Tag Archive | Writers League of Texas

Pining for Alpine

Aug25

I just attended my fourth writer’s retreat in Alpine, Texas. I can’t tell you how much good this does for the people who attend. We spend five days living, eating, and breathing writing. I come back feeling re-energized and ready to write.

Far West Texas is my favorite place to be in the hottest part of the summer. It’s always 10 to 12 degrees cooler than here, and it gets downright nippy at night. I get a week in my favorite place, doing my favorite thing, taught by some of the best writers around, and comparing notes with like-minded people. Heaven.

My teacher this year, Mike Hall, an editor at Texas Monthly, is a really nice guy. He was approachable and genuinely interested in helping us take the next step. I got my ego stroked and my confidence built, so much so I’m determined to finish the book I’ve been working on forever. The whole project is a lot clearer than it’s ever been, so maybe 2015 will be my year.

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

A big part of the fun on these trips is playing tourist with my husband. Bryan and I visited Marathon, Marfa, and Alpine. We’ve been to each one before, but there’s always something new to see. That’s something people don’t expect from tiny towns sitting in the desert.

Marfa has really grown and has turned into a clean, pretty little town. In addition to becoming quite the art colony and providing Marfa Radio which saves tourists suffering NPR withdrawal, it has two traditional claims to fame: the Presidio County Courthouse, which is one of the prettier members of the Tacky Texas Courthouse Club, and the Paisano Hotel, where the cast of Giant stayed while filming the movie in the mid-1950s. A young friend of mine announced she has never seen Giant but planned to rent it after hearing about it in Marfa.

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

“Or you can read the book,” I suggested.

“There’s a book?” she asked wide-eyed.

The exchange made me feel old, but I smiled picturing Edna Ferber watching us, thoroughly disgusted.

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Marathon Cafe

Marathon Cafe

Next Bryan and I headed for Marathon, pronounced MAR-a-thun. You swallow the last syllable. The one visible place to eat turned out to be a highpoint of the trip. Just the other side of the historic Gage Hotel sat the tiny Marathon Café.

We complimented our waitress, who turned out to be one of the three owners, and the floodgates opened. The residents of Far West Texas have learned to be polite to the tourists but not to get too friendly. We are different; we are The Others. And they never know exactly how we’ll react to open friendliness. I always try to get people to talk to me. It’s half the fun of traveling out there.

We found out the café was owned by three cousins, all older ladies with painful arthritic joints. As is normal there, none of them plan to retire anytime soon. Hard work is ingrained in them from childhood. You work until you get too ill or too dead to continue. A niece did the cooking. She had trained at the Gage Hotel and brought her considerable talents to the tiny family concern. Bryan said his chicken fried steak was excellent, served interestingly on top of the cream gravy. My hamburger quite simply was the best I’ve had in years, and she seemed surprised when I told her so. We will definitely go there again next year.

Sometimes we revisit favorite places, only to find them closed up or reincarnated as something else. Businesses come and go out there with the suddenness of death in the desert. Apparently you’ve got a window to make it or else. There’s always a little feeling of relief when we arrive and find a favorite haunt still standing and still in business.

Our last stop was Alpine. I had just spent a week there and had seen everything in town three times. But we discovered the Museum of the Big Bend on the Sul Ross University campus last year and decided to go back. For one thing, they have a great gift shop, and I always stock up on memorabilia there. The displays don’t change drastically, but one of the blessings of advancing age is short-term memory loss. I see places for the first time over and over.

One of my favorite exhibits is a large topographical representation of the entire area. Plates on each side list points of interest and landmarks. Push the large, red button next to the plate, and a tiny light goes on at the appropriate place on the map. In the vastness of the place it’s easy to get turned around, and I enjoy lighting up the places we’ve just seen.

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

I like the stuffed black bear, whose relatives are repopulating the area. I also like the life-size replica of a pterosaur, which won’t be back anytime soon, hanging from the ceiling. Between dinosaurs, and later on Comanches and Apaches that gave the settlers many a bad day, Far West Texas has always been a pretty busy place. I prefer the toned-down version of today.

Every time we visit, Bryan and I try to figure out a way to move out there, and every year we realize we can’t. There are down sides to living in such a remote place: medical care is sketchy and usually far away; there is no quick way to get out there or back here from out there; and I’d have to hold auditions to find people to talk to about politics. With kids and grandkids in Central Texas, there’s a lot to stay for.

Still, I think we both started thinking about our next trip out there as we unloaded the car from this one. Far West Texas calls to both of us. As a friend, Joe Nick Patoski, said, “You either get this place or you don’t.” Bryan and I get it.

A Busy Summer Gets Busier

Jul6

Eddie Izzard

Every year I look forward to summer like a castaway watches for a ship on the horizon. I fantasize about all the rest I’ll get and all the writing I’ll get done. Not happening.

Instead of lazy days in a hammock, my schedule shifts into overdrive. I have more to do than at any other time of the year, and this summer is no exception.

On June 27 we continued the Kilgore family tradition of going to see Eddie Izzard as a family whenever he makes it to Texas. A few years ago we took our grown children to Dallas to see his performance. This year we lucked out because he came to Austin on his Force Majeure Tour. I’d had tickets for Bryan and me and our son and daughter for about three months. Unfortunately, our son had to cancel, so I was able to introduce Eddie to a friend who had never seen him before. She was suitably impressed, and a new Izzardette was born.

We happen to think he is the best stand-up comedian on the planet. His humor is educated and smart, much of it based on ancient history. Eddie Izzard maintains the Roman Empire fell because Latin was a silly language. By the time they conveyed how many barbarians were upon them (MCMXXXIVCCCCCXXIV), they were overrun.

Sometimes he talks about Bible stories. Eddie provides crackerjack impressions of James Mason as the Voice of God and Sean Connery as Noah. This year he added Liam Neeson, as Zeus, to his repertoire. We also had the distinction of witnessing his first sneeze during a routine. He seemed surprised, but no one in the audience was. Welcome to Austin, Eddie.

The very next day, first thing in the morning, I got ready and headed for photo (13)the Hyatt on Ladybird Lake for the Writers League of Texas Agents Conference. I got to introduce and assist Karleen Koen, one of my favorite writers and speakers. This year’s conference was sold out for the first time ever! Jeff Collins, the keynote speaker, was funny and fascinating, and, as always, I met some really interesting people.

If you’re a writer and have wondered if it is worth attending, I can tell you it is. This is my fourth conference, and I’m always impressed by the level of talented speakers and professional organization that goes into it.

While I was at the conference, my husband Bryan filled in for me in Georgetown. The San Gabriel Writers League had a booth at Hilltop Market, and Bryan delivered the canopy and fixings to the writers manning it. I love the way he steps in when I’m overbooked, never complaining and always efficient.

The Georgetown Animal Shelter was in attendance, as well. Between workshops I got a text from Bryan asking how I would feel about another dog. We already have three, but he attached a picture and a sad story about no one wanting this one because she’s eleven years old. Her 86-year-old daddy went into a nursing home, and Lexi had been at the Georgetown shelter for four weeks. I think he was already on his way home with her when he got my text, “Sure, I’m always up for another dog!” The man knows me.

So now we have four small dogs. I comfort myself with the thought that ifLexi you add all their weights together, you get one border collie. Lexi is totally at home, and the other dogs can’t even find anything about her worth a growl.

I’ve got a full dance card, and the cotillion ain’t over yet. Next in line will be the Writers League of Texas Writers Retreat in Alpine in August. I can’t wait: a week in one of my favorite places concentrating on writing. The part of heaven where they stash the writers probably looks a lot like this retreat; at least I hope so.

I can only hope all of you are as busy and having as much fun as I am this summer. If not, watch Eddie Izzard on YouTube and adopt a dog. That’s a start.

 

 

 

Happy Campers ‘R’ Us

Aug27

Camping 3-2Camping 2-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camping 1 (2)I’m back. I’ve almost recovered from my semi-annual day surgery, and I’m ready to blog again. I won’t go into what was wrong, because I never get anything interesting or sexy. Trench foot would be a step up from most of the stuff I get fixed. Suffice it to say I’m almost well. And many thanks to my loving husband, Bryan, who gets to take care of me through all my woes, even when the yuck factor is pretty high.

We used to have a Buick like me. Seems like every other month something went wrong, not surprising since that car was the same age as my daughter. She was off at college when I finally waved goodbye to the Mom-mobile. At that point, the only thing original left on that car was the body (similar to me), since we had replaced virtually every replaceable part on it (also like me). So, if you must judge me by appearances, don’t compare me to Meryl Streep or Sally Field. Compare me to a grey 1984 Buick Le Sabre. (Actually, you can compare me to Vanessa Redgrave, if you like. I think I look better than she does, but only because pudge has smoothed out most of my wrinkles. There are disadvantages of staying rake-thin your whole life.)

Getting back to the subject, I want to comment on some of the fun things we did before being operated on sidelined me. In my last blog I mentioned the Writers League of Texas Writer’s Retreat in Alpine, TX. While I luxuriated in a Best Western, Bryan camped for a week at Davis Mountains State Park. He is the only person I know who could stay there a week without a car and love every minute. The man is a hiking and camping fool, so I never worry he’ll get bored. I only worry he’ll fall off a mountain.

We started camping about twenty years ago. I was in my forties before I camped for the first time, and I must say I’ve gotten good at it. The turning point came when I decided not to try to cook city food out in the middle of nowhere. We left the cooler at home, I invented ways of cooking really good food from dried or vacuum-packed ingredients, and we camped happily ever after. We got the camping process so stripped down, we stopped taking my aging Mom-mobile and went camping in Bryan’s Camaro. That was impressive.

I’m usually the resourceful one in the mix, but this last time Bryan’s right brain kicked in and he came up with some really good ideas. One of my brainstorms on my first foray into the wild was a campsite paper towel dispenser. About the third time the wind blew the roll off the table and into the dirt, my Rube Goldberg gene went to work on solving the problem. The result was a bungee run through the roll and hooked around an oak tree. Not only did the paper towels stay clean, but the taut resistance made select-a-sheet a breeze.

Strangely enough, the end of July is the rainy season in Alpine, rainstorms coming virtually every afternoon.  With me in Alpine and cell phone communications only possible if he climbed a mountain, necessity became the mother of invention, and Bryan was the proud father. I was so impressed by his invention. He attached the bungee to one of the camp chairs, and covered the roll of paper towels with a plastic bag. If it started to rain when he was in camp, he could simply move the chair into the tent. If he was away when the rains came, the plastic bag kept the towels from being ruined before he returned. Brilliant!

I want to say a word about our new tent. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but it’s 14’x14’, 196 square feet of spaciousness. Whereas we dubbed our previous smaller tents “Camp Kilgore,” we now luxuriate in “Kilgore Manor.” It features cross-ventilation, a vaulted ceiling, and even a vestibule. Okay, the vestibule is a bit of a stretch, but that’s what the manufacturer calls it. Now if we get shut in by bad weather, we have plenty of room to spread out, make a sitting area with the camp chairs, or practice cartwheels.

Since it was a new tent, Bryan and I assembled it in a backyard dry run beforehand. It is the easiest to assemble of all our tents, although the ceiling being out of the reach of either of us necessitated buying a fold-flat step stool. I slept in the tent two nights, one on each end of our week, and Bryan stayed there comfortably the rest of the time.

Alpine (the Davis Mountains in general) is the only place to be in Texas at the end of July. It’s always at least 10 degrees cooler than home during the day, and the nights are downright nippy. It always saddens me a bit to drive back into the inferno of the rest of Texas, although I’m usually ready to be home.

If you want to rough it, our way of camping isn’t yours. If you want luxury and air conditioning, our way isn’t for you, either. But if you want to try something in the middle, I’ll be happy to give you some pointers. We really are happy campers.

A Childhood Memory

Aug14

childhoodLast month I attended the Writers League of Texas annual writer’s retreat in
Alpine, Texas. This was the third year in a row I have participated, and it is
fast becoming a tradition both my husband and I look forward to.

I attended the memoir class taught by Donna Johnson and Christine Wicker. This
class dug up a lot of my past, some sweet, some not-so-much. If you want to get
in touch with yourself, try a memoir-writing clinic. Be prepared, though.
There’s no such thing as free therapy, as the old saying almost goes. Ours was
the only class that came with Kleenex.

I want to share a piece I wrote as one of the class writing exercises. It is one
of my fondest childhood memories, and I’m grateful for the chance to bring it
forward again.

***

My older brother dug holes in our backyard. They were large and deep enough to
sit in undetected by casual passersby. I loved those magnificent holes Tom
shared with me.

Mama allowed him to have only one hole going at a time, lest the backyard become
an unusable No Man’s Land. He always filled one hole in before starting another
one.

I watched for signs Tom was about to start another hole. I tagged along to watch
him choose a site. He was limited to a four-foot radius around the mulberry
tree. Grass wouldn’t grow there anyway, and Mama had given up trying. He walked
around and around, kicking a rock here, prodding a dirt clod there. Finally he
would sink his shovel into the ground, and I’d know he’d found his spot.

And Tom’s holes were always clean. I never got my play clothes dirty sitting in
them, and you could take books and magazines down there without fear of ruining
them. I would run my fingers across the hard-packed walls or floor without
soiling my hands. I always suspected Mama cleaned our holes when we weren’t
looking.

When the hole was finished, we observed a brief dedication ceremony, culminating
in both of us climbing in and sitting down. I was protected, circumscribed, and
unassailable, totally safe. Sitting in that hole with Tom felt like a hug.

Twitter-pated

Sep30

In my never-ending quest to catch up with the 21st Century, I attended a Writers League of Texas workshop this weekend, and it was great. “Social Media 101” was taught by author Shennandoah Diaz, who is smart, funny, and not condescending. She raised my technology comfort level in a way unequalled since Carl Sagan almost managed to explain relativity to me on “Cosmos.”

My career spanned years of breathtaking technological advances for the masses. I was amazed when copiers nudged out carbon paper. Then my IBM typewriter lost out to a personal computer and WordStar. Although fearful of change, I had to make a decision: would I get kicked to the curb of the Information Highway and left for dead, or would I pull up my old lady panties and try to keep up?

Fortunately for me, I took up with my husband at a time when most people thought computers were more voodoo than advance. He was a “systems analyst,” which I spent several years defining for friends and family. First he had to explain it to me, and I dutifully memorized his words and repeated them mechanically when necessary. It didn’t really matter that I didn’t understand what he did; very few people did.

Years passed and technology took over: computer terminals, pc’s, copiers, faxes, scanners, laptops, netbooks, smart phones, and above all, the Internet. As a technical secretary at a high tech research consortium, I encountered the Internet before my husband. At that time there was nothing much on it but researchers and academics sharing esoterica. It’s not like you could turn to it to find the location of the nearest chili dog stand or anything of real importance.  For about fifteen minutes, I was actually ahead of my computer-jock husband on matters technical. That wouldn’t last.

Fast forward to now. I’m a writer. It’s no longer enough to write words for the ages; you have to build a media platform. I heard the other day that some employers won’t consider an interview if you don’t have a Facebook page; Shennandoah said there are lots of publishers who look for your Facebook page before they read your manuscript. If you don’ t have a presence on social media, your work of genius gets tossed, because they want writers who have the wherewithal to sell their books, and nowadays that means Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else rises to the top of the media bog thirty minutes from now.

I feel like someone turned up the speed on my treadmill and left me to fend for myself. If you’re reading this, you know I have a website and a blog. I also have a Facebook page. All of these wonders are courtesy of my daughter, who set everything up for me. Well, after all, I taught her to cook and use the bathroom, not in that order. Turnabout is only fair.

The next step will be Twitter, just as soon as I can deal with the idea that I tweet. It may take a while.

A Chance Encounter

Aug21

Writers with a Sense of Place ClassI recently attended the Writers League of Texas Summer Writers Retreat in Alpine, Texas. This was my second retreat at Sul Ross, and they just keep getting better. Last year Karlene Koen taught me I DID have a book in me and that fiction is not a four-letter word. She is a dear mentor and friend. This year I took Joe Nick Patoski’s class, “Writing with a Sense of Place.” He gifted me with a boost in self-confidence as a writer and the knowledge I really do have a writer’s eye. He is a treasured new friend.

During the week of the retreat, he gave us several writing assignments, and one of my favorites was to write about a character we had met in Alpine. Here is mine.

Every time I come to Alpine I meet what I consider typical characters of the area. I usually meet older people, middle-aged to elderly, just your general grown-up. What makes this trip different is the young man I met on my way to class yesterday.

I work sometimes at an Austin high school, so I’m no stranger to the young’uns of our breed in their adolescent Blunder Years. As I approached the building, I caught sight of a strapping giant of a kid, obviously an undergraduate-type but with the face of a little boy. He looked like a balloon figure of an eight-year-old boy, blown up out of all proportion like the balloons in Macy’s parade. This man-child could have floated easily between Bullwinkle and Popeye on Thanksgiving Day.

He was neatly dressed in the ubiquitous, painfully blue West Texas jeans, definitely not stonewashed Levi’s, and a polo shirt, tucked in, of course. Instead of a backpack, he toted one of those shiny, aluminum briefcases. At first I thought it might hold his lunch, being the appropriate size for a lunch this boy would consume, but I soon realized it was on more serious business.

He got on the elevator with me, although he looked like he could build a staircase, much less use one. I smiled at him, to let him know I wasn’t one of those crabby old ladies, and he immediately grinned back and said, “Good mornin’, m’am.”

I smiled again and returned his greeting. He looked very pleased with the way the conversation was going.

“Are you taking classes here, too?” he asked, a touch of disbelief in his voice.

I explained I was here for a writers retreat and that I had come over from Austin. His face lit up, and he looked like he was going to wag his tail any minute.

“Oh, I’m from San Antonio!” The nascent connection solidified as I told him I grew up there.

The ride up one floor didn’t last nearly long enough, and soon we were wishing each other a good day. As he went down the hall, he looked as if I had made his day, meeting someone from “home” and all. He certainly made mine.