Northwoods report

Yesterday was the first complete day of the Minnesota Northwoods  Summer Writers Conference for your leadership team members. (Okay....Nancy Devine and Pam Fisher) Pam began her work with poet Jericho Brown and Nancy began her work with creative nonfiction writer Joni Tevis.

Still the big focus of the day was writer Ron Carlson who gave a craft lecture in the afternoon and a reading at night. GO READ HIS WORK ASAP!

Here's an excerpt from "The Gunslinger's Lamentation."

When it’s twilight in a town like this and the street glows and the horses whisper or seem to whisper and the big cottonwoods behind the mercantile begin to whisper or seem to whisper and the creek along side the livery stable whispers and it is whispering certainly, then I always get a hankering to put down my guns for good, and all the ways of the gun which have run me so long, and stay in this sweet place when the other gunslingers in my outfit ride on in the morning.  I’m always tired when this hankering comes on and thirsty and I start thinking about putting a boot up on the bar down the street and sanding off the corners of my throat with some bitter rye whiskey which is a hard medicine, but my medicine all these years.  The hankering is a real hankering and I’ll talk about it.