One day a thick, elegant brochure arrived in the mail.  It invited me to apply to a Summer Writers’ Conference.   

My name was doubtless on the list because I subscribed to Poets & Writers, but I was interested.  For years I had written stories, sent them hither and thither, and collected rejection letters. I kept any notes that offered even slight encouragement, though “Nicely written, but I want something, anything, to happen,” probably did not belong. 

Many American universities offer Summer Writers’ Conferences.  It is a big business:  one large state university offers a succession of one- and two-week-long workshops continuously throughout the summer.  I attended a more typical small conference, with two fiction workshops and two poetry workshops in the same two- week period. 

I worked hard on the short story I submitted to the conference.  It was set in a run-down urban neighborhood, which the snobbish heroine hates.  In one scene, an immigrant family leads a goat down the street. She wonders:  Was it for milk, or was it a pet? In another scene, she marches out to the alley in pajamas to tell the drug addicts to take their crack-cocaine party elsewhere so she can sleep. She is the only one who is not surprised when they obey her.  In the end, she considers moving home to work as an adjunct, but stays when she learns she is pregnant.

My husband and I thought it was the best story I wrote.  The professor trashed it and said it could only be published in a feminist magazine.  I burst into tears and was not much like a feminist, I fear. Heavens, it was harsh criticism to give an amateur writer who was basically at summer camp.

Despite the bad start, I got a lot out of the conference.   My fellow writers were mellow and encouraging, and I kept in touch with some of them for years.  Some of us were there  to improve our craft, others wanted to learn how to get published.  The professor may have disappointed some when he said he didn’t have an agent but sent out his stories himself. When one came back, he sent it immediately to another magazine.  He had published thousands of stories, mostly in little magazines. 

We learned to write spare prose in two-and-a-half page stories. He praised two of my my stories, especially the last one, which he kindly swore was publishable.  And he corresponded with ALL of us by postcard after the conference. He must have dashed off hundreds of postcards every day in addition to typing his stories. To the end of his life, he wrote on a typewriter, a Luddite to the last.

You wonder:  What happened after the conference?  Did she publish?

Does that matter? First, let me share what I learned at the conference.  Delete all adjectives and adverbs. In other words, write  like a journalist.  Your writing will improve.

Do as he said, not as I do.  I use too many adjectives and adverbs.