Reporting LIVE! from the Whidbey Island Writers Conference

Each year the Whidbey Island Writers Association presents a writers conference. Read the list of agents, publishers, and authors who are presenting here and be amazed.

Here for the first time, I feel giddy with creative joy and excited like a little kid at Legoland. Two and a half days surrounded by real writers. Real editors. Real people who work in publishing and are looking for new ideas, new book topics, or the next James Frey J.K. Rowling.

Yesterday I met one of the keynote speakers, Erik Larson. (Met means I bought one of his books and asked him to sign it for D.) Erik is an author of non-fiction books about historical events and the people involved in them, who caused or tried to prevent them, or whose actions changed the course of our lives. I greatly admire his work and was looking forward to meeting him, if only for a moment. And in that 30-second exchange, I revealed that I am, clearly, one of the world’s biggest dorks.

Me: “Hi, I’m Claire.” I shake his extended hand, hand him the book to sign. “My husband read this in a couple of days, and raved about it for a couple of months. I’m reading Thunderstruck now. I’m learning so much. It makes me feel smart!”

Erik Larson: “I was hoping to stir your passion, not make you feel smart!”

Me, Dork: “Oh, well, I haven’t gotten to that part yet.” I smile my most clueless smile, turn, walk away, and know that inside, Erik Larson is regretting, just a little bit, that he agreed to do this conference. At least he sold some dork another book.