Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference

This last weekend I attended a wonderful Rocky Mountain Fictions Writers Conference. I’m very loyal to this conference because I sold my first novel as a result of a pitch session there in 2005. Awards banquet speaker Bernard Cornwell gave an entertaining presentation. Here are a few sound bites. He gave a list of interesting book titles. These two caught my attention: Memoir of an Amnesiac and The Romance of Proctology. He quoted another author, “What a writer thinks of critics is like asking a lamppost what it thinks of dogs.” He also quoted James Joyce’s wife as saying to her husband, “Why don’t you write books people can read?” Farewell luncheon speaker Allison Brennan said she writes to entertain not save the world. A line that got a chuckle from the crowd was a quote from a psychologist, “Stories avoid insanity and dysfunction.” She quoted Stephen King, “Fiction is truth inside the lie.” She also stated that stories make us human. The conference provided an opportunity to attend workshops to hone my writing craft, catch up with friends and make new ones.