So I've already broken my promise and missed a day of reporting on the conference, but the weather was too nice yesterday to go inside, or even turn on a computer.
Tuesday night we hosted Dana Spiotta and Brad Kessler, this year's
Rome Prize Fellows. Dana read from her novel
Eat the Document, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Brad read from a forthcoming memoir,
Goat Song, about raising goats in Vermont. We were lucky enough to have Brad's wife, the photographer Dona Ann McAdams, join us as well.
This was the first reading of the conference. Everyone was impressed with Dana's descriptions of music and her perfect rendition of a fifteen year-old boy, as well as Brad's cheese-making and detailed scene of tracking a coyote through the snowy woods. Afterwards we had another fabulous meal at the hotel, hosted by Antonio, Carla and Antonio's father, Franco, who is still as charming as ever, and spoke about the best places to see art in Naples, Munich, and Rome.
Last night Jim Shepard and Michael Maren gave an informal talk on screenwriting, then we all gathered in the lobby of the hotel and made the walk over to Antonio and Carla's house. We were greeted by a roaring fire, lovely music, a terrace covered with flickering candles, and piles of delicious food (including the famous meatballs from last year). Then we had our annual open mic night. There were 21 readers--each reading for 2-3 minutes. The writing was both funny and moving, and included two plays (one by Tessa Blake and the other by Jacob Maren), a musical interlude by Sylvia Mann, and, after some convincing, our magnanimous host Antonio Sersale, who read a wonderful piece about drinking coffee in Milan. It was great to hear everyone's work, and there was much warmth and good cheer, which followed us back to the hotel bar. When I left, around 1 am, Syliva's guitar was being passed around and there were songs and happy voices carrying up the stairs as I made my way to my room.
I opened my curtains this morning, expecting to see rain or snow, as the weather predicted, but instead the sky is still sunny, the water glistening. It's time to head down for the one-on-one conferences in the bar--a place I seem to be spending most of my time this week. Tonight Jennie Reeves's daughter Lucy (a professional photographer and DJ) has promised to turn it into a disco. We'll be missing our best dancer from last year, Randy Kirkpatrick, but I promise to try and keep the flame alive.
