This past weekend the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers hosted their annual Colorado Gold conference. Many of us in Colorado had recently experienced devastating floods, and for awhile I’m sure more than a few of us wondered if the conference would be held. Luckily the conference hotel was fine, the roads into Denver were fine. When we arrived at the conference hotel, people in Red Cross vests and jackets were busily eating at the bar and taking the glass elevators up and down between their rooms and their headquarters on the third floor. When we encountered the volunteers in the elevators and restaurant, many of us thanked them for their efforts. One woman told me she’d been volunteering for fifteen years and she appreciated our appreciation as there were times when people didn’t seem to be thankful for their efforts and they seldom were thanked personally.

How do writers at a conference do our share in helping the towns along the Front Range? One of the visiting literary agents, Hannah Bowman, emailed the organizers of the conference and said she’d be glad to assist in fundraising for the flood recovery by offering a critique to be auctioned. This initial suggestion ballooned to a silent auction of other critiques, books by the authors attending the conference, and other services as well as jars of jam and loaves of homemade goodies.  Overall this spontaneous auction raised four thousand dollars due to the hard work of the volunteers of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and the generous donors. All the monies were donated to the Red Cross. I was the lucky high bidder for the 50 page critique by Hannah Bowman, making me want to doubly thank her for her generous offer to help the state of Colorado.