An excerpt from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary:
By the fifth year of the Santa Barbara Writers conference the cadre of workshop leaders continued to evolve. Gwen Davis (Kingdome Come, The Motherland, and others), Don Freeman (Corduroy, Inspector Peckit, and others), Herb Harker (Dragon Hunter, Goldenrod, and others). Paul Lazarus, former Vice President of Columbia Pictures joined the ranks of Barnaby Conrad, Niels Mortensen, John Leggett, Jerry Hannah, Bill Downey, and Sid Stebel. Jerry Hannah brought in poet Charles Edwards who gained conference fame for a wildly successful poetry workshop at the beach house of Rosabel Cowper.
Perennial speakers now included Charles “Sparky” Schulz, Clifton Fadiman, Ross MacDonald, James Sheldon, Eudora Welty, and Don Congdon in addition to the inimitable Ray Bradbury. William Styron (Lie Down in Darkness, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice, and others) was on hand in 1977 along with Clive Cussler and Barnaby’s friend, William F. Buckley, Jr. (Saving the Queen, Airborne, and others), who Barnaby had met through Buckley's younger brother when they had been friends at Yale.
