"BREAD LOAF DIARY: The 1977 Writers Conference" by Richard Grayson now available at Amazon Kindle store

Richard Grayson's BREAD LOAF DIARY: The 1977 Writers Conference is now available at Amazon's Kindle Store for 99¢ from its publisher, Art Pants Company.

Here is the promo material for the 41-page $5.99 paperback edition from Superstition Mountain Press:

In 1977, Richard Grayson, an aspiring writer from Brooklyn who had published a few stories in little magazines, got a scholarship to the venerable Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont.

That year's staff included Toni Morrison, who read from her then-forthcoming Song of Solomon; John Irving, who read from his manuscript for the unpublished World According to Garp; John Gardner, celebrated for his philosophical novels and his advocacy of "moral fiction"; the poets Maxine Kumin, William Meredith and Marvin Bell; Geoffrey Wolfe, unveiling his forthcoming Duke of Deception; a young Tim O'Brien; the comic, sardonic novelist Stanley Elkin; the warmly sympathetic Hilma Wolitzer; and others.

Grayson's fellow attendees included a number of writers who would go on to fame, such as Ron Carlson and Leslea Newman, and many who probably published nothing. Somewhere in the middle, Grayson here records his observations and thoughts in the daily diary entries he's been writing for over forty years.

BREAD LOAF DIARY originally appeared online at Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits and was previously collected in Sixteen Attempts to Justify My Existence.

SIXTEEN ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY MY EXISTENCE by Richard Grayson now available at Amazon Kindle store

Richard Grayson's Sixteen Attempts to Justify My Existence is now available at Amazon's Kindle Store for 99¢.

Here is the promo material for the 114-page $6.99 paperback edition from Art Pants Company:

A boy puts Pepto-Bismol tablets in his socks during gym class with a hated teacher. Two college students wear yarmulkes so they can smoke marijuana in public without being arrested. A car thief thoughtfully returns his victim's overdue books to the Brooklyn Public Library. A teenage boy lists 69 reasons men should date his Aunt Aisha. A governor facing re-election is haunted by his dead mother and his habit of eating sand.

In the oddball pieces, fictional or perhaps not, by Richard Grayson, a writer hailed by Publishers Weekly as "a versatile, interesting experimenter," SIXTEEN ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY MY EXISTENCE presents an infinite number of reasons to read the work of an author Library Journal called "a born storyteller and standup talker."

The pieces in Sixteen Attempts to Justify My Existence originally appeared in the magazines Foothill Quarterly, Pikestaff Forum, X: A Journal of the Arts and Harpoon; the webzines 55 Words, Thieves Jargon and Tuesday Shorts; and the blog Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant.

Sunday Afternoon in Gramercy Park: Bread Loaf Scholars Richard Grayson, J. Garrett Glover and Tom Nevins reading at the National Arts Club

Today, Sunday, April 2, 1978, at 3 p.m., the National Arts Club presented a reading by the winners of the 1977 NAC Literary Scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference at Middlebury College, Vermont: J. Garrett Glover, Richard Grayson and Tom Nevins. The reading was followed by an informal reception.