Nightsun 2014: A Dispatch from Frostburg, MD

Self Portrait with Underwood Behind Glass

Sometimes writers just need to be with other writers--to obsess about craft, to get moral suport, fresh inspiration, and feedback on our works-in-progress.  And sometimes we just need to take a few days out from our distracted lives and go someplace else.

For instance, Frostburg, Maryland:

View from the Coffee Shop

A sleepy mountain town near where Maryland meets Pennsylvania meets West Virginia, Frostburg is home to Frostburg State University and, for four days each summer, to the Nightsun Writer's Conference.  

This year's Nightsun faculty included Marion Winik (nonfiction) and Clint McCown (fiction):

Poet Bruce Weigl:

Science fiction writer Brenda Clough:

And, representing YA fiction (with occasional forays into poetry), me.

In between craft sessions, workshops, and readings, participants could grab a latte and a little outdoor writing time at this charming coffee shop: 

or browse at Main Street Books, a great little Frostburg indie:

The driving force behind Nightsun is this guy, the indefatiguable poet/fiction writer Gerry LaFemina:

Gerry Gets Things Done

 While Main Streets run through a lot of small towns, very few of those Main Streets house a Center for Creative Writing--a warm space of books, literary magazines, poetry broadsides, comfy chairs, and a gumball machine from which, for twenty-five cents, you can walk away with a poem.

Thanks to Gerry, Bruce, Marion, Clint, Brenda, and all of this year's gathered Nightsun writers for welcoming me into this charmed space of writers.