Afterword: Nine Summers at the Bennington Writing Workshops

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a quiet corner of southwestern Vermont became a summer gathering place for the literary world. Here is a personal record of that place and time—a vivid account that brings to life a vanished era of letters.

Under the direction of novelists Nicholas Delbanco and John Gardner, the Bennington Writing Workshops set out to create a gathering of master practitioners in the work of words with students as apprentices. In the workshops, the next generation of writers could learn from masters of their craft. This is an homage to that system—and of the electric, often eccentric, energy found in a community of authors.

With wit, candor, and elegance, Delbanco’s memories bring his colleagues back for one final session.

Annie Dillard teaching the Heimlich maneuver before a reading. John Gardner and Donald Barthelme nearly coming to blows in a kitchen at dawn. Hilma Wolitzer bringing along her now-famous writer-child, Meg. A dinner for Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates, and twenty-six others. Frederick Busch waging an epic battle to have his garbage collected. Bernard Malamud and Norman Lear at a communal poker game. The chaos of fielding endless phone calls for John Irving just as The World According to Garp was exploding. Delbanco brings to life the fierce rivalries, quiet moments, loud fun, and deep camaraderie of the era.

Afterword is an essential act of retrieval for anyone who believes that writing is not just a solitary act, but a shared enterprise. Its author is himself a model of the system he describes.