I also got to go to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference this summer. What fun rooming with my pal Katrina Denza! Now there’s a sly sense of humor. We both had a great time. I worked with the amazing writer Charles Baxter, who’s also a truly excellent teacher. He helped our group get right to the heart of whichever of our stories we were talking about, discussed whether there was enough tension, whether we had really gotten to the theme and “unpacked it” as well as we could have. I appreciated it that he was a true teacher—friendly, but he stuck to the point and really taught us. He helped me a great deal with my novella, and was very generous with his time, meeting with each member of our workshop outside of class to go over the manuscript more and to answer questions. Jerry Gabriel was the fellow in our workshop and was also quite generous and helpful. His own absorbing and well-written collection LOST BOY recently won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short fiction. He’s down-to-earth, personable, and because he got sick during the last night of the conference when we were supposed to have a meeting, went so far as to talk to me long distance from Hurricane-Irene country. We had to cancel a few times because his power was out, and finally talked to me a month later, and very insightful about my novella. Katrina’s workshop was with Luis Urrea, a past fellow San Diegan. She was very pleased with the insight he had for her story. There were so many wonderful readers at Bread Loaf I can’t go into them all. But Urrea might have stolen the show. No manuscript in front of him, he told us his story with a lot of animation and the excitement of someone with a great tale to tell. Wonderful. I’d gone to Bread Loaf once many decades ago and was what was called at the time a waitroid. I had some good experiences then, too, especially with John Irving as my workshop leader for another manuscript. Such a gifted storyteller and also kind about taking the time to offer helpful criticism. But I was much younger then and much more paranoid about hierarchies and not fitting in. This time I felt very relaxed and couldn’t have cared less about other people’s parties. There were a group of us writers who knew each other either from other conferences or from having interacting online, so it was fun to meet up.