Good morning writers.
Welcome to South Florida’s Writer Association’s Mango Writers Conference (A Maggie Eubanks Production). I’m Mort Laitner, president of SFWA. I’m proud to say this year marks our 35th anniversary and our 14th Mango Conference.
We hope you’ll enjoy your day with our esteemed speakers, guests and members.
Jeffery Dorn, our Director of Contests, advised me that at this year’s conference, we have an extraordinary raffle prize. It’s a piece of writing history. A piece of the Beat Generation. It’s a Jack Kerouac’s bathrobe.
Jeffrey donated the bathrobe to us and said, “Years ago, I worked with a gentleman at Xerox who was named Kerouac. He said Jack was his uncle. I told him how much I liked his uncle’s books, On The Road and the Dharma Bums. He told me the family had given much of Jack’s iconic clothing to Christie’s for an auction, but kept some articles for sentimental reasons. Christie’s didn’t want this bathrobe, and I don’t have a letter or certificate giving it’s provenance, just his word. He was leaving the country and said, “I could have it as a friend. Perhaps it will inspire you when you write,” he suggested. I wore it when I wrote my book, so who knows. Now it’s time for it to find a new writer to inspire. Maybe the story isn’t true, but maybe it is, who knows?”
Jack Kerouac was a novelist, a poet and a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Jack’s bathrobe belongs in a museum. And you now have a chance to own it, if you buy a raffle ticket.
I first read Kerouac’s “On the Road”(1957) way back in 1969 as a junior at the University of Miami. Here’s a quote from Jack’s book:
…and I shambled after as usual as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
We writers are people of interest, mad to write, to live and to talk.
So make Jack proud today. Get on the road. Hang out with some people that interest you. Buy a raffle ticket, burn like a roman candle, pop and make everybody go “Awww.!
Have a great day.
Thanks for attending.
Have fun.
PS—I now own Kerouac’s bathrobe. I won it at the raffle. When my numbers matched the ticket pulled out of the bowl, my heart burned like a roman candle, popped and said, “Awww.”