Bread Loaf is the name of a mountain in Vermont. It is also the name of an inn in the shadow of that mountain, in the town of Ripton, VT. For those of us involved in writing, the name also stands for a writers' conference. I was fortunate enough to attend this conference in August of 2002, along with about 249 other students of writing.
I first heard about the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference when I was in college. One of my professors had attended, I believe, and of course the brochures were all over the place in the English department. I wanted to go from the first time I learned about it, but figured I would never be able to afford it, even if I could get in.
In 1998 or maybe '99, I'm not sure, I applied to Bread Loaf for the first time. I was not selected to attend. My writing mentor at the time, Sonia Pilcer, said it was because Bread Loaf was "very literary" and my work probably didn't fit their ideal. I figured I'd never get to go, as my work has always been somewhat less than literary.
In the early spring of this year, 2002, I noticed a post in my favorite news group, rec.arts.mystery, asking about writers' conferences. A well known mystery author, Jane Haddam, suggested to the poster that the best place to go was Bread Loaf. Well, I figured, I've got experience with this, so I responded promptly that Bread Loaf was too literary and wouldn't take genre writers. Just to prove my point, I went ahead and applied, both for a waitership (waiters work for their tuition) and as a regular participant if I wasn't good enough to be a waiter. I sent off my application with my 25 pages of prose, part of my third novel-in-progress. Lo and behold, I got in. Not as a waiter, apparently my work isn't that good, but as a regular participant. 20% of those who applied this year were accepted.
Somehow we managed to come up with the money to pay for the tuition, and on Wednesday, August 14, I set out for Vermont in my husband's little car, with my bike strapped to the back. I was very nervous when I arrived, as I really expected to be surrounded by college students, or at least MFA students. I was thrilled to find that not only was I not the oldest person there, there were many people older than me. I was also thrilled to find that I had been assigned to a single room in Tamarack, a big white house with a porch on the front set a distance from the other buildings. In Tamarack we had a tiny kitchen with a refrigerator, a nice living room with a fireplace, and no hot water. The hot water problem would be solved, sort of, the next day. In the meantime, I had a campus to explore.
I dutifully attended the campus tour and learned where everything was, then attended the computer lab orientation (in the Apple Cellar) and then dinner. I found myself a nice chair where I could watch the door and sit next to a window, and strove to keep that seat throughout the entire conference. (I only lost it once or twice.) Dinner was fabulous, as was every meal to come after that. The food was of good quality and great abundance right through the last breakfast on the 25th. Think broiled trout, grilled steak, sausage and peppers, spinach and mushroom turnovers, french waffles (waffles cooked like french toast,) plenty of maple syrup and all the fresh fruit you can eat.
Wednesday night I attended the first reading, with Michael Collier and Kevin McIlvoy. I was impressed, and starting to feel as if maybe I didn't belong here. This nagging feeling would stay with me through the entire 11 days. I attended the coffee reception in the barn, which would be the last time I attended anything social in the barn. I am not a night person, and eating dessert at 9:30 at night is not my cup of tea, so to speak.
Next morning, after a fabulous breakfast, I attended the first lecture of the week, with David Bradley. Our first workshop meeting came in the afternoon, giving us a chance to meet our workshop leaders. I had chosen Susan Straight mostly because her name came last on the list. I had never heard of her, nor any of the other writers leading workshops. As it turns out, it was a good choice. Susan was very nice, and she even likes to read mysteries. Rounding out the afternoon was a reading with Galway Kinnell. I think he's a poet. I trooped over to the faculty house, Treman, for a cocktail reception at 5:30, and was somewhat less than thrilled. Oh well. After another fabulous dinner I attended a reading by Susan Straight and Ted Genoways.
The rest of the 11 days proceeded in much the same way, meals, readings, lectures, craft classes, hasty email checks, reading and critiquing the work of the other members of my workshop, etc. We had lectures from Carol Muske-Dukes, Ted Conover, Alan Shapiro, Jim Shepard, Tom Sleigh and Susan Straight. The craft classes I attended were: Making a Story out of Fragments with Josip Novakovich, The Problem of Place in Contemporary Fiction with Brock Clarke, "Style" and the Storyteller's Will with Kevin McIlvoy, and Sex Scene, or Sex Unseen with Michael Lowenthal. This last was not deliberate, I had signed up for a humor workshop, but due to a sprained ankle couldn't climb the stairs. This class was on the ground floor.
Yes, I did sprain my ankle. At a writers' conference. They really got a kick out of that at the emergency room, I'm telling you. Wednesday morning the 21st I stepped off the porch at Tamarack to bike down to breakfast and my ankle folded over. I got up and rode my bike down to the inn, parked it and locked it, went in to breakfast and sat down with my foot up. A friend of mine who happens to be an MD (an ophthalmologist) sat down beside me. When I went to get up I couldn't. My friend the doctor and another friend (a Ph.D. in psychology) helped me get to the infirmary. The nurse there wrapped it up, gave me some crutches and suggested I go to get it x-rayed. No, I explained, I had an agent meeting that morning and there was no way I was going to miss that. I went to the emergency room after my agent meeting. (She wants to see my manuscript, by the way.) I spent Wednesday and Thursday on crutches. They moved me to a ground floor room a little closer to the main inn, in Birch Cottage. Here I had my own private bath, handicapped accessible.
Other things I did during the week and a half: We had a picnic at the Robert Frost National monument (I think it was a monument, it's something national anyway,) and I toured the cabin where he spent many summers. We had two in-house readings just for Tamarack residents and invited guests. I met with two agents, both of whom were excited about my ideas and want to see my work. I met lots of interesting people who never looked at me funny when I said I was a writer.
So I guess it was overall a good thing. It was pretty cool being up there on the mountain, no TV, no radio, just a bunch of people who love literature and writing. It was cool to be able to talk about writing, to talk about character, to talk about place and not have to explain any of it.
Would I go again? Yes, if I could afford it. I really couldn't afford it this time, and our checkbook took a beating. But we kind of looked at this as a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. No telling if I'll get a book sale out of this. My work is not brilliant, and it may never sell, but I know more about what's wrong with it and how to make it better now. And I guess that makes it worth it.