Yesterday, Gayle Callen, Nona Raines, and I drove to the nearby city of Ithaca for the fifth annual Spring Writes — a Finger Lakes Literary Festival. This four-day event is free and is has something for everyone, regardless of genre.
The first event we attended was on character building. It wasn’t the usual laundry list of character traits/what’s in his medicine cabinet sort of thing of which I was so fond when I first started writing. One of the presenters teaches psychology, and we looked at several different models of defining a personality. The other presenter, Jill Shultz, is also an author, so she was able to tie theory to practical application. Very enjoyable. And I had a “tiffany” about my own current work-in-progress
Jill Shultz and Dr. Bill Altman
After the workshop, we wandered to a nearby restaurant to meet up with our friend Ellen Hartman. Walking around Ithaca is a wonderful experience, because it’s such an eclectic city. It is a college town (Cornell and Ithaca College) through and through. 
It was a bit of an overcast day, but warm and springlike. The rain held off until we were inside.
Ithaca is home to an array of quirkiness, such as this doo-ragged statue
or the electrical boxes painted to resemble apartment buildings.
After lunch, we followed Ellen to the Community School of Music and Arts. Her talk was in a room that was used by musicians and artists. The furniture was paint spattered. There was lots of wonderful wood.
Somewhere down the hall, someone practiced piano and someone else was drumming. Her workshop on how to erase cliches from your writing was not only informative, but funny. She has a delightful sense of humor. We heard the opening pages of several wonderful stories written by the participants.
The next event we attended was at Buffalo Street Books, where a panel of independent bookstore owners discussed the future of bookstores. I know that might sound a little dry, but it was quite fascinating. As we were leaving, I spotted a display of some Ellen’s books.
We all climbed into Ellen’s car so she could drive us to our next destination, Felicia’s Atomic Lounge, where we were treated to several author’s works on adolescent angst. Some of the imagery in the writing was breath-stealing. The sole male who read was so funny, we thought he should be in stand-up comedy.
So we had very full day, and other than our meals, the excursion cost nothing. There was so much going on that we didn’t/couldn’t attend. I even thought about going back on Sunday for a workshop called Shy Writers Desiring to Speak Dynamically and Reading: Finish With a Joke with Ellen’s friend Leslie Daniels and one of my favorite panelists from Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me (NPR), Amy Dickinson.
We’ve all vowed to return next year. As Ellen said, it was great fun to just hang out together as writers.
