by Roberta Gore
In 2011 (or thereabouts) I forged a new path. I’d been a high school drama teacher for close to thirty years, and had spent those years utterly content with my life and work. But around the time my oldest child was a high schooler, I got a story in my head, and after it dug in its heels, it refused to vacate the premises—until I put pen to paper.
So, for the first time, as a 50-plus-year-old, I started taking classes about creative writing, attending workshops and conferences, polishing my manuscript, and writing query letters to agents. One of the things I tried that first season of experimentation was the St. Davids Writers’ Conference.
St. Davids is unlike any other writers’ conference—at least any I’ve attended. First, in my first couple of years becoming a “writer,” I lacked confidence. Second, I felt a little sad that so much of what anyone wanted to talk about at workshops and conferences was the “business” of writing, the acquisition of money, the climbing up the rungs of monetary success. I wanted to be someplace where we talked about the story that was searing itself into our soul until we gave it its voice. Feeling shy, I’d go to conferences and listen rather than talk, and observe rather than participate. St. Davids—immediately, from the moment I arrived—was the kind of conference that welcomed me, embraced me, and made friendships happen. The first summer I attended, I had a terrific roommate, and we enjoyed lots of terrific conversations. But it was my second, third, and fourth summers that forged deep friendships with women with whom I joyfully share friendship as an ongoing connection. We three have been apartment-mates every summer since we first met. I look forward all year to another week in June that I can spend with my dear friends. I look forward to the workshops, the writing contests, the Grove City campus. Just a slice of time to learn and write and pray and think—but most of all, I look forward to spending time with Carrie and Joanne.
It’s also exhilarating to talk and listen to other writers who are all aiming—as best as any of us can—to use our words to glorify God. It’s a relief not to have to defend why I feel the need to drag God into my story, or to be reminded that I could reach more readers if I cut the religious element out of my stories. I appreciate being able to openly shout out to the four winds that, for me, writing is ministry, and it has to do with something a lot deeper to my heart than money.
And it’s meaningful to hear that, yes, there’s a market as well. There are plenty of folks who want to read books with spiritual depth. I’ve met so many talented novelists, teachers, poets at St. Davids—both as instructors and conferees.
I think my favorite memory is one of sweet serendipitous joy. I’d just arrived for the new week, gotten into my apartment, unloaded my belongings in my bedroom, foolishly closed the bedroom door behind me when I went to dinner. After dinner, I returned with Carrie and when I tried to unlock my bedroom with my key discovered I had the wrong room—I didn’t have the key to that room. Worse, the door wouldn’t unlock for any key. It was jammed. All my belongings were locked inside a room, and I couldn’t do anything about it. So I asked the “house mother,” whose name was Jay Jay, to help me. She had to call a locksmith, and she stayed with Carrie and me while we waited for the locksmith to arrive.
In the meantime, we asked Jay Jay how she came to be called Jay Jay. She told us the story of how she and her husband met—so beautiful, hilarious, perfectly unique. Her name is Joyce, and it turned out his last name is Joyce, and she didn’t want to be known as Joyce Joyce. She told us lots more, too. Carrie and I listened and laughed and treasured meeting her. When Joanne arrived, we introduced her to Jay Jay too, and we loved the time we got to spend listening to her stories.
That’s what I think about when I think about St. Davids. I think about sitting on a blanket in the grass, loving my time with my friends, loving my chance encounter with an adorable woman named Jay Jay, thanking God for a chance to chisel words for His sake.
Roberta teaches Drama and English to high schoolers at Francis Scott Key High School in Carroll County, Maryland. She has published two young adult novels—amazing, Grace and Relic—and is currently working on a third book, Saint Genesius and Me, a memoir about teaching.