Good evening!

I don’t mean to scare the ever-living shit out of everybody, but there’s going to be an announcement in tomorrow’s conference bulletin about a highly dangerous, literary lurker. In recent days, he’s been spotted pressing his face against the window at the Seagull Café in town, fogging the panes with his haikus of horror. The literary lurker’s writing is both literally and figuratively terrifying, according to authorities.

There is some good news. His main offense is breaking down genre. And he lives in a cave not too far from here, so we should see him coming. However, there’s bad news, too. We’ve been informed he uses Kerouac not just as a verb, but as a noun, as in, “there’s a pleasant Kerouac,” which no one ever understands.

The literary lurker may have gotten wind of us from our promotional commemorative conference bookmarks at the Pizza Hut. Maybe he was already in town for the cat show? Ultimately, none of this matters. What matters is he will stop at nothing—I mean nothing—to attend our writers’ conference. Our pens must become our swords. Our laptops, our shields.

At this point, I should probably confess something. I actually do know why he’s coming and his (potential) stalking of our conference is, in fact, entirely my fault. You see, I went to the beach the other day when I should have been overseeing official conference business. All I can say in my defense is that I was presented with the opportunity to pass a reefer pipe around with a few interns, and who would skip such an opportunity? I’ve since come to understand that those same interns should have been registering all of you, which explains all the grumpy faces staring back at me during opening ceremonies. Regardless, on that day the interns and I smoked and curled our toes in the sand. We watched the sun bleed on the horizon. It still gives me chills–because that’s when I saw the literary lurker.

He stood in direct opposition to us, staring over our shoulders at our conference Best Western like it was its own gorgeous sunset. Then, he noticed our lanyards. The interns ran, but I didn’t move. Maybe it was the way he hobbled towards me like a half-drunk crab? Maybe it was the way his fingers stretched out into threads of longing? I gagged when he came within smelling distance. The lurker had an old-world, nostalgic stank about him, like expired, high-end knockwurst. At long last, he spoke. If a beakless crow could croon, this is what it would sound like.

“Workshops, craft talks, public readings, both student and faculty, this is what I crave. I much prefer books to people. Did you know,” he added, “my best friend growing up was Ahab?”

“And?” I asked.

“Then, I discovered a little ditty called The Road. Dystopian cannibals became my jam.” He cackled like a goblin in heat.

“I don’t like the direction this conversation is going,” I said, looking around for help, though there was no one there. Even the sand dunes looked worried. I did my best to distract the lurker with small talk, anything, that is, to remove the spell of his terrifying awkwardness. “Do you know where I can get a good raincoat in town?” I asked. “These Oregon beaches don’t exactly scream thong.”

The literary lurker laughed a laugh that sounded like it was brewed at the bottom of a poison inkwell.  “What you’re going to do for me,” he said, nodding toward my leather briefcase, “is communicate my demands to the Seaside literati. I want acceptance in every genre known to hound and master: fantasy fiction, minimalist fiction, flash fiction, slow fiction, creative nonfiction, uncreative nonfiction. By my barnacles,” he said, raising a fishy finger, “you will appoint me to run a workshop on slam poetry enjambment—from the perspective of the stanza.”

I shook my head. “You ask too much.”

Oh, how I begged and pleaded with him to leave. He only did so after I promised to hold hands with him and recite “Kubla Khan” backwards. What sadistic delights the literary lurker experienced hearing Coleridge’s poetry spoken on the sands of our Wordsworth Writers’ Conference I’ll never know. Beloved faculty and visiting artists, do you now understand the threat we are facing here? Ah lurker! Ah humanity!

On a more positive note, Terry from accounting wanted me to remind everyone to bring their commemorative conference bookmark to the Pizza Hut on Wednesdays between 4–5 p.m. Everyone who presents one will get 15% off on the Monster Sausage Experience. Yum!

Yours,

Dr. William “Baldy” Broadhead, #SWWWC for Seaside William Wordsworth Writers’ Conference