choice and headless lines. But Aaron Baker, another fellow and another former UVA student, made a really good point: the terms for formal discussion can be quickly agreed upon in this limited time of a conference workshop, whereas the groundwork for a really meaningful dialogue on free verse has to be built over a long familiarity with each other’s work. “Otherwise,” he said, “it’s just one big group therapy session.”

Leslie Pietrzyk, who runs this Work-in-Progress blog, admits to being “intensely envious (in a good way)” of Beasley’s experience. I concur.

Actually, I am going to a writer’s conference in September, myself. It’s not as fancy as Sewanee, but I am excited. The keynote speaker is Joyce Carol Oates, one of my favorite writers.