Leaving on a jet plane
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go. Wait, isn’t that a song? Well, at least I’m not singing. Bill and I are leaving today for San Francisco. I’m speaking at a writers conference there next weekend. If anyone living in that area reads this blog, check out the appearances on my website and drop by to see me. There is a mass autographing on Wednesday night, July 30th. Hundreds of writers signing their books and all the money goes to literacy.
We’re going early because I’ve never been to San Francisco. I consider myself fairly well-traveled. But then every time I think that, some giant gap in my knowledge wields its head and I have to remember that I’m still that oil patch kid who saw the ocean for the first time at age 27!
I often find myself a bit envious of people who grew up in the larger world. I meet writers who’ve got MFAs from Ivy League schools or spent years in Europe walking in the footsteps of Gertrude Stein or Hemingway. They talk about wanting to capture the ambiance of the Hampton’s in the 1960s or maybe write another memoir of their east coast private school for the privileged. I like those stories, too. But that sort of shared history that a lot of people in publishing claim has always left me as odd writer out.
When I try to capture the ambiance of oil patch in the 1960s or wax eloquently of my small public high school where the well-to-do were the ones in the nice new mobile homes my work gets pegged and "wacky southern". I don’t really think of myself as wacky or southern. But I guess to the ladies from Radcliffe and Wellesley it must seem very amusing indeed.
My background, perhaps, makes me an improbable writer. I remember once getting a fan letter from a reader who’d grown up in my hometown as well. She said, "I’m so happy that someone from Oilton did well."
Of course, the truth is, a lot of people from Oilton have done very well. So well in fact that if you see them on the street, you can’t recognize them as different from anyone else.
So maybe that’s my goal. I’ve packed up my best clothes and my warmest smile. I’m headed off to San Francisco to be among a huge throng of writers. And I hope not one person looks at me and says, "hey, is that one of those gals from Oil’n?"
I’ll keep you posted.
We’re going early because I’ve never been to San Francisco. I consider myself fairly well-traveled. But then every time I think that, some giant gap in my knowledge wields its head and I have to remember that I’m still that oil patch kid who saw the ocean for the first time at age 27!
I often find myself a bit envious of people who grew up in the larger world. I meet writers who’ve got MFAs from Ivy League schools or spent years in Europe walking in the footsteps of Gertrude Stein or Hemingway. They talk about wanting to capture the ambiance of the Hampton’s in the 1960s or maybe write another memoir of their east coast private school for the privileged. I like those stories, too. But that sort of shared history that a lot of people in publishing claim has always left me as odd writer out.
When I try to capture the ambiance of oil patch in the 1960s or wax eloquently of my small public high school where the well-to-do were the ones in the nice new mobile homes my work gets pegged and "wacky southern". I don’t really think of myself as wacky or southern. But I guess to the ladies from Radcliffe and Wellesley it must seem very amusing indeed.
My background, perhaps, makes me an improbable writer. I remember once getting a fan letter from a reader who’d grown up in my hometown as well. She said, "I’m so happy that someone from Oilton did well."
Of course, the truth is, a lot of people from Oilton have done very well. So well in fact that if you see them on the street, you can’t recognize them as different from anyone else.
So maybe that’s my goal. I’ve packed up my best clothes and my warmest smile. I’m headed off to San Francisco to be among a huge throng of writers. And I hope not one person looks at me and says, "hey, is that one of those gals from Oil’n?"
I’ll keep you posted.
posted by Pamela Morsi | 7:34 AM
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