The Importance of Attending Writers Conferences

I just got back from the 14th San Francisco Writers Conference, where I was invited as a keynote speaker by the wonderful organizers, Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. It was such a great experience that I wanted to share some thoughts about it.

I hadn’t been to a writer’s conference in a while. Partly because I was busy. Partly because I felt that now that I had published over a dozen books, I knew the basics of the business and needed only to focus on writing and touring. And partly because crowds make me nervous.

At the San Francisco Writers Conference with presenter Terry LeYung-Ryan and organizers Richard and Barbara Santos

I hyperventilated a bit when I stood up to give my speech in the banquet hall that held over 500 people. But as I started talking about my journey as a writer and sharing writing and marketing tips that had been helpful to me in my career, I was struck by the wave of positive energy in the room. It was so wonderful to be with so many people who loved writing, all of us hoping to get better at what we do and find more effective ways to share our books with readers, and hopefully make a decent living at it. It made me realize how lonely the job of a writer is, and how important it is for us to connect with a community of like-minded people and inspire each other.

The San Francisco Writers Conference is a particularly wonderful one to attend. The location—the historic Mark Hopkins hotel on Nob Hill, with its fabulous views—is gorgeous. There’s a stellar cast of presenters, editors, agents and publicists. They have an excellent track record of past attendees who have gone on to publish successfully. And most of all, the organizers are extremely friendly and helpful and will make you feel right at home. They even arrange networking dinner excursions every night, with affable board member Harvey Pawl as guide, to delicious neighborhood restaurants known only to locals. Here’s a link, if you want to give them a try--but don't delay too much. They are extremely popular and sell out well ahead of time. https://sfwriters.org/

How America Made Me into a Writer

This Independence Day I found myself thinking about my relationship with America, and what I appreciate about living in this country. It struck me that one of the most important changes in my life that came about as a result of my immigration to America is that I became a writer. In India, growing up in a traditional family, I had never considered being a writer. I did not think I had the talent; more importantly, I did not think I had a story to tell. Moving to a very different culture and learning to live on my own made me see the world much more clearly.

In those pre-internet days--we did not even have a T.V. in our home in Kolkata--I knew very little about life in the United States. As a result, when I arrived in America, almost everything was new to me. From shopping in grocery stores as large as warehouses, to seeing a film on a gigantic drive-in movie theater, to the dangerously heady freedom of purchasing items using my very first student charge card, it was all exciting and sometimes bewildering. I appreciated the freedom and anonymity of being in a city where only a handful of people knew who I was. I worked hard at menial, minimum-wage jobs to put myself through college and learned for the first time what dignity of labor meant.  I missed my family and their sheltering arms so much that it was like having a hole in my heart. I thought about India more than I had ever before. I realized what I appreciated about it--the warmth, the closeness of extended family, the way spirituality pervades the culture. But I also recognized problems about how women are often treated, and a rigid class system because of which many doors are closed to all but the most fortunate and most well-connected people.

EARLY DAYS IN CALIFORNIA

All around me I saw other immigrants (not necessarily only Indians) who were undergoing similar experiences of culture-shock, who were carving out new identities for themselves and trying to preserve the most valuable aspects of their home cultures. I saw them trying to bring up children in a new environment where the old parenting rules didn't quite work. I saw how, even as they underwent a transformation, they too were transforming America. I read their stories in the local papers, I overheard their conversations at Indian parties, I imagined the things they didn't say and wove them together with my own feelings and questions, and I fictionalized it all in stories that ultimately became my very first collection, Arranged Marriage, and later, novels such as The Mistress of Spices, Queen of Dreams, and Oleander Girl.

Sometimes I'm asked if I would have become a writer if I hadn't moved to the United States. I don't know the answer to that question. I do know, though, that I couldn't have written the same kinds of stories, hybrids born out of the melding of the Indian and American cultures.