Yesterday, I went to the Pasadena Festival of Women Authors, a small (but mighty) conference celebrating women authors. They fund the grant that brings writers to our school, so the co-chair of the committee suggested that it might be a good idea for me to go be the face of our school this year since I am actually co-writing the grant and, you know, have never been.

During the opening session, I realized it would be good fodder for a post, so I liveblogged it (in my Notes app). I’m just realizing that time stamps might have been a good idea, but oh well.

Let’s begin. (An adjunct creative writing faculty member was also there with me, so when I say “we” below, that’s who I’m referring to.)

1. The conference is at the Hilton which has no elevator down from the second floor of the garage. Why?

2. Red is the color of the day. We did not get the memo.

3. We’re at the free table aka all the way in the back corner.

4. First writer’s (Xochitl Gonzalez) book is about a woman who is murdered but then exacts her revenge by haunting the man who killed her.

5. Her journey to writing seems like a decision but was really a journey to deciding.

6. What made her want to go to Brown was how much everyone in her circle didn’t want her to.

7. She has to pay her college roommate $20 every time she tells the story of how she decided, after learning her roommate wanted to be one, that they both couldn’t be writers so swallowed her dream of being a writer herself.

8. Specificity = universality.

9. Nothing is wasted.

10. The moderator asks if confronting bias was Gonzalez’s main intention in writing her book and setting it in the art world. Gonzalez says she was  more concerned with what it means to be a woman in a romantic relationship and how to put yourself first. Specifically, how do you put yourself first when you’re with someone who wants you to always put them first?

11. Her next book is a gender reversed reimagining of Great Gatsby set before the financial crash (I think of 2008).

12, Up next is Yangsze Choo.

13, Oh she’s British! I wasn’t ready for the accent. She sounds very posh.

14. She tells us that when she worked an office job, what she kept in her briefcase (besides snacks and her 24-pound laptop was books.

15. “The best books are like falling into a dream—somebody else’s dream.”

16. She does an impression of her Mom asking, “Why are you writing about ghosts? Why don’t you write something cheerful?”

17. Pronounces dynasty Din-ass-tee not DIE-na-stee. So soft with the vowels. Posh!

18. Pantser not plotter: “If I were more organized, maybe I’d spend more time writing and less time staring out the window watching a squirrel leap from branch to branch.”

19. Likes reading/writing stories that make her ask why.

20. As a panster, she believes in writing as discovery. Her husband outlines. “Why don’t you make some bullet points?” he asked her when she got stuck on a story.

21. Two pages = great writing day because it’s not about quantity but the feeling it inspired in her.

22. Foxes craze in ancient China like vampire craze of the 2000s. (This is in reference to her new book, The Fox Wife).

22. After she finished, other people at the table said they could listen to her talk forever.

23. She reads her own audiobooks! (So that’s how I’ll be reading her book because I, too, could listen to her soft melodious voice forever.) She tells us that readers have switched from paper to iPad because scrolling doesn’t make noise in the booth.

24. “By the way, one should always write outlines.”

25. The detective can hear when someone’s lying, so can tell truths from lies just by listening to someone speak. She’s a slow writer, and it took her about four years to write the book, so by the time she turned it in, Poker Face was out. When they found out about Poker Face, her husband said, “I told you to hurry up!”

26. The first ballroom session is over. The woman in charge of transitioning us to the next portion, says she has two very important announcements. The first is that two bars are now open and you can buy a bottle of wine for your table.

27. I was going to sit in the ballroom and do work until the sessions start but I don’t have the Wi-Fi password and also they kicked us out so catering can set up lunch.

28. Sitting in the back of the room for this breakout session (author: Rita Bullwinkel) since I’m taking notes on my phone and don’t want to be rude (look like I’m texting)

29. Before the session started, I had a delightful conversation with the president of the local friends of the library. She was telling me that the turnout for Percival Everett’s One City, One Story event exceeded expectations earlier this month. She also told me that someone asked him what books students should be reading in high school, and he said, “Hire exceptional teachers and pay them well, and then let them choose what books their students should be reading.” She also said he was very kind and generous with his time.

30. President is also wearing red but it was by accident and said that people keep asking her questions and for directions so I guess it’s good I didn’t know red was the color of the day.

31. Rita Bullwinkel is on. She is also a Brown graduate.

32. Says this is the first time she’s been asked to talk about her journey as a writer.

33. She read Nancy Drew and decided to finish the series but then it turned into a punishment because she didn’t realize how many books there were.

34. She got assigned Pride & Prejudice three times in three years. (Relatable content. It was Jane Eyre for me ????.)

35. She studied religious history in graduate school. Says that Gnostics in Egypt (heretical Christians) thought Jesus was reincarnation of Hermes (!) who they thought was reincarnation of Thoth. I had no idea and need to research this further.

36, Her religious history professor was concerned that she thought texts were beautiful. Religious history scholars are not into aesthetics, only into context and politics.

37. She called us a “kind and generous” audience because we keep laughing. She also says that makes her want to find more anecdotes.

38. Creative writing undergrad class introduced her to contemporary literary fiction which made her a voracious reader.

39. MFA stipend was $35k, which…yeah. They kept apologizing for it being low, but it was more than she was making at her two jobs in NYC.

40. Her book will be translated in 16 languages.

41. “We’re always in the present moment of our lives and looking back some things become clear but others remain opaque.”

42. She’s drawn to writing fiction because she likes pretending to be someone else.

43. In her book Headshot, she wanted to work against the sport trope that “This is the moment.”  She didn’t want to condemn her characters to this one event changing their lives. She also wanted to give them long lives because she didn’t want to condemn them to adolescence. She wouldn’t want to condemn any human or character to their adolescence. (Felt that. This answer was also partially in response to why she didn’t write it as a YA novel and was glad that editors/publishers didn’t try to market it as one. She said this very respectfully, so not as a knock at YA but as an acknowledgement that she never intended it to be positioned as YA because it’s very much about what’s beyond the teen years.)

44, “It feels like we’re all in this spaceship talking about books—my favorite type of spaceship” – her description of being at the conference and how everything falls away in that space.

45. Her research was watching YouTube vids of girls watching their training tapes/videos

46, She ends by reading her manifesto about fiction as a knife.

47. Lunch time! Rich white ladies eat chopped chicken salad for lunch apparently.

48. I had a delightful discussion with my coworker who I don’t usually see (see above re: we) outside of work spaces. As we we were talking, she was talking about a family member and family discussion and said the family member is from “our generation” and I was like uhhhh. But I think she meant as her cousins and not that she and I are of the same generation. Later she also said she’s a boomer and I know she knows I’m not a boomer so.

49. Next author! Marie-Helene Bertino.

50. She says she’s been inspired by all the speeches before her.

51. Second writer that acknowledged the fires.

52. “Nothing is trash that can be turned into something else.”

53. Second writer who acknowledged that first story written as a kid was derivative. Says she should have paid royalties to Black Cauldron.

54. She won a library writing contest for novels written by children. Audience gasped and clapped. “Were you surprised by that?” (Honestly, the way she was telling the story, it could have gone either way.)

55. Her mom bought a huge word processor. Later, she asked her mom how she was able to afford said word processor. Mom texted back LAYAWAY!!!

66. She keeps a folder on her desktop titled notes on human behavior.

67. In it, she kept a running log of inspirational phrases workout instructors yelled during exercise classes.

68. She writes against the stereotypes and invisibility of Italian American women.

69. Her fears become  her to-do list.

70. Her note to self when writing the book was BE ITALIAN.

71. Main character in Beautyland is 100% human and 100% other. Speculative fiction built from experience in church, taught to worship someone who was 100% human and 100% divine.

72. “I try to tell the truth as hard as I can.”

73. Another mention of specificity creating connection with others.

74. From her list of frequently asked questions: “Is this book a memoir about your experience growing up as an alien?”

“Yes.”

75, She says the Sopranos ending is not ambiguous. The entire season tells you how it’s going to end. She feels similarly about the ending of her book.

76. “Books and writing are powerful forms of survival.”

77. Another question from the FAQ: “What to do for kids who feel other?”

“Give them books and give them markers and pens so they can write their own stories that feature them or the people they know/love as the protagonists.”

78. “Anything in your life can become significant if you give it your attention.”

79. Her book is considering what is unlikely and who is considered worthy of a novel.

80. Next speaker! Rachel Khong who Has an MFA from UF. I am slightly ashamed to admit that the urge to yell “Go Gators” lives within me.

81. “I write so I can prioritize my own imagination.”

And that’s it! I really liked the way the conference was structured with the four ballroom keynotes and the one breakout session, though, as always, it was tough to decide which author to go see. I chose Bullwinkel because her book is about a group of teenaged girls in a boxing tournament. (Very on brand for me.) I had a great time and would definitely go again in the future. Oh, and I am obsessed with their graphic on the front of the program. Also, it sold out! So, like I said, small but mighty conference. This was probably a nice warm up for the much larger AWP Conference I’ll be attending later this week.