pres.umptuo.us

The closing remarks of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival were lead off by Bret Anthony Johnson. After an awkward yet amusing rendition of “Happy Birthday” for coordinator Kurt’s birthday, Bret opened with a joke, which I will poorly paraphrase here:

A writer out of town on business receives a phone call from the police department. They tell him they have bad news — that his house was burnt down to ashes and nothing remains. They have good news though — they caught the guy who did it. It’s his literary agent.

The writer says, “Really? My agent came to my house?”

An inspirational speech about writing followed, and thus ended my first experience at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

But not yet! My plane back wasn’t until Saturday evening, so I actually had an entire day to myself just to enjoy Iowa city. The Mayflower dormitory forced me to check out at noon, so I left my luggage at the desk and went off.

I enjoyed an Iowa omelette at Hamburg Inn No. 2 before heading back to the used bookstores where I picked up a few more books to bring back in my box. I’m really into used bookstores now and hoping I can find some good ones back in Los Angeles. With still a few hours to kill until the shuttle would arrive, I rested in a coffee shop and just read to pass the time. Having nothing to worry about and just tons of free time was more than worth the trip.

Although my primary goal of just “to write more” wasn’t accomplished simply because the workshop was not very writing intensive, I still learned a lot from the people I met and have more insight into the writing process now. I’m fairly certain I’ll return next year, and encourage everyone who has even the tiniest bit of interest in writing to check it out too. If anything, it’s a good, relaxing, vacation away from everything.

Final flickr photo set of Iowa City.