Bread Loaf Diary: The 1977 Writers Conference

In 1977, Richard Grayson, an aspiring writer from Brooklyn who has published a few stories in little magazines, got a scholarship to the venerable Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont. That year's staff included Toni Morrison, who read from her then-forthcoming "Song of Solomon"; John Irving, who read from his manuscript for the unpublished "World According to Garp"; John Gardner, celebrated for his philosophical novels and his advocacy of "moral fiction"; the poets Maxine Kumin, William Meredith and Marvin Bell; Geoffrey Wolfe, unveiling his forthcoming "Duke of Deception"; a young Tim O'Brien; the comic, sardonic novelist Stanley Elkin; the warmly sympathetic Hilma Wolitzer; and others. Grayson's fellow attendees included a number of writers who would go on to fame, such as Ron Carlson and Leslea Newman, and many who probably published nothing. Somewhere in the middle, Grayson here records his observations and thoughts in the diary he's been keeping for over forty years.