Vicki Law has been a member of RMFW since 2006. She has served as Conference Chair, Western Slope Chair, Education Chair, Publicity Chair, Newsletter Chair, and President.
Pam Chiaro has been a member since 2017 and is currently serving as Western Slope Chair and Treasurer.
Vicki:
When I first proposed western slope programs, the idea brought mixed reactions from the RMFW board. A few people didn’t want to spend money that far from home and were skeptical about attendance.
However, most of the board was willing to give it a try. In 2008, Marne Kirstatter and I organized the first Western Slope meeting. We put the word out in the newspaper, taped up posters at coffee shops, and posted notices on the university bulletin boards. We did a radio interview and attended the meeting of another writing group of mostly independently published authors.
In the beginning, it was difficult to find an affordable, workable venue. The first RMFW gathering was held at a church and was only an organizational meeting. Approximately fifteen people showed up, which we felt good about. Every person who walked in the door wanted to know where the money basket was. Apparently, they were used to paying a few dollars each to cover the venue and donuts. All of them looked a little skeptical when we told them Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers was supporting the group.
We talked about RMFW’s history, mission statement, conference, contest, and membership. At that time, there were six RMFW members living on the west side of the mountains. Marne Kirstatter, Mike Ruchhoeft and I, all of whom were RMFW board members and volunteers, were three of them. Within five years of the first meeting, we had over one hundred sixty members who lived in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.
It was immediately obvious that craft workshops were popular and needed. Our attendees were used to meeting with one another, but most of them had never been to a writing workshop. We brought in RMFW-published authors who would typically come in the night before, have dinner with the workshop organizers, teach the next morning, have lunch with the organizers and attendees and then drive home. RMFW covered the speakers’ lodging and paid them a stipend for other expenses. Each year, the conference chairs would donate unused swag to the western slope. We used that swag as giveaways and door prizes.
Terri Benson, who worked at the local business incubator, attended one of the first meetings and procured a modern, presentation-ready classroom at the incubator. The Business Incubator was RMFW’s west slope home from 2009 to 2022. Terri has since left the incubator and a new manager decided RMFW wasn’t a good fit for their mission. We’ve come full circle. Sharon Mignerey’s workshop will take place in a church.
RMFW presented workshops every other month in Grand Junction until 2020. For the first eight years, they held an extra summer workshop in Montrose. The workshops in both towns pulled attendees from as far west as Moab (a two-hour drive), as far south as Gunnison (a 2 ½ hour drive) and as far east as Glenwood Springs. People would come from out of the area and sometimes spend the night to attend the workshops. There were times only a few people attended, but the average attendance was 25.
Our largest workshop was one January when Shannon Baker rode the train over from the front range to teach. She expected to sit down with a handful of people and talk about writing. The board and front range membership still didn’t realize how successful we’d been with the western slope programs. By the time everyone had settled, after scrambling to find extra chairs, there were fifty-three attendees at Shannon’s workshop.
We also held three Western Slope Education events, which were full-day workshops taught by one speaker. Each speaker was a conference presenter the year before. We also brought in editors and published authors, who met with attendees to critique first pages.
From 2008 to 2016, Vicki Law served as Western Slope Chair. Terri Benson served from 2016 to 2020. Pam Chiaro took over in 2020.
Pam:
The workshops Terri facilitated were essential to my early writing education. The presenters were always stellar. They not only did a good job of teaching craft, they also elevated my enthusiasm for writing and bolstered my confidence.
When Terri asked if someone would take over for her, I volunteered (Vicki promised to help). Almost immediately, COVID hit. Then, as we could finally get started again, we lost our long-time venue.
My job has been more about trying to put it back together than it has been about facilitating events. I think we are rolling again, though. Bernadette Marie taught a great workshop in April. Sharon Mignerey will teach in May. And Kate Jonuska has agreed to come over in July.
Terri is teaching writing at our local community college and promotes our events with her students. Vicki is involved again; she is instructing (and pushing) her older sister, Pam, in all the ways they marketed the group in the beginning. Full circle indeed.