172 Days Until the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference!

Too early? Too early to start counting down the days, writing big purple X's on the calendar hanging on the dining room wall as we get closer to July?

Well, yes, probably. But there's a lot we're all getting excited about here at Centrum for the 37th annual 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference, including more core morning faculty, more afternoon faculty, more readings, and more lectures, and more participants–although we're keeping it relatively small as a part of ensuring a nurturing experience–than ever before in our history.

Just a few of the many highlights include Chris Abani returning to lead a morning workshop in fiction, creative nonfiction writer Denise Chávez reprising her 2009 workshop in writing from the fuel of family, poet Martín Espada, and travel writer Tom Miller, among many others, including fiction writer Ana Menéndez, whose workshop will challenge fiction writers–including herself–by requiring one completed short-short story each day of the Conference.

For some, the PTWC is an intense immersion in craft. For others, it's about getting the time and space to write on one's own, while soaking in the readings and craft lectures, morning freewrites, and afternoon workshops.

None of this, however, would be possible without the generous support of The Inland Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University, Western Washington University, the University of Washington, the University of Idaho, Central Washington University, the Crab Creek Review, Willow Springs, Copper Canyon Press, Amazon.com, Port Book and News, the Rainier Writers' Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, Peninsula College, and the Richard Hugo House, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude.