Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [51]
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is an innocuous name for an organization of great literary minds. The AWP sponsors a conference held once a year, somewhere in North America, ostensibly for those who work in writing programs primarily at colleges and universities. Technically speaking, a “writing program” is a graduate-level program of instruction which results in a master of fine arts degree in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. The AWP was begun by some ambitious educators at George Mason University in northern Virginia in 1967 who, proud of their own writing program, wanted to link up with other such programs to see what could be accomplished on a larger scale. Forty years later, there are four hundred participating schools, ninety-five nonacademic learning centers, and tens of thousands of writers affiliated in some way with their programs.
My first AWP conference took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. I had always wanted to visit Vancouver, a place about which I have never heard a negative thing. Plus, it was the year the National Hockey League suspended play to straighten out a labor dispute, and, being starved for my favorite sport, I heard that Vancouver had a really good minor league team called the Giants that would be entering the playoffs at the same time the conference was being held. So, for me, going three thousand miles for a writers’ conference just made sense.
My wife would be attending and participating in two panels, one on the books of Howard Norman, and another on independent nonacademic writing programs such as The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, provide. Our plan was to arrive in town a few days early, stay someplace nice and romantic, get the lay of the land, and do some touristy stuff before hunkering down at the convention. It was a good plan. The only flaw in the plan was that I asked a Canadian buddy of mine who had lived and worked in Vancouver for several years where to go and what to see. We spent those first few precious days in an empty hotel by a deserted seaside that wasn’t going to spring to life for another six weeks. Gray sky backed with gray cement. Thanks, Charley. So much for Vancouver.
The convention was held in a giant old world hotel called the Fairmont, in the heart of downtown. We had stayed at Fairmont hotels before, and my wife, ever doing research, had signed us up for a brownie points program that gives upgrades and cheaper rooms the more you stay with them. So even though we registered too late to get the conference rate, we found ourselves upgraded to an exclusive businesspersons’ floor with office accomodations, daily shoeshine, laundry, and dry-cleaning service, and mercy of mercies, a decently stocked help-yourself bar. Peace, privacy, and free booze. So this is how the other half lives! Not bad for a couple of writers huckstering their work: one writing poetic retellings of ancient myths, and the other ranting and raving at the kakistocracy.
So when I wasn’t sampling a tasty Scotch in the hushed privacy of our upstairs domain, where other conventioneers were not allowed, and feeling so very elite, I might add, I was haunting the cavernous and ornately detailed lobby lounge, oiling up the old harangue, and preying upon the tender souls of North American Academe. How oddly perfect that, instead of boring boisterous businessmen, with their pinched vocabularies and haughty arrogances, there were platoons of turtle-necks, blue jeans and sport coats—yes, some even with leather patches over the elbows—and billowing gypsy skirts or tight little sensible suits. These are