What JRW Means to Me
Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, author of Finding Thalhimers, shares how JRW’s annual conference and a meeting with keynote speaker, Tom Robbins, changed her life.
Attending the first JRW annual conference in 2003 changed my life … or at least the life of my book, Finding Thalhimers.
I followed Tom Robbins out of the auditorium after his keynote speech, hoping to connect with the famous author. Surprisingly, only a couple others followed. Sitting with Mr. Robbins in the room across from the auditorium, I asked him, “Did you ever go to Thalhimers when you lived in Richmond?” and he responded, “I almost DIED at Thalhimers” and proceeded to tell a quirky anecdote.
But it wasn’t my encounter with Tom Robbins that changed my life, it was meeting another person who followed him out of the room after his speech: Charlotte Morgan. Charlotte runs the summer writing program at Nimrod Hall, an artists’ and writers’ retreat in Bath County, Va. We chatted, she gave me a signed copy of her book, and — to keep this story short — I ended up attending the writers program at Nimrod for six summers and made substantial progress writing my own book. Charlotte’s afternoon writing critiques in the white rocking chairs of the screened porch at Nimrod Hall mean more to me than meeting Tom Robbins, but JRW is where it all started.
[display_podcast]
Back to What JRW Means to Me index page