Yesterday I attended a conference on nature writing at the University of North Texas. There were presentations by several well-known writers, and a workshop.

Although Denton is 100 miles from my home, I elected to commute rather than spend time in a motel. I knew I would miss the opening remarks at 8:30, but unfortunately traffic was delayed by an accident on the road and by the time I got parked and registered the first lecture was almost over. So I missed Gary Clark, who writes the column Nature for the Houston Chronicle. Too bad, because I have sometimes thought I might like to write a newspaper column myself, and I would have liked to have heard what he said. A column also seems most like a blog than any other type of writing.

When Susan Hanson was introduced, I realized that she was a co-editor along with Susan Wittig Albert, of the book of short stories I had purchased last weekend which was now sitting on my bedside table. Such a coincidence. Susan read to us from an unpublished story…