I’m having a quiet day at home today digesting some of what I learned over the weekend. It was an incredible weekend of inspiration, seeing friends I haven’t seen before, meeting new friends, and putting faces to names of people I’ve only emailed with.
I arrived in Austin on Friday just in time to register and attend the Welcome Session. What fun it was to meet and greet SCN sisters I haven’t seen for a year or two! After the Welcome Session, I joined Judy Miller, Becky Lane, Becky’s longtime pal Linda, Marlene Samuels, and Kathy Waller for dinner.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the presentation of the first annual Sarton Memoir Award. Congratulations to Leila Levinson for her memoir Gated Grief, and to Jamie Patterson for Lost Edens.
Keynote Speaker Gail Straub talked about the five steps we go through on our memoir-writing journeys: the call, the journey, the descent into darkness, the epiphany, and finally the ascent where we offer what we have learned back to the world. She talked about her own path as she wrote Returning to My Mother’s House which I’ve been searching high and low for all morning. I know I have it. I’ve posted about it here before. I frustrated as all get out that I can’t find it this morning but I’m trusting that it will turn up when the time is right.
After Gail’s talk we enjoyed a desert reception together and great conversation until I could barely keep my eyes open (Austin is two hours ahead of Seattle) and was forced to retire for the evening where I slept the sleep of the blessed.
