I Attended the 2019 Chuckanut Writers Conference. Here's What Happened.

The 9th Annual Chuckanut Writers Conference took place at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, WA, June 21-22, 2019, with optional events and master Classes on Thursday, June 20th.

I've been wanting to attend for several years, for several reasons:

1. Bellingham is not far from my home in Seattle - roughly a 90-minute drive makes for convenient attendance. I find it challenging to coordinate all it takes to travel to other cities.
2. I want to constantly learn, grow, and improve myself as a writer, a writing community leader, and a person. I find structured events like this work well for me. I can interact with other writers and people who love learning - a shared purpose. Perhaps I'll make friends, though that is not my primary goal, and perhaps I'll make contacts to connect with in the future, over writing, teaching, conferencing, travelling, publishing, etc. I love the energy that comes from sharing experiences and goals with others. 
3. I am hoping to attend several different conferences to see how they are run, what works and what might be improved/different, and help me to develop my own courses and conferences for writers. I think it's important for all of us writers to support each other every way we can.

I finally registered this year because:

1. I've been taking my iron and supplements for over a half a year and am feeling more energy. Previously, I knew I would likely miss much of any conference due to my constant need for sleep. Iron deficiency was stealing my time and my life.
2. I'm feeling slightly more energetic, and motivated to get back to all my previous goals, abandoned over the last few years in the wake of my anemia.
3. I have a friend in Bellingham who was happy to let me stay a few nights, which meant a.) I got to visit with him a bit, b.) I didn't have to do the 90-minute commute three days in a row, and c.) I didn't have to find a hotel room (challenging for my planning deficient ADHD brain, and added financial expense)

OK. I am compelled to share a quote from a stranger here, from an exercise in a Julia Cameron Artist's Way Workshop I took in April. These positive comments we give each other after sharing are called "popcorn" in her world:

You are a powerhouse and taking care of your energy levels is setting you up for a whole new experience.

 I am feeling that, now.

Back to the Chuckanut Writers Conference. I signed up for a Master Class on Thursday. I wanted to sign up for at least two of them, but the Laurie Frankel "Work + Magic: Strategies For Gettin' It Done" sold out fast. And to be honest, it was at 9 AM and I never would have made that. I woke up after that at home, and left around 11 AM to make it to my 1 PM class with Anastacia-Renee, and I still walked into the room 15 minutes late (sorry!). That class was called "Time Traveling and Time Keeping: Conversataions With Audre Lorde and Octavia E. Butler". There was another class that sounded great with Claire Sicherman called "Exploring The Authentic Voice" but that was also at 1 PM, and I had to choose. Since the Anastacia-Renee Time class was about interdisciplinary writing and dealt with peotry and sci-fi and literature, I went with that one. It required students to be familiar with the works of Lorde and Butler, which I am somewhat...Wanted to read more before attending, but that didn't happen. As it was, I have read Butler's novel Kindred and a several short stories (I own more book, in the waiting-to-be-read pile) and some of Lorde's essays and poems. I was eager to learn more - both about their work which is imaginative and strong, and them as women- feminists, queer, black, marginalized, ignored despite the merit of their work and words. I am so interested in the complicated tangles of gender and race, society and revolution, perception and imperception.

The class was small - 7 or 8 of us - and Anastacia-Renee is a seasoned professor. She clearly adapted the material to our levels, allowing us all to remain engaged with the material and the subject at hand while challenging us to break out of what we think has to happen. Writing exercises included learning structures like Haibun, a Japanese form that begins with one or two paragraphs of non-fiction/autobiographical statements, followed by a Haiku or Tanka centered beneath, creating a fat T-shape on the page. We also tried various methods for wringing the truth out of our subjects, conveying story and emotion in various ways, and just being brave and curious enough to try new things. New structures, new genres, new combinations of forms...whatever brings our work to the next level.

I wish there were more of these three-hour master classes - I would totally go to this conference another day or two to fit in more of these events.

After the class, I had two hours before attending the Chuckanut Radio Hour in Heiner Theatre on campus. They do these every month, open to the public, for a $5 ticket. Mine was included with my registration for the CWC. First, I got dinner at Goji Fusion - a not-very-spicy-but-pretty-tasty tofu phad thai - across the street from WCC. I also pored over the schedule to come, choosing my classes and planning my time.

The Radio Hour was scripted banter, sketch comedy, and local endorsements performed onstage (and broadcast on local radio station KMRE 102.3. It's probably available to stream somewhere, like here, and as a podcast or something, too, but I am leaving that to you seek out. This night's musical guest was Louis Ledford, a humorous reading from a local poet, and sci-fi author legend Terry Brooks was interviewed by Spencer Ellsworth. 

When I left the theater, I stopped at the Fred Meyer to pick up a few things on my way to my friend's house. He works from home, and was behind on a project, so after I settled in a bit and we had chatted for an hour or two, went back to it and I got some sleep.

The next day was Friday, Summer Solstice, and the official start of the CWC. The whole schedule of events is here, but basically it went like this: one speaker/lecture in Heiner Hall, four break-out sessions to choose from, lunch, another Heiner Hall lecture for all, a second break-out with four more class choices, followed by various evening events. Thursday was the Radio Hour, Friday was a Faculty Reading and Reception, Saturday had a final reception and book signing, followed by four Open Mic Events in four different locations around Bellingham's Fairhaven area.

I could talk more about each class and teacher, and I probably will, but for now, I just want to share my Final Thoughts and Impressions from the weekend of events. I think I will do that in another post.

I had not yet made it back to my friend's house to catch the sunset over the lake there, but did snap a picture from the Fred Meyer parking lot. Such a large and lovely sky.... full of clouds and colors that just make my heart soar, even here, over an expanse of asphalt and automobiles. 

I've pretty much only been to the heart of historic downtown Bellingham in the past (usually stopovers for breakfast or lunch on the way to Canada) and on actual Chuckanut Drive - the most scenic road anywhere - but never in the outlying areas of the city. A lot of seemed rural enough to remind me of my childhood home in Harford County, MD, with rolling hills, pastures, small farms, green fields, horses, tractors, and tree-lined winding roads.

I wonder if the sunsets are always spectacular, if it's special to the solstice and surrounding months of summer?


The rest of the weekend was filled with classes and discussions, lectures and readings, writing and connecting. Here are a few photos I took during readings and classes:

Laurie Frankel teaches "Writing About Writing"

Lyanda Lynn Haupt discusses "How To Manage Creative Anxiety and Procrastination" 

Faculty Readings on Friday Night

Faculty Readings on Friday Night

 It was great to hear the variety of work presented by the Conference Faculty. Some were funny, some were serious. There was poetry, excerpts from novels, pieces of memoir, and others. Some read from published work, others read from their works in progress.

It made me want to seek classes from some of the authors that I had not made time for, since one cannot do it all in a conference with simultaneous offerings.

Books were made available in Syre Hall throughout the conference, but some were sold in the theater lobby the night of the reading and reception. Attendees had the chance to talk to each author and get as many books signed as they desired. All books sold by Bellingham's Village Books.