backslashbaby, I wasn't discussing important writers per se. I was discussing the extent to which (a) the screeners of first-pages for this Conference skewed to "Southern literature" and (b) the (apparent) number of local writers who could NOT write about anything else. What sinks in at the point of witnessing proportions like these, several years running, is that the overwhelming culture is: well, overwhelming.
That breaks *my* brain. As a storyteller, I do not understand the point of writing that close to personal experience. I love my home, I find the culture of my family, my region, my magnificent wrought-iron-clad city ineffably beautiful. But, though I can imagine writing about it - I cannot imagine writing about nothing *else*. And the indication of these first-pages sessions was that few people could imagine writing about *anything* else.
For the record, part of my point is that I think that indication is incorrect. Last year, proportions did shift, after about three years of homogeneity. As a writer, attending a conference, some part of the point (for *me*) is to expose myself to different things, different people, writers, and stories. It's hard to do that if the predominant style represented is all one of two things (Civil War South, and contemporary South - not even any early 20th century, native, or Civil Rights South represented). It defeats the purpose in a way, and perhaps distorts the reality of who's even there. I don't find that noble, or necessary to respect. I found it, before the aforementioned changes, alienating and perhaps in a way disrespectful of anything but that narrow view of Southern writer-dom.
