My presentation, on the effect of religion on Hemingway’s marriages in his books, went incredibly well.
I was nervous. I was actually hoping that no one would show up. I was afraid that my ideas would be passé, that someone else would have thought of them and I just wouldn’t have found it.
Turns out, though, that the ideas are just as new as they were when I wrote them er-umper-um years ago.
So… There’s something there. I’m thrilled about that.
Lots of good questions.
I added one throw away sentence, based on what I had heard this week, and one listener really called me on it. I had plenty of people arguing my side, but he had a legitimate issue and certainly I will not add throw away lines to my presentations anymore. I write the presentations for a reason after all.
Several people came up and told me different things they thought were good and one person suggested additional information which might make my argument even stronger.
About 30 people came.
The other presenter on my panel was a Frenchman from Paris who spoke English with a British accent. He had a really great presentation on courtly love in Hemingway… which was an interesting approach and significantly different from mine.