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The Writing Calls

The Southwest Writers Institute

By Katharine Niles

Found in: | Inside | Books |

"You want truth. Go here."

If you walk the lower halls of Noble Hall at Fort Lewis College in Durango, you will find, in the English Department's glass display cases, aging posters advertising the appearance at the college of such venerable writers as Edward Abbey and Leslie Marmon Silko. Between 1982 and 1993, the Durango Literature Series brought these and other notables to the Four Corners region, and then - much to the dismay of those of us who arrived later, writing in tow, eager for enlightenment from the Big Names - it disappeared. But like a river in the desert that goes underground for a while and then re-emerges, the Literature Series has morphed into something even better: The Southwest Writers Institute.
Rejuvenated last year, the SWI brought luminaries Joy Harjo and Denise Chavez to Durango, and offered workshops by the likes of Pamela Uschuk, Bo L'Amour, Steven Meyers and, uh, me. Later in the same year, Fort Lewis College President Brad Bartel instituted the Presidential Native American Lecture Series featuring prominent Native authors, and thus brought N. Scott Momaday to Durango for a memorable speech. Smartly, this year's organizers of SWI have moved their event to coincide with the Lecture Series, so that Sherman Alexie, author of 17 books (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Indian Killer, to name two) and well-known for writing and producing the film Smoke Signals, will kick things off Friday evening, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis.
On November 11, a plethora of craft sessions is offered at the college's Center for Southwest Studies. Having given the fiction workshop last year, I can attest to the enthusiastic experience of both teachers and students participating in these sessions. People mingle in the morning over coffee and pastries, the atmosphere decidedly egalitarian. No one sits in haughty judgment over anyone else; rather, both teacher and student come away from their workshops rejuvenated and enriched. The special mission of SWI is to serve not only Fort Lewis College, "but also the residents of Southwest Colorado and the Four Corners region," says Brad Benz, one of the organizers. "Last year, in addition to a large Durango turnout, we had participants from Dolores, Lewis, Mancos, Cortez, Pagosa Springs, Silverton and Ignacio, as well as people from Aztec, Navajo Dam, and Farmington in New Mexico. We're also committed to showcasing Four Corners writers from the area, a very gifted group of writers whose work reflects - and often unites - the rich cultural heritage and the inspiring ecosystems of the Southwest."
In keeping with this mission, this year's craft sessions promise to be every bit as phenomenal and perhaps even more innovative than last year's. Genres matter less here than busting down our preconceived notions of them. Steven Meyers, ostensibly a non-fiction writer, tackles "Writing Effective Characters into the Literature of Place," so that something that was once the almost sole purview of fiction (character) is now, blissfully, taking its rightful place in what is often called "Nature Writing." Ken Wright, another "nature writer," if you will, and also, along with Steven, one of Inside/Outside's own, will strip away all pretenses to that most basic of writer's tools: The notebook and how to keep one. While William Pitt Root and Lisa Lenard-Cook offer tantalizing classes in poetry and fiction, and Uma Krishnaswami offers a rare chance to work with children's literature, poet Esther Belin will seat her poetry workshop within the larger framework of Native American literature. Peter Anderson, the poetry editor for Mountain Gazette, children's author and essayist, will get you writing "Words, Mountains, Spirit," thereby doing away with any notion of type of writing altogether (who cares?) to get you focused on what it is that keeps your heart and soul going, day in and day out, so that even in the face of spiraling property values and rampant growth, you can't afford not to live here. I mean, The Mountains. What better beings to write about?
While the craft sessions perhaps make up the heart of the Institute, a publishing panel, evening reception, closing reading and follow-up discussion on the writer's life all await the SWI participant after attending two workshops earlier in the day. The publishing panel is highly recommended for those who have any remaining illusions left about the publishing world; it is extremely rare to find an honest conversation about this, and you certainly won't find it in any Writer's Market or Writer's Digest. I was the relative neophyte on that panel last year and worried I sounded too cynical, but my more experienced comrades (Steven Meyers, Denise Chavez and Bo L'Amour) issued streams of polite invective that reassured me my experience was by no means an anomaly. So: suck in the gut and boldly go where no writer wants to go - to the grossly unfair and highly tantalizing world of professional publishing. Perhaps this year's panel, comprised of Pamela Uschuk, Lisa Lenard-Cook, Peter Anderson and Uma Krishnaswami, will, under Ken Wright's moderator guidance, prove more sprightly, but I doubt it. You want truth? Go here.
As for the closing reading by Esther Belin, William Pitt Root and Steven Meyers? Do I really have to say what a treat that will be, especially as it will be followed by the same threesome dishing out more truth about what it means, really, to commit to your life as a writer? I don't think so.

Ok, so go. The fee is $130. The website is www.southwestwritersinstitute.org. Register there, or call 970-247-7255. For 130 bucks you get lunch and reception food, Sherman Alexie, two craft sessions with prominent authors, and all the good stuff that follows. Not only that, but Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, will publish the winners of the SWI/Cutthroat Special Awards in Poetry and Fiction. I cannot tell you what a bargain all of this is. According to Benz, "The [Fort Lewis College] President and the Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences have been very supportive. The SWI committee has invested considerable sweat equity into the Institute, and because of that, we're able to keep registration prices affordable - our registration fees are the same as last year."
For far greater fees, you can certainly travel to some other luscious place such as Squaw Valley or Port Townsend or even Italy, but I guarantee you won't pack in as much learning in such a short amount of time. Prepare to be dizzy. Prepare to go home and weep for what it is you must do, what it is you must write, what it is you fear you will never write. The Four Corners has needed something like this for a long time. How lovely that it is now here, re-emerged and better than ever.

Katharine Niles, a teacher at Fort Lewis College, is the author of the novel, The Basket Maker (Grey Core Press), the recipient of the Editor's Choice Prize: Fiction at the 2005 Book of the Year Awards at BookExpo America.