One especially nice aspect of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, for me at least, was the chance to meet not only fellow book lovers but also some with whom I have a publisher in common. Mongrel Empire Press, which brought out my Fighters & Writers, also published Spare Parts by Ken Hada (the event’s organizing force), Oklahomaography by Joey Brown (who read some of her poems immediately after the session in which I read essay excerpts), a biography by Al Turner (who presented parts of an autobiography-in-progress as well as a poem listing boxing among the things he enjoys) and Surface Tension by Patrick Ocampo.
Unfortunately, as inevitably happens at conferences with concurrent panels, I couldn’t take in every reading (I missed both Hada’s and Ocampo’s) or meet every MEP writer (Alan Barecka and Nathan Brown were also in attendance, according to the schedule).
Prior to my stay in Ada and time at East Central University, my association with MEP was my only connection to Oklahoma, where I had not been before. Now I feel like I have stronger ties.
With Ken Hada at the Scissortail Festival, Ada, Oklahoma, April 2, 2011
