I’ve just arrived back at the hostel after day one of the 26th Annual John Hewitt International Summer School. I know that as a writer, it’s my job to sum up overwhelming experiences in brief, pithy phrases, but I’m having trouble with this one. Perhaps just because the day was just so… so unbelievable. The things that happened to me today do not happen to ordinary people. This is not real life.

I met with eleven other people and a published author and we talked about our favorite historical fiction novels and practiced the process of extracting a story from real-life events without sounding like a newspaper column.

I listened to Baroness Shirley Williams talk about the history of violence throughout the twentieth century. And she would know; she’s been an MP for longer than I can fathom.

I realised that writers’ conferences in Northern Ireland involve breaks for free tea and cookies, and promptly got very excited.

But one episode above all others sums up my experience better than any amount of my rambling ever could. I’ve already told it to the members of the program, but it bears repeating for any international audience I might be drumming up with my disjointed blog posts.

Roundabouts five-thirty today, Terri approached me sitting in the theater and gave me the following phrase that nearly stopped my heart: “We’ve gotten a call from the BBC radio station. They want a student to come and talk about the festival with Tony [one of the festival coordinators] for a few minutes. You’re coming with us.”

Now, I was already skeptical of the quality of my acting, let alone my radio voice, but I decided to go along for the ride. So about forty-five minutes later, we duck out into Tony’s car, and take off at a rip-roaring, breakneck pace through town to the radio station. Which happens, for no discernable reason, to be located in the planetarium. But such is life.

We arrive in the studio, and there’s a radio technician sitting there, one leg crossed over the other, listening to the syndicated news program currently on air with a pair of over-the-head headphones. He gives us a quick wave of welcome and goes back to listening, saying nothing to us about what we’re supposed to be doing. Terri and I share suspicious glances – is this the worst radio tech guy in the entire world? – but we decide to let it slide and listen to the program on. After a news story about the art auction potentially going on in the DIA, the story shifts to a rock band whose new album is marketed as “children’s songs for adults.” A snippet or two is played… And words fail me as to how to describe it. The best I can do is if you melded The Wiggles and The Grateful Dead. I think this quote provided by the artist captures the essence of what we sat through better than anything I could write:

Rock and Roll Animals is a psychedelic story for grown-ups (and children). Jimmy Pursey – is a frisky fox; Nick Lowe – a solid badger and Gene Vincent – a cat who’s seen a bit more of life than most of us. Three furry freaks. Three Rock n Roll animals. The fable of our four-pawed shamen is narrated by the good folk of Magic Town.

Needless to say, the four of us are nearly in a state of hysteria. Still the news goes on, and the tech guy says nothing to us about what we’re supposed to be doing. Terri, finally, decides to broach the subject.

“So, um, what is your job here, exactly?” she asks him.

“Here?” he asks. “Oh, I’m a poet at the festival. I don’t work here.”

Terri and I share a glance. “Really? I thought you worked at the BBC.”

“No,” he says. “I’m reading tonight.”

And then it dawns on me

I just spent the past half hour laughing about psychedelic badgers with Simon Armitage.

Simon Armitage.

The man has won more poetry awards than I even knew existed. He’s one of the top three most famous living contemporary British poets. And I just talked with him about the DIA and badgers.

What is my life?

Currently, my life is the John Hewitt Summer School.

And I’m loving every second of it.

I have no idea how tomorrow could get any better, but for the time being, I’m going to download the full track list of Luke Haines’ “Rock and Roll Animals” and laugh myself to sleep.

PS- if you’d like to listen to the actual radio interview, this link will lead you to it for the next seven days, allegedly. Unfortunately, you can’t seem to fast-forward to the actual interesting part, but this way you get to listen to Rock and Roll Animals as well. So really, it’s a win-win.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037bzhq