Japan Writers Conference Report

Last weekend was the 2011 Japan Writers Conference in Kobe (my fair city), and I was pleased to attend the Sunday session. Unfortunately, family demands kept me from going on Saturday, so I missed a few presentations that I had really hoped to see. David Gilbey's Poetry Workshop is one I had wanted to attend, and John Gribble's presentation about writing away from the self and avoiding excessive cleverness sounded like it was tailor-made for my problems. I also had hoped to hear Jane Singer's and Winifred Bird's pitch workshop; who doesn't need help writing a successful pitch! Juliet Winters Carpenter's workshop on team translation addressed a field I am just now developing an interest in, so I'm really sorry to have missed it.

On the other hand, I attended a number of great presentations on Sunday. First I went to Gregory Dunne's lecture on Cid Corman, the longtime Kyoto resident and poet. I had met Corman once in his (shall we way) declining years, and was glad to get a more rounded view of his talents and history from Dunne, who is working on Corman's biography. Dunne's understanding of and sympathy for Corman's purity in artistic vision, which could sometimes seemed to have verged on the naive and egoistic, was a refreshing counterpoint to the first-hand impression I had gained of a poet whose direcness in his poetry I have always enjoyed.

Next I attended Li Jiang's workshop on synaesthesia. I've blogged about synaesthesia before, and was able to find out from Jiang that my emotional reactions to numbers and shapes, while not  sensory, could still be considered synaesthesia. We practiced writing an orchestral piece as dialogue, and used paintings to evoke character sketches.

Next I went to Rebecca Otowa's speech on writer's block, during which she discussed (from first-hand experience) cycles of thinking that lead to writer's block. She also recommended points in the cycles from which exiting the insanity was possible.

The last presentation I went to was Hugh Ashton's on self-publishing, concerning which he is an expert due to having published three novels himself.

I had wanted to attend Ann Slater's workshop on writing set in Japan, but it was concurrent with my own workshop on erasure (which went pretty well, I thought. Lots of enthusiastic participation, if that's any gauge). I'm hoping that Slater will present again next year and I can attend. I've heard such great things about her intelligence and talent.

Anyway, thanks to converence organizers John Gribble and Bern Mulvey for a very nice conference. Looking forward to next year's!