We'll always have Fairplay...

Within mere minutes of alighting in Fairplay, we learned that if a writer is a duck (out of water?), a poet is a duck with one foot, and a short story writer is a duck with one foot, one wing, and one eye.  (This observation is trademarked by participants Sarah and Rachel, whose wit and clarity was sustaining, to say the least.)  It's a long, sad tale, how they came to this, but we'll leave it to your imagination.  Also, the lovely Karen Palmer, a member of the faculty, gave one of her usual nuggets of wisdom about the whole idea of openings: "In the best writing, the end is there in the beginning." Now how hard could that be? (Note to self: Rewrite every opening you've ever written.) Henderson read the opening to each of his novels, and we were able to detect the faint trace of a signature in his work. Mike Henry read an essay about battling a weed tree  (aka the "ghetto palm") in Curtis Park. Spoiler: The tree won.

As for the rest of us, we wrote, drank, felt amazed and deficient at different times. We laughed and cried. We ate. Wish you'd been there...

Oh, and go Rox!