By Heather Frese, COW President

It was one of those Morgantown-in-April afternoons, breezy and blue-skied, as I walked down the alley beside the Hotel Morgan (historic!) with Dinty Moore, celebrated essayist and author of humorous literary books The Accidental Buddhist, Toothpick Men, The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes, and Between Panic and Desire, along with the non-fiction textbook The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction. Dinty was here as the Council of Writers’ (COW) featured spring reader, and his presence was greatly anticipated.

And yes, that is his real name.

I’d known Dinty from my days at Ohio University, where our tenures (his professorial, mine as a lowly MA) overlapped by a year. Back at OU, Dinty was known for attending barbecues, playing poker, and being an all-around man of the people, someone who stuck up for students and served on thesis committees and attended chili cook-offs. So I was excited to welcome Dinty to West Virginia on that breezy, blue-skied April afternoon.

“You have a couple of options,” I told him, as we walked through the wedge of shade from the hotel. “I can drop you off at Colson and you can hang out until I park, or you can walk up a very steep hill with me.”

“How steep are we talking?” Dinty asked.

I lifted my arm up at a ninety-degree angle. “Steep,” I said.

“Can’t we ride the little cart?” Dinty asked.

But I told him the PRT didn’t run to Colson.

Dinty opted for the hill, and the adventure began. What followed was an afternoon of Q & A with Kevin Oderman’s non-fiction class, where we covered such topics as revision, publishing, PhDs, and capital T-truth, then a fancy dinner at Oliverio’s. That evening, Dinty gave a hilarious reading marred only by an allergy attack (curses on you, Morgantown in April) which was quickly remedied with a dose of ginger ale. Post-reading, Mary Ann Samyn and several MFAs took Dinty out for drinks at the bar on the roof of the Hotel Morgan, which is called Montmarte, though no one knows why.
There on the roof, the twinkling lights of Morgantown spread beneath us, I reflected on how lucky we were to have had such an engaging interaction with an established author and professor. The fundraising efforts of COW and contributions from alumni allowed us to bring this talented writer to Morgantown, enriching our experience at WVU and, ultimately, making us better writers.

Next time we’ll take him on the PRT.