This year is the 25th Writers Workshop at Chautauqua.
As one who has gone to the Chautauqua Institution for years, I should have known that, but it’s not something I’ve ever attended as it’s not really my field. Whatever my blog writing is about, it does not need a conference.
I happened to be in the Buffalo Airport on Saturday picking up some of my family as the Writers Workshop participants were gathering to be taken to Chautauqua.
I have no idea what a writer looks like, and over in the direction of those gathered were two men in suits and ties (and shades) who I assumed were some famous writers. There were others gathered about them, I assumed they were “hangers on”, the posse.
I had met Elmore Leonard and John Updike before, and they were impressive but not too dressed up. I was on an elevator in 1972 in Dallas with Irving Stone and he was very dressed up and sparkled, as he got off to the oo’s and ahh’s of an adoring crowd of well dressed ladies.
Therefore, with my limited experience with writers (you may have read an earlier post of a dinner with Margaret Atwood, but I explained she was in jeans), my original assumption rested on the well dressed part.
Had I known it was a conference for children’s book writers I may have thought differently about the situation and had it been hotter I may have thought about it being summer, and writers at a summer conference etc.
In the end, I returned to walk by the group one more time as I made my way to the waiting area, and I realized the dressed up men were the limo drivers.
As one who has gone to the Chautauqua Institution for years, I should have known that, but it’s not something I’ve ever attended as it’s not really my field. Whatever my blog writing is about, it does not need a conference.
I happened to be in the Buffalo Airport on Saturday picking up some of my family as the Writers Workshop participants were gathering to be taken to Chautauqua.
I have no idea what a writer looks like, and over in the direction of those gathered were two men in suits and ties (and shades) who I assumed were some famous writers. There were others gathered about them, I assumed they were “hangers on”, the posse.
I had met Elmore Leonard and John Updike before, and they were impressive but not too dressed up. I was on an elevator in 1972 in Dallas with Irving Stone and he was very dressed up and sparkled, as he got off to the oo’s and ahh’s of an adoring crowd of well dressed ladies.
Therefore, with my limited experience with writers (you may have read an earlier post of a dinner with Margaret Atwood, but I explained she was in jeans), my original assumption rested on the well dressed part.
Had I known it was a conference for children’s book writers I may have thought differently about the situation and had it been hotter I may have thought about it being summer, and writers at a summer conference etc.
In the end, I returned to walk by the group one more time as I made my way to the waiting area, and I realized the dressed up men were the limo drivers.
The “posse” were the writers.
Figures--I read once that the average income for a professional writer is between $4 and $5k a year, and that's with people like Judith Krantz and Stephen King figured in. The average writer can't afford to dress like a limo driver.
ReplyDelete