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2015 Tucson Festival of Books and Masters Workshop

In October 2014 I submitted a 5,000 words excerpt of “with nothing but our lives” to the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards and I was honored to be one of the finalists. This is the first time that I have entered such a competition as most of them require a complete manuscript and I have not yet finished my memoir, as you know.

This honor entitles me to attend their Masters Workshop after the Festival of Books and gives me the opportunity to rub elbows with some fabulous writers: Denise Chavez, Kimberly Elkins, Ray Gonzales, T. Greenwood, Jean Kwok, Alan Lightman, Marilyn R. Nelson, Lisa See, Gail Sheehy, Hampton Sides, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Victoria Zackheim, and Noam Chomsky.

The Festival of Books will be on March 14 and 15 and the Masters Workshop on March 16 and 17, 2015 at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I will be there from Saturday March 14 through Tuesday March 17.

March 19 – Let me tell you about the Festival and Masters Workshop

I am in awe. The attendance of the Tucson Festival of Books sponsored by The University of Arizona and the Arizona Daily Star was 130,000 visitors. With the students gone for spring break and hundreds of friendly volunteers wearing Dutch orange (!) shirts greasing any rough spots, the Campus comfortably accommodated that many people. That is what I call a successful Festival.

The Masters Workshop was a more studious affair with lectures and presentations by Denise Chavez (you have to love her performance lecture), Kimberly Elkins, Ray Gonzales (our soft-spoken nonfiction manuscript guide), T. Greenwood, and Marilyn R. Nelson (gently rekindling vague memories of the liberating rules of poetry). Thank you all for generously giving of yourselves.