Back From Napa Valley

I returned home from the Napa Valley Writers Conference a few days ago. Six days of wallowing in words and wine in St. Helena. What a treat.

The conference is held at the tiny "north" satellite campus of Napa Valley College. There are about 100 participants, divided between poetry and fiction. There are eight workshops, each with 12 participants. I was in Antonya Nelson's group.

One of the reasons I was so excited to attend this conference was because I had read and admired the work of three of the fiction faculty before I'd even thought of applying. Nelson's short story collections are among my favorites and this spring I gave several friends copies of her most recent collection, "Nothing Right." A few years ago I stayed up most of one night to finish ZZ Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere." And last year I greated enjoyed Peter Ho Davies' "The Welsh Girl."

On arrival at the conference on Sunday afternoon we had an orientation, then split into our groups to get organized for the week. We each had submitted up to 25 pages about a month in advance and had received the pages of our fellow workshop participants about two weeks before arrival. It was fun to finally meet the people whose work I'd been digesting over the past weeks.

The daily schedule was:
8:00 a.m. -- breakfast (wonderful healthy food for all meals provided)
9:00 a.m. -- poetry lecture
10:15 -- workshop (we did 2 - 3 pieces a day)
12:30 -- lunch
1:30 -- fiction lecture
7:30 -- wine reception (at different locations -- the school, the Rubicon Estate, the Napa Opera House, the Mondavi vineyard)
8:00 -- faculty readings

I learned so much. Antonya Nelson is so smart and insightful and in the little time she'd had to look at our work, she was able to give each of us directed analysis, finding themes, asking tough questions, and giving us a much better sense of how you go from a decent first draft to something you want to show the world. I have a much better sense of the work I need to do now and how to better structure my time. This was the perfect next step for me, moving from straightforward discussions of setting and voice to much more rigorous analysis of craft issues, more reminiscent of a college lecture hall. It was invigorating and terrifying at the same time.

The people in my workshop dug in and showed serious and deep familiarity with the work of their classmates. There were many people who have been at the conference before and I can see how it can become addictive. The man who owned the B&B where I stayed told me he would try to get me a room with a balcony next year so I can get a better view!