15,000 writers gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center last weekend, sporting their quirky outfits and thick glasses and carrying canvas tote bags for the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference. Every one of them had a story to tell, and all their voices begged to be heard. With all the information, noise, and networking (actually, to be honest, among all these Enneagram 4s, there was little networking going on), it took me a while to process ev