Writers and other artists can be seen as eccentric. You know, like Agatha Christie who wrote in the bathtub? Or James Whitcomb Riley, who wrote naked to resist the temptation to walk to the bar? Better yet, Oscar Wilde who was known to walk a lobster down the street on a leash.

Now imagine 10,000 writers all gathered in the same place. That’s where I was last week.

It was the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Baltimore, with more than 10,000 writers, publishers, writing programs, and agents swarming one another. Awesome people-watching!

One day, perched on a top stair overlooking the main lobby, I became transfixed on a young woman’s knee-length hair. I never saw her from the front, only the back. Her dark hair was perfectly straight, with dyed horizontal blond stripes spaced perfectly so that it looked like a........

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