Aurora Again!

Once again, I’m spending a long weekend in Aurora, where Michele Moure-Reeves and her Aurora Project board are working on creating West Virginia’s first full-time artist retreat center. Each time I visit, there’s progress. And each time I learn something new about this small town and its fascinating history as a resort community and a 1920’s artists’ community. Soon it will again be a place for artists to come and live. For an overview of Aurora and the Aurora Project, please read the article I wrote for Wonderful West Virginia earlier this year.

This weekend, about a dozen writers are gathered here for a short-term retreat. During the daylight hours, we are free to work on our own writing, hike in nearby Cathedral State Forest, or just relax at Brookside Inn, our “headquarters” for the retreat. Last night, before and after a wonderful dinner, we listened to selections of each other’s writing. This evening we will have a real treat: a reading by West Virginia’s poet laureate, Irene McKinney. And, if the aromas coming from the kitchen and permeating the whole inn are any indication, the reading will be preceded by another fabulous meal.

Writing at Cedar Lakes

I spent the past week at Cedar Lakes Craft Center, only about 40 miles from my home, leading an Elderhostel (AKA Exploritas) class in memoir that was titled: “From the Inside Out: Your Own Story, Your Own Words.” My seven writers humbled  me: not only did they write well, but their life stories were so varied and rich that I came away feeling they had taught me more than I taught them. This is the best kind of workshop experience, I think, when the so-called teacher is learning along with the class, and the so-called students each bring their own expertise to share.

No one would call Cedar Lakes a dramatic landscape. But what it lacks in drama, the place has in charm. Cedar Lakes is tranquil, cozy, friendly, comforting, quintessentially West Virginian in its personality. The lodge rooms are simple but comfortable and very clean. The cafeteria food is better-than-average (especially the salad bar) and abundant. Well, the coffee’s not great, but it’s not awful, either.

Gloria Gregorich, who directs the craft and Elderhostel/Exploritas  programs at Cedar Lakes, is perhaps the sweetest and most accommodating person on earth. She went all out to give my class everything we needed. When our first room was not quite right, she let us move to a better space. Did we need more paper, a quick printer repair, more comfortable chairs, a tape dispenser? Whatever the request, she responded quickly and cheerfully. I think she’s a gem.

On two of the evenings during the week, Gloria had arranged for evening entertainment. Monday evening, we heard the lovely harmonies of Mountain Thyme. On Wednesday evening, it was the Zucchini Pickers, and the high point of the evening was a dramatic recitation of “The Highwayman” with all the lights out. In the darkness, in the voice of an accomplished teller, that poem is still thrilling.

A Literary Tea Party

Elena’s neighbor Grace (the person in the middle of this picture) read my unpublished children’s book, and liked it! So Elena did the loveliest thing: she planned a tea party to introduce us. Grace brought a friend (on the left) who has also begun reading the book. Both of them, and Grace’s mother, had good feedback and many questions.

Elena went all out with the tea party. There were pretty teal-colored cups and saucers, delicious tea with cream and sugar (the British way!), cucumber sandwiches with no crusts (in fact, cut into circles!), a beautiful plate of sushi, fresh fruit and vegetables, and a platter of jam-filled cookies. Everything was delicious!

At Elena’s request, I read a chapter of the book aloud, and was pleased and surprised that the girls chose the chapter that included references to Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Even if that book never gets published, I felt as if I were being honored as a great author. Thank you, Elena!

Santa Fe in October

I’m back in New Mexico! How I love this place. This morning, I walked on the Santa Fe Rail Trail from near Zia Road all the way to the South Capitol Station. Along the way, the Rail Runner passed me! I’ll get to ride this new-ish train next week, from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.

The weather here in Santa Fe is glorious, as it often is in October. The skies are so blue and the cottonwoods and chamisa so golden. I’m headed for Ghost Ranch this afternoon, where my class in short essay writing goes from October 5 to 11. Very much looking forward to meeting my students and enjoying the air in Abiquiu!

Ghost Ranch in October

Hurray! I’m back in New Mexico once again, teaching a class in writing short essays as part of the Ghost Ranch Fall Writing Festival. Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O’Keeffe lived and worked, is one of my favorite places on earth, and also — as I learned from a large-screen film I saw recently — one of the world’s richest sites for dinosaur fossils. Here’s a picture of the top of Pedernal, the mountain O’Keeffe painted many times.

The Aurora Project: A new artists’ retreat

From May 1 to 4, a wonderful gathering took place in Preston County, WV. The Aurora Project, a new artists’ retreat center, sponsored a long weekend for eleven writers.

Michele Moure-Reeves, the visionary woman who has brought the Aurora Project into existence during the past seven years — nurtured an amazing dream, written grants, organized fundraisers — first proposed the idea of a mini-retreat for writers about a year ago. I had just come from my Helene Wurlitzer experience and was enthusiastic about the good things that can result from the gift of time to create. When Michele asked me to organize a long weekend, I agreed.

The First Annual Aurora Project Writers Retreat exceeded all my expectations and those of every writer who participated. We knew we would have time to write. We did not expect that we would have such beautiful living quarters as well as incredibly delicious, healthy food prepared by an inspired cook (Michele did that, too!). And, though I knew the retreat was near Cathedral State Park, I had forgotten what a beautiful, tranquil place it is: full of virgin hemlocks, wildflowers, and birdsong, the perfect place for a writer to walk and reflect.

Several of us stayed at Brookside (above), the Adirondack-style lodge Michele operates as an inn. (A few stayed in houses owned by Aurora Project board members.) We came together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but otherwise went our solitary ways to read, write, and think. Some people curled up in couches or in cozy nooks at Brookside. Some settled on the huge wraparound porch. Some went to a picnic shelter at the state park. There was plenty of room for everyone.

In the evenings, we had informal readings and time to get to know one another.

During the days, we were invited to visit the Utterback Farm (you can see the barn in the background of the above photo) and the Old Stone Tavern, an historic building near the Aurora Project.

On Sunday, before we left, we had an opportunity to tour the buildings, all part of an 1880s resort community, that are being renovated to serve as studios for painters, writers, musicians, and photographers who spend time at the Aurora Project. The history of this place is almost as fascinating as the current project!

The Aurora Project will welcome its first fellows in 2009. More information about fellowship opportunities may be found at the Alliance of Artist Communities website: http://www.artistcommunities.org

Arts and adventure in the mountains of West Virginia

Although I’ll be in Taos for a couple more weeks, my thoughts are turning toward home. And, among the things I’m anticipating, when I get back to West Virginia, is watching the progress of a new venture founded by my friend Michael Davis.

Water Gap Retreat is a brand-new series of weekend workshops at Michael’s Shavers Fork riverside property near Elkins, West Virginia. The workshops — led by artists that include Jude Binder, Doug Van Gundy, Anita Skeen, Ruth Blackwell Rogers, Mimi Kibler, Scott Weaner, Jim Van Gundy, Michael and Carrie Kline, Kate Long, Robin Kessinger, and yours truly — will focus on many topics, from mountain geology to mountain music, from writing poetry to baking bread, from origami to organic gardening.

Workshops will begin on Friday evenings and end Sunday after lunch. In between, the time will be filled with campfire gatherings, morning yoga sessions led by Irene McKinney, workshop sessions, field trips, and — this may be my favorite part — fabulous, healthy food prepared by some of the best cooks I know. Even the sleeping quarters are special: riverside camping structures designed especially for Water Gap Retreat by architect Bryson VanNostrand, featuring Michael’s shibori-dyed fabric and Laurie Gundersen’s handmade rugs.

The Water Gap website is brand new. Check it out if you have a chance and let Michael know what you think.

Here’s a picture of the river taken from Michael’s property. It’s a great place for swimming, floating, and fishing, too.

Poetry time

Some of you may be wondering whether I am, in fact, writing anything. That’s why I came here, after all.

I spent the first couple of weeks adding two chapters to a children’s book that I thought I’d finished last year. This writing was sheer pleasure; I liked the characters and simply enjoyed watching what they did and writing it down. I have high hopes for these quirky characters, and am now sending them out into the world on their own.

When that was done, without a clear “project” to finish, I stalled for a week or so. Since then, however, I have been working my way through a poetry exercise book that is probably my favorite resource, Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand. Faith Holsaert and Vicki Smith gave me this book some years ago, and I am grateful every time I open it, whether to use it for a workshop with students or to find a prompt for myself. Kowit’s voice is common-sense, clear, generous, and kind. He gives wonderful examples of good writing by many different writers, some well-known and others not, and he talks about each one with intelligence and insight. His writing prompts are straightforward and specific, but not “easy.” Particularly in the first section of the book, he asks for a hefty investment of emotion.

Kowit’s own poems have been showing up in The Sun recently, and I always appreciate his passion and craftsmanship.

I have no idea whether I’m writing well-crafted poems — or essays or prose poems or little stories, or whatever they are. It’s too early to judge. I know that I am dredging up old memories and enduring fears, some of them painful, and that I frequently find myself in tears as I scribble. (That’s usually a good sign, I think.) I know that I lose track of time, and may suddenly realize that three hours have passed while I sat in my mauve chair, writing and rewriting, scratching out words and substituting other words, saying lines aloud, listening for the bumps and ripples of real experience. I will probably never show some of this writing to anyone else, but I know it’s worth doing. And to have the time to do it! Thank you, Helene Wurlitzer.

To find more inspiration, I have been reading poetry, too, most recently Ted Kooser’s collection Delights & Shadows. These poems are deceptively simple in structure and very moving. One of Kooser’s gifts is an elegant lightness: he seems to be able to look perceptively without staring. His poems find deep meaning in simple, household things — the print on a woman’s apron, a piece of Depression glass, an old fishing pole. I am so happy I happened on this book at the Taos library.