The 1976 Santa Barbara Writer Conference was held again at the Miramar, June 18-25 with 140 paid attendees. Cost was $275. That June, there were morning and afternoon workshops every day. The late-night pirate workshops arose to satisfy students who wanted even more time to craft their work. Working on writing was more important to them than sleep.
The conference schedule listed an impressive array of authors and industry experts. Interviews with featured speakers appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press and weekly journals in the surrounding community. Ray Bradbury opened the conference, as he had for the previous 3 years. Workshop leaders included Sid Stebel, Jack Leggett, Niels Mortensen, Kenneth Rexroth, Barnaby Conrad, Jerry Hannah, and Bill Downey.
This was the year Maya Angelou (photo below) addressed SBWC, her deep voice sounding across the Miramar Room in the conference center. Her themes resonated with students of all ages. They hoped to understand how she drew from her own passion and put it into her writing. Ken Millar, the Santa Barbara resident known worldwide as Ross Macdonald, introduced Eudora Welty. She spoke with great depth about the art of fiction. (See scrapbook article below.)
Mary Conrad hosted a cocktail party for the SBWC teaching staff and featured speakers. Guests included Jose Ferrer, Charles and Jean Schulz, the husband-and-wife team of John Dodds and Vivian Vance, literary agent Don Congdon, and Joan Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne. Adding to that mix were the Conrads’ friends from Santa Barbara, Montecito, Los Angeles, and Hollywood. It was little wonder an invite to Mary’s party became the most sought-after ticket of the conference.
Clifton Fadiman, author, editor and American intellectual, closed out the week with his trademark piercing commentary. Fadiman bemoaned the sad state of editors, saying he would’ve never taken a job as an editor without first having a full knowledge of literature and the command of three languages.
It was clear by the end of the 1976 conference that SBWC had found a magical gathering place where the literati and aspiring writers alike could rub shoulders and learn how it’s done.
Quoted and adapted with appreciation to Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook — Words of Wisdom from Thirty Years of Literary Excellence 1973 – 2004.
Maya Angelou at the Miramar at SBWC 1976
Promotional flyer for SBWC 1976
NewsPress Article on Eudora Welty’s talk at SBWC 1976: Photos show Ken Millar (Ross Macdonald) Maggie Millar, Eudora Welty and Chuck Champlin in the background.
