Crime Conn 25
I am currently basking in that after writer’s conference glow as I sit at my desk contemplating what I learned today in Stamford Connecticut.
Outside of the writer’s workshops I attend a couple times a year, I choose conferences based solely on recommendations and will usually purchase early bird tickets. This one came via one of the mentors from the Western Connecticut State University MFA program, John Roche. (Check out his book Bronx Bound and/or the program itself).
For me Crime Conn 25 turned out to be one for the books!
My current W.I.P. has several trial scenes. Crime Conn provided a panel that featured a detective, a trial lawyer, a prosecutor, and an actual supreme court judge! (Yes – you read that right). The panel walked the audience through an actual trial taking turns to show where each member’s responsibility fit into the sequence.
This was AWESOME!!!
I wish it went longer yet I learned so much about how a case gets built and what elements need to be in place for a warrant along with how DNA and cellphone records have made this process more complicated. (And don’t get any of them started on A.I.).
The other session that stood out was named Tales From The Inside. This one revolved around how writing programs in prisons help folks in a multitude of ways. The panel featured a few folks who started and participate in getting convicts to express themselves, along with a third panelist who works with at risk youth to empower through writing.
He is trying to disrupt the school to prison pipeline positively. (I encourage you to search those key words and read more about this topic).
(There were other fabulous workshops too).
Randomly I sat in an open chair. Those who know me know that I tend to start casual conversations with strangers – a gift and a curse. This one was a gift.
Turns out the couple had lived all over the world and spent some time in Buenos Aires (Argentina). I mentioned a relative connection and the next thing I know the husband says, “Well when we were hanging out with Borges—”
“Wait – what? You hung out with Jorge Borges?” He nods. “How?”
And this is when I received an unexpected gift – a beautiful story. He told tales of meeting Borges at several lectures in Buenos Aires and then tried to obtain a copy of One Thousand and One Nights only to be told that some of the families in that story still had relatives in the area and shopkeepers refused to sell the works.
I mentioned my students reading Borges & I along with the conversations his work inspired.
I was effervescent having this conversation.
Upon leaving I sat in traffic on I-95 for over an hour to move the mere nine miles in between Stamford and East Norwalk – smile fused onto my face, dancing in the driver’s seat to Mihali Band, thinking about Borges.
L.M. Pampuro 