I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – Partying with Ionesco (in drag)

It was brutal and inhuman. The bastards expected us to get up early, go to lectures with our eyes open, ask intelligent questions, go to workshops and do … writing stuff, and then hold down lunch, followed by more workshops and one-on-ones and readings and more lectures and supper and … and … they made us stay up all night and party.

It was awful.

Apparently, it was in the fine print in the contract: Thou shalt imbibe much and cast much loudness of mirthful nature upon the firmament. If thou shalt not, thou shalt surely be dubbed a sorry metaphor and shalt surely die. Horribly.

The things they don’t tell you when you sign on the dotted line.

In this photo, Coleridge metaphors Wordsworth in no uncertain imagery. Shortly after, Wordsworth spontaneously overflowed. Horribly.

As Wordsworth overflowed, Sarte bashed him repeatedly with existrhetoricalism all about the ears and brow. It was horrible.

Mabel Dodge, caught winding up just before plastering Turgenev for taking Wordworth’s side.

Turgenev somehow managed to crawl to a wall where he wrote a poem under a false name. He then spontaneously combusted and we drank his blood.

Ionesco (still in drag) pours voodoo elixir into everybody’s glass when they're not looking. Strangely, this was actually in Ionesco’s contract.

Under the influence of Ionesco’s vile voodoo vintage, Coleridge grew an extra thingy between his legs. It played the best of Willie Nelson while Coleridge played the blues. Nobody noticed the discrepancy until Coleridge tried to sit down and finish Kubla Khan.

Next: Plath gets out of line and heads are lost.