A Tribute to Wyatt Prunty

In May, at an annual Boston gala honoring writers, I was to introduce the novelist Min Jin Lee. Over cocktails beforehand, we chatted with another honoree, the novelist Jennifer Haigh. Within minutes, we realized that we’d all been together before, in the summer of 1999, at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. I was a fellow there that year, while Min and Jennifer were working on their first books. For all three of us, the intense workshops, unforgettable readings and lectures, and the long nights of conversation were transformative. We’re just three of the hundreds of writers in this country inde...