Oh, yeah? Can you say, “effigy”?

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Th., I’ve seen photos. Wm has tried to cast doubt upon their authenticity, but they were in the possession of his sister, and while Wm himself is a shifty character, his sister Katherine seems to me a very sweet and reliable young lady.

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I do think it would be fun, and maybe even productive, to see more AMVers at events like the BAF or other get-togethers. Anyway, it would be fun for me.

You know, I know people he alleges to know, but I can’t remember ever double checking those claims….

An AMV Burning Man event would be too cool! We might even be able to get the elusieve decapod William Morris to attend something like that. (I’ve been blogging with William for three years and never met him. I have at times doubted his existence as corporeal being.)

BTW, if you come down this way and have time, drop a line. We’ll meet at the San Juan River Kitchen or Twin Rocks for a bite.

I enjoy the exercises where the instructor takes us outside and tells us to describe a square foot of ground or tells us to find something that snags our attention and describe that. I like the close-in, senses full-on, be here now kind of exercises where I have to translate what I’m seeing, touching, etc. into language.

Most other kinds start to feel like party games at a party someone dragged me to. Not that I can’t make something of them anyway. I did get a couple good lines from that “Imagine you’re someone you dislike” exercise that I’ll keep, but I’m burning the rest.

*giggle*

Thanks so much for the report on the BAF. I have always wondered what the festival was like. I have spent a great deal of time there because the organization I work for runs a unique program on the Navajo Reservation and maintains a small “campus” in Bluff itself.

Conferences are amazing things, particularly arts conferences. I have attended a few arts conferences over the years and in various parts of the country. I always come away with a renewed sense of the arts’ importance in our world.

Not my place to suggest it, but AMV ought to convene sometime in the real world just to talk Mormon Arts, and experience them. Maybe we could do the AMV “Burning Man” at our little complex in Bluff. We have an empty 2-acre lot on which we could build something and then burn it to the ground!

Yeah, me too. Someone I dislike may come up as a character (meaning that I dislike the character but for some reasons feel compelled to get under their skin and poke around a bit), but I would have a difficult time doing that to an actual person.

In general, I have a difficult time with writing exercises. I get the point of them, but my mind is always noodling around so much that writing exercises seem like just a way to distract me from what I really need to be writing.

On the other hand, there are definitely times where I would benefit from some useful(albeit artificial) boundaries.

Other local Mormon writers I know will not attend the Bluff Arts Festival because they have the impression Mormons are treated poorly there. In the two years I’ve attended, this has not been my experience.

My interest in nature writing forced me from the get-go to seek company and instruction outside Mormon arenas, Mormon nature writers being something of a intellectually isolated species within their native habitat.