Listening to Ronald Wright on Denman Island

I’ve just returned home from the Denman Island Writers and Readers Festival. And a fine time it was, riding there in the on the north shores of the Salish Sea, with all its ghost apple trees, and all its ghost turnip farmers from the Orkneys, and the delightful interchange of community writers who could easily hold their own on the mainstage and visiting writers, like myself, who were rejuvenated by reading them, and, of course, the tricksy ravens. For just a moment (well, three days), Denman Island showed the world that it is the world. I gave a workshop on trickster writing. It was a gas, and lead to some great conversations about witches and birds flying to the underworld and back, all while sitting in the sun watching children clamber over the Denman Island playground, while Sheldon served his inimitable coffee in the background. Folks, a little trip to the island to salute Sheldon’s Denman-roasted trickster-dreams-in-a-cup would be time well spent, no matter how far you come. Everybody but everybody was there, except, I think, the two residents above, and I think you can see that they were listening intently from across the street and wishing, as I am now, that they were there.