By Rebecca Thomas

Growing up in Southern California, I spent summers in my backyard, at the beach, or at Disneyland. At the beach, I’d spread out my towel, read, try to get a tan, and try to see stars. It never worked. I come from pale people. My tans were really variations of the color red, and the biggest star I ever saw was Coolio at Disneyland; although, we always pointed out Dennis Rodman’s house in Newport Beach whenever we drove down PCH, and my dad once lunched with Pauly Shore.

Summers in West Virginia, needless to say, are quite different. There are no sandy beaches, and Dennis Rodman doesn’t own property here. However, I still got a glimpse of celebrity at the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. In this case, the celebrities were well-respected writers, which, I have to say, is much better than Coolio (although I did love that “Gangsta’s Paradise” song).

Every July, writers converge in Morgantown for the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. Lead by Mark Brazaitis and founded by Jim Harms, this four day event allows participants to attend craft talks, workshop, read their work, and hear professional writers read. Celebrating its sixteenth birthday, we participants got to do just that. From Thursday to Sunday, we heard craft talks by Jim, Mark, and visiting writers Denise Duhamel and Robert Olmstead; we had the opportunity to workshop with those writers; we wrote. In short, we spent four days entirely submerged in words. I highly recommend it. It’s much better than swimming in the ocean. It’s invigorating, and you don’t have to worry about getting sand in your car.

Indeed, the readings and visiting writers alone are inspiring enough. The author of numerous books such as Ka-Ching, Two and Two, Kinky, and The Star-Spangled Banner, which won the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize. Denise Duhamel’s satiric and playful poetry forces readers to re-see American culture, gender, and Barbie Dolls. Participants got to witness Duhamel’s wit with her reading that Saturday. I, for one, never pictured Barbie and Ken’s love lives before.

Renee Nicholson, the assistant to the WVWW, was taken by how personal the reading was: “Denise Duhamel’s reading felt like an intimate conversation with her. Her poems, which have been heralded for their ability to refocus our gaze on popular culture, have an intimate quality, and her delivery like that of an old friend.”

West Virginia poet, John McKernan’s reading was also a study in intimacy. He read from an upcoming collection of forty-five poems about his father—one for each year of his father’s life. At the end of each imagistic poem, I remember the woman behind me gasping, ohhing, and awing. She wasn’t the only one to do so.

McKernan wasn’t the only guest reader at WVWW. Besides our visiting writers, participants were able to hear WVU’s own Jim Harms, Mark Brazaitis, and Renee Nicholson. Each afternoon and evening, we settled down in Colson 130 and were reminded of the wonder of words. It’s no wonder that Renee Nicholson considers the readings one of the highlights of the workshop.

Participants were also able to hear our other visiting writer, Robert Olmstead read from two of his six novels, Bright Star and Coal Black Horse. The latter book was the recipient of the Heartland Prize for Fiction, the Ohioana Award, and was chosen for Borders Original Voices. With such prizes under his belt, not to mention a Guggenheim fellowship and an NEA grant, it would be easy to think that workshop with Robert Olmstead could be a bit intimidating.

It wasn’t.

“Bob Olmstead’s approach to workshop is completely organic,” says Renee Nicholson. “He never lets the conversation tilt towards bloodless discussion of the work, but rather, teases out of the participants the ability to react to stories by bearing down on the language. In his workshop every word counts, as it should in good fiction. He’s not afraid to give tough criticism, but he doesn’t shy away from kindness either. In fact, I’d say that kindness permeates the workshop, even when the discussion is critical. His advice to me outside the workshop on how to edit and revise my novel was invaluable.”

Fellow participant and MFA candidate in fiction, Shane Stricker, agrees. “Gaining Robert Olmstead’s insight into my fiction gave me a renewed passion to work on the piece and seeing everyone’s enthusiasm about writing gave me yet another reason to keep working, to keep writing.”

That theme of kindness and inspiration in workshop drives the WVWW experience. Renee Nicholson has been the assistant for the workshop since 2007, but she’s been attending long before that. She insists that this generosity isn’t isolated to just this year. She says, “Both Jim and Mark have influenced the workshop in so many positive ways. But also, it is the people who come to our workshop that make it what it is. We get many return participants, if not every year, then often, and so the workshop also has the feel of a family reunion. One participant who attends yearly with his wife describes it as his ‘literary shot in the arm.’ I’ve been to others where the atmosphere is not as supportive and heard stories of those where the posturing made the workshops almost unbearable. But I think what Jim and Mark have created is a sense of community, an outpost in the often lonely world of those aspiring to the writing life.”

While I might not get to read on the beach here in West Virginia, I got the opportunity to read in the mountains. Even better, here, I could hear amazing writers read their work, receive critiques from writers that I admire, and be reminded of what I love to do: write. When the weekend was over, that’s exactly what I did.

To sign up for next year’s WVWW, please contact Mark Brazaitis at Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu.