Last week I was at the Catholic Writers Guild conference. I attended only one day of the three-day event. I’m not good at absorbing a lot of stimulation at one time, or at being away from home for very long, and I confess that crowds of any kind at all make me uncomfortable. I’m not anti-social, but I have an abiding need for peace and stillness. I love being with people in numbers of two or three, maybe as many as six or so, but more than that, and I want to go away. It’s not that I’m shy—I just can’t pay attention to more than one or two people at a time. Also, there’s something about being in a situation where I don’t feel free to leave at any moment I choose that makes me feel confined, even trapped. (It’s amazing that I made it through school; my truancy was a real problem. When I’m both trapped and bored, it actually causes me physical pain.)

So I was there for one day (and that much is an achievement for me). Attendees were both male and female, though there were a good many more women than men, mostly thirty to fifty years old, though some younger, and one or two who looked almost as old as I am. And I’d like to say a thing or two about them all. I had a drink with Peter Mongeau, publisher of Tuscany Press, who called them “heroes for a wasteland.” Verily.

Most of them are mothers; many are mothers of teenagers. They’re on the frontlines of mass media bombardment, and they have a personal, compelling reason to do whatever it takes to defend the faith: their children. They want their children reading good stuff, and it’s so hard to come by in today’s marketplace. They read each other’s books, buy each other’s books, attend events like this one, and go back home inspired by the discussions and the workshops, with new resolve to write more and write better than before. They’re not trying to become author-celebrities of some kind, though anyone whose book has sold more than a few hundred copies becomes an author-celebrity to them. That’s not what they’re after for themselves, though. What they’re after is something much more concrete and far less ephemeral than “success”; they’re after ammunition. There’s a battle going on where they live, and they intend to maintain state-of-the-art weaponry. I sat in the audience where a Q & A session was going on, looked around me, and thought: This is the infantry.

It was enough to make me overcome my social limitations just to be around them. I had two roommates, Erin and Barbara, whom I left feeling as though I was leaving my own sisters behind. I wonder how they’re doing. Of course, they each gave me a copy of their books and made me promise to let them know I got home safely. I miss them. And, Lord willing, I hope to see them at next year’s conference. Having been to one now, I don’t ever want to miss another. The best thing about the Catholic Writers Guild conference is the people who attend.