Gratitude: Roanoke Regional Writers Conference

Your fave editr addresses the 2014 RRWC.

Today, I am grateful for:

The Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. I founded this baby seven years ago and it has helped create a close and active network of the region's writers, which are some of the best in the country.

This morning I spent about three hours putting together biographies for this year's group of teachers/writers who will have classes Saturday, Jan. 31 at Hollins. Friday is dedicated to writers getting to know each other, presenting a scholarship and hearing some great keynote addresses.

For me, this is a labor of absolute adoration. I love the writers, the setting, those who help organize and those who contribute their time to teach. We paid the writers a small honorarium the first two years, but when we started giving our scholarship to a Horizon student at Hollins, they all wanted to chip in, so that money goes to the scholarship automatically now. That writers like each other and support each other has been a splendid lesson for me. Their generosity--and most of them don't have a lot of money--is impressive.

Hope you'll join us Jan. 30-31 at Hollins. The website will be up by Nov. 1 so you can register. The lineup, as is always the case, is a killer.