The old writer at the Daniel Boone Hotel

I forget his name but he made a lasting impression on me. I was staying at the hotel because my first one act play had been one of three winners in the Tennessee Williams competition. I was flown to Columbia and treated like a big shot, a reason why I changed my MFA studies from fiction to drama.

Staying/living in the hotel was a retired writer of regional reputation. He came down each day into the bar for happy hour, where a group of young writers, from several to a dozen, was waiting to rap and drink with him. This, I decided on the spot, is my model for a writerly retirement.

I'm left with this instead. Hopefully I can capture a little flavor of the other.