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Letter from Joyce Archives
December 12, 2001
(Note there are two parts to this letter. Part one is news. Part
two is a description of the upcoming writing seminar I'm hosting this
February, in case you want to go straight to the details for that one.)
Dear Friends,
Last time I checked in here, as some of you may know, I had left my home in California for a stretch of months to see some of the world and work on a long delayed novel. After twenty five years of raising children, my youngest had graduated from high school and set of f to travel the world, and it seemed like a good idea for his mother to do the same.
My first stop was New York City, September 10. I thought I would be there only briefly, to visit my son Charlie at NYU, take care of a few work commitments, and then make my way to the Big Island of Hawaii, where the plan was to hole up and get to work.
As for all of us, September 11 changed everything. I ended up staying on longer in New York than I'd planned. From there I went to Michigan to teach, as I do every year, at a wonderful writing seminar run on Walloon Lake by my good friend John Lamb (watch for updates on next year's seminar). From Michigan I flew to Guatemala for what was supposed to be no more than a two week visit with my daughter Audrey, who had been studying Spanish there in prepartion for a seven month stint doing social work for a woman's organization in the Dominican Republic.
During the two weeks I traveled around Guatemala with Audrey, I fell in love with the country, a place I had been to once before, but not since 1974. For thirty years I had made do with a kind of improvised Spanish, but during my time travelling with Aud I felt a strong need to speak the language well enough that I could communicate in a more real way with the Guatemalan people . I ended up enrolling in Spanish school myself, in the town of Xela (Quetzaltenango), and for three weeks I lived with a vamily there, studying one on one with my teacher and trying as best I could to speak only Spanish. Sometimes I volunteered at an orphanage in town. Often I took the bus to explore villages in the outlying regions beyond Xela. Nights, when I had the energy, I sometimes took salsa dance lessons, but often too I spent my evenings poring over verb conjugations or playing cards with the children in my Guatemalan family.
It was a very simple life there, far removed as a person could get from what was going on in my own country at the time, and far removed, too, from my original vision of my life that fall, in the cabin in Hawaii, writing. I couldn't have told you myself what I was doing or why, only that a kind of peace and calm had come over me in these of all times, and a deep appreciation for the very simple things in life that I had too long failed to value sufficiently.
After I graduated from Spanish school, far from fluent, but a much better Spanish speaker than before, I rode the chicken bus back to my favorite of the places I'd visited with Audrey a month before. My destination was a little village of no more than a few hundred people on the shores of Lake Atitlan, called San Marcos La Laguna. Ever since I had first laid eyes on Lake Atitlan back in 1974, when I was younger than my daughter is now, I had remembered it as one of the most beautiful and perfect places I'd ever encountered. Close to thirty years later, having traveled to so many countries, many of them fascinating and beautiful, I found myself feeling the same way still. The lake, bordered on all sides by volcanoes, with a scattering of small towns linked by public boats that take people from one town to another in no particular rush, continues to represent, for me, the most magical place I have known.
So
I rented a house in San Marcos, on the shores of the lake, a five-minute
walk from the one main street of town where I buy my fresh fruits and
vegetables, and about a minute from the dock where, once or twice a day,
I jump in and partake of the best swimming I've known. If the life was
simple in Xela, it's even simpler here -- a few friends, an occasional
night at one of the town's three or four restaurants, a daily visit with
the children playing in the square or watching a soccer game. I take a
long walk every day across some of the most spectacular countryside I've
ever known. Once a week I ride the boat into the larger town of Panajachel
to send and pick up email. That's about it.
Except that I'm writing too. Last week I finished a novel here, and find myself already at work on a new one. Strangely, for a novel that comes in many ways directly out of the experiences of last September, I find that this new work is my most hopeful and optimistic book to date, very much a book about families, the love and loyalty of parents and children, and of siblings for each other. No doubt the spirit of the novel has something to do with my own sense of well being and a profoundly heightened appreciation for the preciousness of my days.
I never made it to Hawaii, as things worked out, and as things now stand I'm staying here -- through the month of February, at least, and possibly longer.
Part 2... Writing Seminar (February 2002)
Having
found, here in the town of San Marcos, so much peace and happiness, as
well as the most inspiring writing environment I've ever known, I made
the decision recently to host a writing seminar here. Normally these sorts
of events would be announced many months before they take place, of course,
and I can offer no such advance notice for this one. Still, I can promise
it will be an extraordinary week.
Here's how it will go. Guessing that attendance may be pretty small, the faculty will consist, this first year, only of myself, though if more than six people sign up, I'll plan on bringing in at least one other writer or editor friend to work with us.
I am inviting participants to come to guatemala on February 22nd, a Friday. From Guatemala City it's a two-hour, eighteen-dollar shuttle ride on a somewhat more deluxe variety of bus than the kind I've been riding lately, to the town of Panajachel, from which you catch the forty-five-minute, dollar-fifty boat that will take you across the lake to San Marcos. I'll be available to greet guests and will settle them into hotel accomodations in town, none of which is more than a lovely and totally safe fifteen-minute walk from my house. Hotel rooms in this town are simple but clean and beautiful, all either on the lake or very close by. I should add that although it would enhance your time here if you spoke a little Spanish, a person can manage here without. People in this village are enormously friendly and, partly because the town has not known a great influx of tourists to date, they are very welcoming.
The first session of our writing seminar will convene on Saturday, February 23rd, for breakfast, coffee and discussion. I'll plan on talking and addressing questions with the group as a whole every morning, from nine-thirty to a little before noon. We'll plan on tailoring the subject matter to the needs and interests of the writers attending, and are likely to touch on issues of both fiction and nonfiction. I should add here I am not a poet, and much as I would love to include poets here, I'm not qualified to teach or guide them as I believe I can do for fiction and nonfiction writers.
Afternoons will be free for swimming, exploring, visiting neighboring towns, and writing. Every semionar participant is encouraged to schedule as many as four private sessions with me over the course of the week. Each participnt is encouraged to submit, in advance, a manuscript of up to 25 pages for me to read before his or her arrival. Evening arrangements can be made to eat as a group, or people may wish to make their own plans. At least once and possibly more, we'll eat at my house -- a meal prepared and shared by all.
From eight to ten every night we'll gather again to hear readings from participants and talk about the work. The seminar will conclude Friday night. After that, of course, participants are encouraged to stay on and work on their own, explore the beautiful nearby city of Antigua, the market at Chichicastenango, or Panajachel, or a number of other wonderful places I'm happy to tell you about. The final session will be Friday evening, March 1st.
Although I've taught writing many times over the years, most particularly and happily at Walloon Lake, this is the first time I will have run one of my own. I see this as the first of what I hope will be many others, over the yeras. My guess is that there will be a particularly unique energy and excitement connected to this one, though.
The cost for the workshop (7 days of instruction) is one hundred dollars a day, a hundred and ten dollars for anyone who chooses one of San Marcos's particularly beautiful but slightly pricier private bungalows on the lake, plus $25 or $35 for lodging on the eighth night. ($725 for eight nights, or $805 for eight nights in a private bungalow, with departure on Saturday, March 2nd. If you're not able to attend for the entire week, deduct either $100 or $110 (private bungalow) per day from these totals. Depending on the response, this may have to change, but please plan to stay at least a minimum of four days.)
I will plan on locating and paying for hotel accomodations nearby for all guests, as well as providing simple breakfasts of fresh fruit, tea, coffee and juice and rolls at my home in the mornings. Lunch and dinners will be readily available in town, and for twenty dollars a day, total, a person can dine extremely well on fresh fish, meat, vegetarian food or, of course, Guatemalan fare, with a little wine and beer thrown in.
There's a basic but good French chef in this town, one Italian, and somebody in this very hosue who bakes an unusually fine pie, and might even be prevailed upon to offer instruction. If you're interested in things like reiki or massage, I'll also mention that there's a yoga-meditation center in town with a number of body work types on staff, as well as practitioners of holistic medicine. Finally though, if you ask me, the best medicine going is the lake itself, and the warm and welcoming attitude of the people living here.
I can't say enough about what a rare and wonderful place this is to live, work and think. If you're interested in joining me, and have any questions, I encourage you to send me an email, via Myrna. You may also address questions to Myrna. I should add here that I only pick up my e mail once a week, so it may take me a few days getting back to you.
I'm asking people who plan on attending to send a two hundred and fifty-dollar deposit. Reservations for this seminar are first come, first serve, and if fewer than four people sign up I may need to cancel, but promise to do so by January 19 to give you plenty of time to change plans.
I'm really excited about this, and hope you can join us.
Truly,
Joyce Maynard
(And as always, I want to remind you that this is a totally non-profit site, maintained on a strictly volunteer basis by our tireless and wonderful webmistress, Myrna Uhlig. I hope, if you enjoy and use this forum, that you'll think of checking out the Joyce Maynard Catalogue or sending a contribution Myrna's way, to support her efforts on all of our behalf. P.O. Box 636, Clatskanie, OR 97016)
Visit the Writing Workshops page to see pictures from the February, 2002 seminar.
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